DADDA LUIGI
In Memoriam
Distinguished professor
Luigi Dadda was born in Lodi in 1923, in a family of farmers; his passion for science-oriented studies (today we would say “STEM”!) led him to enter Engineering studies at Politecnico di Milano, shortly after the beginning of World War II; he recalled how, after the historical Milan bookstore for science books (Hoepli) was bombed, he made a bicycle run of 50 km. in order to reach the bookstore’s warehouse and buy his textbooks... actually receiving them as a gift by the astonished salesmen!
In 1947 he achieved his Dr.Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering and became an Assistant Professor in the then Istituto di Elettrotecnica Generale del Politecnico; his initial research activity on electro-magnetism involved the use of analog computation tools for solving systems of differential equations, as at the time no digital computer was available in Italy. Dadda became particularly interested in the leading-edge area of digital computers, getting in touch with many foreign research centers, in particular in the U.S.; thus, the rector of Politecnico (Gino Cassinis), who in 1952 had requested Marshall Plan funding for acquiring a digital computer, in 1954 sent Dadda to the Los Angeles plants of Computer Research Corporation (the manufacturers of the chosen machine) to participate in design and manufacturing of the CRC 102-a computer (today kept as a museum piece on the ground floor of DEIB, at Politecnico di Milano).
Work on the computer started the research line that would mark Dadda’s activities to the end of his life as well as computer-centered collaboration between Politecnico and private companies. The Marshall Plan funding implied the commitment to make both the machine and the related competences to Italian companies. The Computer Center of Politecnico had thus the double mission of providing the “inside” world with research and didactical support and the “outside” world with computing services and expert support. The first institutional course on “electronic computers” was created by the Faculty of engineering in 1955 (Dadda being in charge of it).
CRC-102a proved soon no to be up to the users’ request: in particular, it lacked a floating-point arithmetic unit, which was designed by Dadda, (together with Emanuele Biondi), thus actually doubling the processor’s computing power. This first experience launched Dadda’s life-long passionate research in the area of computer arithmetic; his best-known results are in this area, dealing with units optimized for performances and cost. The parallel binary multiplier scheme still denoted as “Dadda Multiplier” has been recognized by IEEE to be a “Milestone” (a honor reserved for very few results of research in the areas of Electrical and Electronic Engineering). The 1989 edition of the IEEE Workshop on Computer Arithmetic was named after Dadda (as was, after his death, the 2013 edition).
Dadda’s attack on a new research problem deserves a few words. After examining the existing solutions, his approach was not to look for incremental improvements but rather to re-examine the original formulation of the problem and look for a radical, “from scratch” solution. This was, for example, his approach to design of the digital signal processing section for the CERN FERMI Project, one of the projects developed in the LCH context. In the same way he later dealt with finite-field arithmetic units for cryptography-dedicated circuits.
Capable of perceiving the potential of innovative technologies and of their applications, he oriented his collaborators to research areas that proved to be fundamental both in the academic world and in the industrial context, be it software engineering or microarchitecturesm data bases or computer networks. Even when dealing with these actions, he was never the “academic baron” imposing choices or activities: rather, he gave amicable suggestions and then left wide autonomy to the younger set. All his former students remember him with affection as well as with respect,n exceptionally human and kind person.
His teaching activity went on a par with his research one, with a strong commitment towards creation of professional profiles adequate to the challenges of a dynamic technology, starting from the creation of a degree in Electronic Engineering in the late ‘50s to the development of a local government of the City of Milan curriculum in Computer Engineering decades later. He was a member of many national and international committees (for the Italian Government as well as within OCDE and the European Community). From 1972 to 1984 he was Rector of Politecnico di Milano; afterwards, he was for a short time involved with the local government of the city of Milan (from 1985 to 1987), but he soon preferred to become again fully active in the academic environment.