Suhas S. Patil (born 1944) is an
Indian-American
Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...
entrepreneur, academic, and
venture capitalist
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
. He founded
Cirrus Logic, a
fabless
Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...
semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...
company. Patil's work has covered
computer architecture
In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, the ...
,
parallel processing computers,
very-large-scale integration devices, and
integrated circuit design
Integrated circuit design, or IC design, is a sub-field of electronics engineering, encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design integrated circuits, or ICs. ICs consist of miniaturized electronic compon ...
automation software. He also serves on the boards of
The Tech Museum and the
World Affairs Council of Northern California. He is known for describing the "
cigarette smokers problem
The cigarette smokers problem is a concurrency problem in computer science, originally described in 1971 by Suhas Patil. The problem has been criticized for having "restrictions which cannot be justified by practical considerations."
Problem de ...
" for
concurrent computing in 1971.
Early life and education
Patil grew up in
Jamshedpur, India. His father was the first person in the family to go to a university and get an engineering degree and worked at
Tata Steel
Tata Steel Limited is an Indian multinational steel-making company, based in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand and headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a part of the Tata Group.
Formerly known as Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (TISCO), Tata S ...
while Patil was growing up.
Patil went to study intermediate science at
St. Xavier's College, Kolkata
St. Xavier's College is a private, Catholic, autonomous higher education college under Calcutta University run by the Calcutta Province of the Society of Jesus in Kolkata, India. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1860 and named after St. F ...
and then to the
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) is a public institute of technology established by the Government of India in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. Established in 1951, the institute is the first of the IITs to be established ...
for his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.
He attended the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
for his masters and doctorate degrees, graduating in 1967 and 1970 respectively.
Career
From 1970 until 1975, Patil was assistant professor of electrical engineering at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
. While at MIT, he also served as assistant director of
Project MAC
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...
(Multi-Access Computer), the largest computer science laboratory in the U.S, where the timesharing computer system was developed. At MIT, he worked in the area of computer architecture and related topics. As a gift to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Patil awarded $1.5 million for the construction of the Suhas and Jayashree Patil Conference Center at the
Stata Center. From 1977 to 1981, he was a member of the faculty at the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...
School of Computing.
Patil founded Patil Systems, Inc., in 1981 in
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...
, which was renamed as
Cirrus Logic in 1984 when it moved to Silicon Valley. He has been the Chairman of Cirrus Logic since its founding and
Emeritus since 1997. He is currently the Chairman of Digité, Inc. and Chairman of the Board of Cradle Technologies. Patil co-founded a global not for profit organization, the
TiE – The Ind-US Entrepreneurs in 1992 with successful entrepreneurs and businessowners of
Indian origin in Silicon Valley to mentor entrepreneurs and young companies. He served as TiE's first president.
Personal life
Patil's son is
DJ Patil
Dhanurjay "DJ" Patil (born August 3, 1974) is an American mathematician and computer scientist who served as the Chief Data Scientist of the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2015 to 2017. He is the Head of Technology f ...
, who was the first Chief Data Scientist of the
United States Office of Science and Technology Policy.
See also
*
Cigarette smokers problem
The cigarette smokers problem is a concurrency problem in computer science, originally described in 1971 by Suhas Patil. The problem has been criticized for having "restrictions which cannot be justified by practical considerations."
Problem de ...
References
External links
Biography in IIT Kharagpur Alumni Directory
{{DEFAULTSORT:Patil, Suhas
Living people
American people of Indian descent
American businesspeople
Indian emigrants to the United States
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
1944 births
Businesspeople from Jharkhand
University of Utah faculty
IIT Kharagpur alumni
MIT School of Engineering faculty
American electrical engineers
Indian electrical engineers
Marathi people