The Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Consortium announced that Phil Moorby, the inventor of the Verilog hardware design language (HDL) and author of the first Verilog simulator, has been selected as this year’s recipient of the EDA industry’s prestigious Phil Kaufman Award. The Consortium will present the Award on Tuesday, November 1, at its 12th annual Award dinner and ceremony in Santa Clara, California.

Phil Moorby received his Masters in computer science from Manchester University, England in 1974. Before 1983 he was part of the development of the HILO HDL and simulators. In 1984 he invented the Verilog HDL, and developed the industry standard simulator Verilog-XL, and became a Cadence Fellow in 1990. In 1999 he joined Co-Design Automation where the Superlog HDL was developed that became the basis of the SystemVerilog effort. In 2002 he became a Synopsys Scientist and is currently working on several aspects of the new SystemVerilog verification language and its implementation into the VCS suite of products.

The Phil Kaufman Award was established by the EDA Consortium in honor of EDA industry pioneer Phil Kaufman, who turned innovative technologies like silicon compilation and emulation into businesses that have greatly benefited electronic designers. It has been presented annually since 1994.