Hwa Chung “H.C.” Torng, M.S. ’58, Ph.D. ’60, professor emeritus {of electrical} and pc engineering, who invented a mechanism that helped advance high-speed pc processing, died March 31 on the John Muir Medical Middle in Walnut Creek, California. He was 90.
After incomes a bachelor’s diploma from Nationwide Taiwan College (1955), Torng got here to Cornell the place he earned grasp’s and doctoral levels in electrical engineering earlier than becoming a member of the school in 1960.
Fashionable programs taught by Torng included Pc Networks and Telecommunications in addition to Processor Group. He was a beloved educator who earned the Tau Beta Pi Commendations for Excellence in Instructing, was named the IEEE Cornell Scholar Chapter Finest Professor 3 times and was a two-time recipient of the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Instructing.
Torng was a prolific researcher, publishing papers within the areas of pc structure, community design and telecommunications. He spent sabbaticals on the famend Bell Laboratories and served as a advisor to plenty of industrial organizations, together with IBM. In 1977, he was named the primary Intel Educational Analysis Fellow “for his contributions to the cutting-edge in high-speed instruction decoding and execution.” He would later turn into an IEEE Fellow and obtain the Golden Core Member Award and the Meritorious Service Award from the group.
In 1982, Torng invented a mechanism that permits pc microprocessors to operate considerably sooner by executing a number of directions concurrently and out of program order, as an alternative of separately. The “Instruction Issuing Mechanism for Processors with A number of Practical Models” was patented by Torng via Cornell and was at one time the seventh most-cited pc {hardware} patent in america. This pioneering work has had an enduring impression in each academia and business.
With proceeds from the patent, Torng and his spouse, Bung Fung Lee, established a number of scholarships and based the Torng Lee Charitable Fund, each of that are devoted to creating wider entry to schooling. Torng’s struggles with funding his personal tutorial pursuits earlier in his life gave him a deep and private appreciation for the impression scholarships can have, in line with his household.
At Cornell the couple endowed the Torng Lee Scholarship, which was conceived in September 2001 to offer needs-based entry to undergraduate packages at Cornell, and which supplies precedence to households of New York Metropolis first responders who served through the 9/11 assaults. To at the present time, the Torng Lee Scholarship has helped almost 50 college students attend Cornell and continues to help a number of college students yearly.
Additionally at Cornell, the couple endowed the Bung Fung Lee Torng Graduate Scholar Award, awarded yearly to a graduate scholar in arithmetic for excellent work as a instructor; and the Stephen Chase Graduate Skilled Growth Fund, named in honor of Professor Emeritus Stephen Chase, which helps graduate college students in arithmetic in pursuing skilled improvement alternatives.
Torng served as Cornell’s electrical engineering graduate area consultant from 1990 to 1993 and launched revolutionary recruiting and admission insurance policies. Following that time period, he acquired a grant from the Nationwide Science Basis, with matching funds from the provost, to provoke a doctoral program for college students that included underrepresented minority teams.
Torng retired from Cornell in 1999 and moved to Walnut Creek, the place he and Lee managed their charitable efforts with the help of family and friends.
Torng is survived by his spouse; his sons, Cliff and Eric; their wives, Annette and Patricia; and three grandchildren, Zachary, Khulan and Annika.
Syl Kacapyr is affiliate director of promoting and communications for Cornell Engineering.
