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Supported by:
Memories of Professor Edward J. McCluskey
Prof. Edward J. McCluskey was a giant who shaped the design and testing of digital systems for over half a century. He sustained a relentless pace of fundamental contributions for efficient and robust design, high-quality testing, and reliable operation of digital systems. He was also a pioneer in establishing and fostering computer engineering as a profession.
Many consider him as the father of modern digital design. Many of his contributions to logic design, testing and fault-tolerant computing are classics: the Quine-McCluskey logic minimization procedure (which marked the beginning of Electronic Design Automation), hazards in logic circuits and fundamental-mode sequential circuits, algebraic fault properties, Murphy and ELF experiments establishing test metrics (rather than fault models) as key to high-quality testing, Very Low Voltage testing, and many key concepts in fault-tolerant computing that are even more essential for safety in future applications such as self-driving cars.
Prof. McCluskey was one of the world's leading educators. His textbooks on logic design defined the discipline. Computer Engineering and the IEEE Computer Society owe their current status to Ed in a major way. He was first president of the IEEE Computer Society. At Stanford, he founded the Digital Systems Lab (renamed Computer Systems Lab) that uniquely cultivated collaboration between EE and CS. In addition to shaping the development of digital systems, he was a great educator, producing an incredible group of 75 PhD graduates, many of whom have gone on to become industry leaders. He founded the Center for Reliable Computing (CRC) at Stanford. CRC played a major role in advancing the fields of computer reliability and testing from ad hoc pursuits to frontline academic and industrial research.
Ed received numerous awards and honors including the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award "for pioneering and fundamental contributions to design automation and fault tolerant computing," the IEEE John von Neumann Medal for "fundamental contributions that shaped the design and testing of digital systems," and the IEEE Computer Society’s Computer Pioneer Award “for seminal contributions to the design and synthesis of digital systems over five decades, including the first algorithm for logic synthesis (the Quine-McCluskey method).”