James E. Smith (engineer)

James E. Smith ( * 1950 ) is an American computer engineer.

Smith studied electrical engineering at the University of Illinois with a bachelor 's degree in 1972, her Master's degree in 1974 and his doctorate in 1976. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin -Madison, except for longer times in the industry ( Cray Research ) from 1979 to 1981 from 1984 until 1989.

He is known for a number of innovations in the microarchitecture of advanced processors, such as branch prediction (Branch Prediction) and Reorder Buffer, allow out-of- order execution.

More recently, he deals with co-designed virtual machines, computer architectures with concurrent development of system-related software and hardware.

In 1999 he received the Eckert - Mauchly Award.