David Andrew Patterson (born November 16, 1947) is an American computer pioneer and academic who has held the position of Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley since 1976. He announced retirement in 2016 after serving nearly forty years and became a distinguished engineer at Google.[3][4] He currently is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the RISC-V Foundation,[5] and the Pardee Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus at UC Berkeley.
Patterson is noted for his pioneering contributions to RISC processor design, having coined the term RISC, and by leading the Berkeley RISC project.[6]As of 2018, 99% of all new chips use the RISC architecture.[7][8] He is also noted for leading the research on RAID storage together with Randy Katz.[9]
His books on computer architecture (co-authored with John L. Hennessy) are widely used in computer science education. Along with Hennessy, Patterson won the 2017 Turing Award for their work in developing RISC.