Frank Soltis

Frank Soltis 2008

Frank Gerald Soltis (born 1940), an American computer scientist, was IBM's Chief Scientist for the System i computers. Based on his PhD research, his pioneering architecture of technology-independent machine interfaces (TIMI) and single-level stores has appeared in these eight generations of IBM hardware: System/38 in 1978, the CISC AS/400 in 1988, the RISC AS/400 in 1995, the web server AS/400e in 1999 (supporting HTTP and TCP/IP), the eServer iSeries, the System i5, the System i, and IBM Power Systems running IBM i (April, 2008).

Career

In 1968, Soltis completed his PhD in electrical engineering from Iowa State University.[1] His PhD dissertation was titled "Automatic Allocation of Digital Computer Storage Resources for Time-sharing".[2]

In November 1968, he took a position with IBM in Rochester, Minnesota. Soltis led the design of the "Amazon" instruction set architecture, an extended version of the 64-bit PowerPC architecture; the Amazon architecture is implemented by the RS64, POWER4, and POWER5 processors used in the IBM iSeries and pSeries computers.

As of 2008, in addition to his IBM responsibilities, Soltis serves as an adjunct professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Minnesota where he teaches graduate courses on high performance computer design.[3][4]

Soltis retired from IBM on December 31, 2008.[5]

In February 2009, Vision Solutions, a high availability and disaster recovery solutions provider in IBM Power Systems markets, announced that Soltis had joined their Technology Advisory Board (TAB). Soltis will share his experience and insight as he helps guide product strategies.[6]

Soltis' By Design column appears in iPro Developer magazine.[7] His books include Inside the AS/400 and Fortress Rochester, The Inside Story of the IBM iSeries.

Books

References

  1. "Department of Computer Science - Alumni Database". Iowa State University. Retrieved 2008-07-01.
  2. Soltis, Frank Gerald (1968). "Automatic Allocation of Digital Computer Storage Resources for Time-sharing". Iowa State University. Retrieved 2009-01-24.
  3. "The AS/400's Grandfather Talks Past, Present, and Future". ITJungle Volume 17, Number 25 -- June 23, 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-23.
  4. "Graduate School Catalog - Electrical Engineering". University of Minnesota. Retrieved 2008-06-30.
  5. "Frank Soltis Calls It Quits". iprodeveloper.com. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
  6. "Vision Solutions Names Dr. Frank Soltis to Advisory Board" (PDF). VisionSolutions.com. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
  7. "By Design". iPro Developer. Retrieved 2008-04-15.