Vojin G. Oklobdzija

Vojin G. Oklobdzija (Cyrillic: Војин Г. Оклобџија) is a computer and electronics engineer, scientist, author, and academic. He is professor emeritus of the University of California, Life Fellow of IEEE and past President of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society.

Education Oklobdzija obtained his Dipl. Ing. in electronics and telecommunications from the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1971, and subsequently worked as a research physicist in plasma physics pursuing his graduate degree. He became a Faculty Member in the Electrical Engineering Department there in 1974 serving until 1976. Later, he earned his MSc in 1978 and PhD in Computer Science in 1982 from the University of California Los Angeles. While pursuing his doctorate, he worked at the Microelectronics Division of Xerox Corporation until 1982, where he was involved in chip development for the early Alto workstation. He holds the highest USA Ham-Radio category, Extra, and call sign WF1A.

Career From 1982 to 1991 Oklobdzija was a research staff member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he contributed to the development of RISC processors, super-scalar, and supercomputer designs. He obtained several patents on early RISC machine organization, including one on register-renaming, which he co-holds with John Cocke and Greg Grohoski. This patent described a key feature of the IBM RS/6000.

In 1988 Oklobdzija started his academic career as a Visiting Faculty Member at the University of California, Berkeley, transitioning from his role at IBM. He later served as a Chair Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Sydney University in Australia. Receiving Fulbright Professorships twice, in Peru in 1990 and Argentina in 2012, he helped establish internet connectivity in Peru in 1991 and developed academic courses in Computer Engineering. He has provided expert witness services, testifying at the International Trade Commission Court and in civil court.

At Siemens, which later became Infineon, he served as a Principal Architect and patent holder for the Infineon TriCore processor, an automotive control processor used in vehicles. He also contributed to the original conceptual development of the PlayStation at Sony.

Research Oklobdzija's work focuses on VLSI chip engineering: low-power digital circuits optimizing the energy-speed relationship, machine learning, computer arithmetic, media signal processing, and system architecture; he has obtained 25 U.S. patents throughout his career.

Personal life His son is social scientist Stan N. Oklobdzija.

Awards and honors 1971–1973 – National Science Fellowship on Plasma Physics, National Science Foundation 1976 – Fulbright Scholarship to USA, Fulbright Program 1985 – Patent Award, IBM 1985 – Invention Plateau Award, IBM 1991 – Fulbright Professorship to Peru, Fulbright Program 2002 – Outstanding Academic Title for The Computer Engineering Handbook, Choice Magazine 2012 – Fulbright Professorship to Argentina, Fulbright Program 2014 – Life Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers