# Bob Colwell

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**Robert P.** "**Bob**" **Colwell** (born 1954) is an electrical engineer who worked at [Intel](/source/Intel) and later served as Director of the [Microsystems Technology Office](/source/Microsystems_Technology_Office) (MTO) at [DARPA](/source/DARPA). He was the chief [IA-32](/source/IA-32) architect on the [Pentium Pro](/source/Pentium_Pro), [Pentium II](/source/Pentium_II), [Pentium III](/source/Pentium_III), and [Pentium 4](/source/Pentium_4) microprocessors. Bob retired from Intel in 2000. He was an Intel Fellow from 1995 to 2000.

## Early life and education

Colwell grew up in a small blue collar town in [Pennsylvania](/source/Pennsylvania) and was born into a family of six children. His father was a milkman for 35 years. He attended the [University of Pittsburgh](/source/University_of_Pittsburgh) and gained an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering. He later attended [Carnegie Mellon University](/source/Carnegie_Mellon_University) to get a PhD in Electrical Engineering.

## Career

Colwell worked at a company called [Multiflow](/source/Multiflow) in the late 1980s as a design engineer.

In 1990 he joined Intel as a senior architect and was involved in the development of the [P6 "core"](/source/P6_(microarchitecture)). The P6 core was used in the Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and Pentium III microprocessors, and designs derived from it are used in the [Pentium M](/source/Pentium_M), [Core Duo and Core Solo](/source/Yonah_(microprocessor)), and [Core 2](/source/Core_2) microprocessors sold by Intel.

## Memberships and awards

Colwell earned the [ACM](/source/Association_for_Computing_Machinery) Eckert-Mauchly Award in 2005, and wrote the "At Random" column for *[Computer](/source/Computer_(magazine))*, a journal published by the [IEEE Computer Society](/source/IEEE_Computer_Society).

## Publications

Colwell is the author of several papers in addition to the book *The Pentium Chronicles: The People, Passion, and Politics Behind Intel's Landmark Chips*, ISBN 0-471-73617-1. Colwell has spoken at universities on the challenges in chip design and management principles needed to tackle them.

## Personal life

Colwell met his wife in college and he married in 1979. He has three children.

## External links

- [List of publications](http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/c/Colwell:Robert_P=.html)
- [Internet stream of Stanford Talk, February 18, 2004 (ASF)](https://web.archive.org/web/20130116184753/http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/040218-ee380-100.asx)
- [Article at the University of Pittsburgh](https://web.archive.org/web/20090308093112/http://www.pittmag.pitt.edu/sept2001/chips.html) March 8, 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- [Bob Colwell's talk at GCC](https://web.archive.org/web/20110716155155/http://www2.gcc.edu/media/events/2009/040109Hopeman.asx)
- [Bio page at DARPA MTO](https://web.archive.org/web/20120604021009/http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/MTO/Personnel/Dr_Robert_Colwell.aspx)

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