Chris Lattner is an American software developer, best known as the primary author of the Low Level Virtual Machine project and related projects, such as the clang compiler. He currently works at Apple Inc. as the Director of Low Level Tools and chief architect of the Compiler Group [1]
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Lattner studied Computer Science at the University of Portland, Oregon, graduating in 2000. While in Oregon, he worked as an operating systems developer, enhancing Sequent Computer Systems's DYNIX/ptx.[2]
In late 2000, Lattner joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a research assistant and M.Sc. student. While working with Vikram Adve, he designed and began the implementation of LLVM, an innovative infrastructure for optimizing compilers, which was the subject of his 2002 MSc thesis. He completed a PhD in 2005, researching new techniques for optimizing pointer-intensive programs and adding them to LLVM. In 2005, Apple Inc. hired Lattner to work with a newly-formed team of LLVM developers.
Lattner's recent work involves designing, implementing, and evangelizing the LLVM and Clang compilers, as well as a new set of assemblers and disassemblers. This work may eventually replace the GCC compiler suite on a broad variety of systems. It is already used in Apple systems.
In June 2010, the ACM's Special Interest Group on programming languages (SIGPLAN) gave Lattner its inaugural Programming Languages Software Award "for his design and development of the Low Level Virtual Machine", noting that Professor Adve has stated that "Lattner’s talent as a compiler architect, together with his programming skills, technical vision, and leadership ability were crucial to the success of LLVM."[1]
Chris contributed a chapter to the "Architecture of Open Source Applications" book: AOSA LLVM Chapter