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John Crawford
Intel's processor pioneer strikes gold again
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JOHN CRAWFORD always had a hunch he would work
on the cutting edge of technology. But the path that
led him to the position of lead engineer for Intel's
next generation 64-bit Itanium processor took its
share of unexpected turns along the way.
Given hands-on exposure to early IBM PCs in high
school, Crawford immediately began to grasp the
complex architectures that make computer systems
work. But back then, software development, not
hardware development, took center stage as
Crawford's foremost ambition.
"Software was a passion that woke up [within] me
back in college, at Brown University. Through college
and grad school I was a software engineer,"
Crawford says. "I guess I was really focused on
software development and viewed that as my future in life. But I was always
fascinated by computer organization and the architecture of computers."
After receiving his master's degree in computer science from the University of
North Carolina, Crawford went directly to Intel where his first duties were as a
software engineer in Intel's development tools operation from 1977 to 1982.
He developed a range of software tools for Intel's 8086 chips. In 1982,
Crawford's thorough knowledge of the 8086 processor set the stage for a
dramatic change in his career path within Intel. The company was preparing
its technology and manufacturing group to take on a new chip project, the
Intel 386 processor, and Crawford was assigned the role of chief architect for
the Intel 386. Crawford's success as an engineering leader in charge of a
hardware project surprised even himself.
"I had no expectations at all of being a computer architect given that I had
no background in electrical engineering or computer design. I'd earned my
living for five years writing software for Intel," Crawford says.
In 1992, he began work on what would become Intel's first 64-bit processor,
Itanium, a task that would present a new set of challenges.
"I had just come off a mad race of getting three chips in succession out the
door: the 386, 486, and the Pentium processors," Crawford recalls. "But that
gave us some excellent preparation for defining what we wanted to do for the
next generation [Itanium]."
As a project manager for Itanium, organizing and coordinating the sheer
number of engineers involved in the project wasn't the only hurdle Crawford
faced.
"Another challenge was a brand-new instruction set [for Itanium] -- one with
many new concepts that really had not been done in a commercial product
before," Crawford recalls. "That was our biggest technical challenge. We really
didn't have a lot of precedent, so it was very challenging. Without a vast
portfolio of the best-known methods on this we were really, in many areas,
pioneering."
With Itanium's second-generation chip, McKinley -- prepared to launch in
mid-2002 -- Crawford, recently elected to the National Academy of
Engineering, can look back on his work with Itanium with the same pride that
he and his team carried with them from the outset.
"We knew from day one that we were working on something big," Crawford
says. "Right off the bat we were on to something that was certainly going to
be exciting and newsworthy. We knew it was an opportunity to participate in
a piece of work that would have quite a long lifetime."
John Crawford - Intel's processor pioneer strikes gold again
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Andy Mendelsohn - Breaking new ground is old hat for Oracle's long-time visionary database developer
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Larry Page and Sergey Brin - The Internet's most famous pair of Ph.D.s are still striving to make data more accessible
Clifford Neuman - For Kerberos co-author, security hasn't lost its allure
Ray Ozzie - Notes inventor envisions peer-to-peer technology supplanting e-mail
Vivek Ranadivé - Real-time computing pioneer is taking his message to the enterprise masses
Dave Winer - SOAP co-author strives for simplicity and drives decentralization
Mark Lucovsky - The brains behind HailStorm sees Web services as a hub for simplifying busy lives
Back to 2002 Technology Innovators
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Profile |
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| John Crawford - Intel's Itanium pioneer is looking forward to the next chip generation, McKinley. |
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Age - 49 |
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Current position - Intel fellow, enterprise platforms group |
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Technology prediction - "Moore's Law will continue to march on." |
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Related Links |
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Hall of fame 2002 - Several industry icons join InfoWorld's Innovators Hall of Fame |
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Ones to Watch 2002 - These up-and-comers are developing the technologies that will matter most in the coming months |
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Where are they now? - Since the 2000 Ones to Watch were named, many dot-coms imploded and the economy
soured. How have these technological talents fared? |
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