The pioneering and innovative accomplishments achieved by Frede Blaabjerg over the past 30 years in applying power electronics technology for efficient control and conversion of electric power are playing a key role in reliably connecting renewable energy sources to the power grid, thus helping to create a more sustainable society. The power converters he developed for wind turbine systems have addressed the challenges of scaling up from megawatts to multimegawatts. He also developed new topologies and interfacing techniques for photovoltaic (PV) systems that include both module-integrated inverters and string inverters. His grid-interfacing techniques for renewable energy systems such as synchronization, smart monitoring, and design and control of LCL filters have been implemented around the world. He has also proposed a power electronics-based active damper device to detect resonances in the grid and that can damp the oscillations at a specific frequency. This technology has provided more reliability in PV systems, wind farms, and transmission and distribution systems. His innovations involving adjustable speed drives include techniques for reducing noise in heating and cooling systems, and he has helped lower the cost of industrial drives by reducing the sensors needed while still maintaining failure protection. This work has helped save large amounts of energy and has enabled full-scale industrial automation. He has also developed several energy-optimal control strategies for induction motors, permanent-magnet motors, and switched-reluctance motors used for commercial drives that that have improved efficiency by 15% to 20% compared to standard control methods. Blaabjerg founded the Center of Reliable Power Electronics (CORPE) at Aalborg University, which is a strategic research center bridging academia and industry together to develop the next generation of reliable power electronics technologies.

An IEEE Fellow and recipient of the 2014 IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award, Blaabjerg is a professor with the Department of Energy Technology at Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.

The remarkable innovations of Ursula Keller have pushed the frontiers in ultrafast science and technology by providing solid-state and semiconductor lasers with ultrashort pulse generation that are revolutionizing photonics and tremendously impacting physics, biology, and telecommunications. Keller developed the semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) for generating ultrashort pulses, which transformed femtosecond lasers from complex devices only used by specialists to reliable instruments suitable for use in any general-purpose scientific laboratory. She has since continued to define and push the technology with world-leading experimental results that have demonstrated orders of magnitude improvement in key features such as pulse duration, energy, and average power. Her SESAM technology overcame switching instabilities that had prevented modelocking of solid-state lasers for more than two decades and demonstrated how to generate picosecond and femtosecond pulses from diode-pumped laser technology lasers in a scalable, stable, and reliable manner.

Keller also pioneered vertical external cavity surface emitting lasers (VECSELs), which provide superior beam quality even at high powers compared to other semiconductor lasers and can operate both in the continuous wave and pulsed regimes. Combining the merits of SESAM and VECSELs, Keller proposed and demonstrated a new concept for the generation of ultrashort optical pulses from an all-semiconductor laser system. The modelocked integrated external-cavity surface emitting laser (MIXSEL) enables wafer-scale integration of gain and saturable absorption that allows simple and compact ultrafast lasers to be realized with the potential for high-volume manufacturing.  She led her research group to overcome extreme technical challenges to achieve a 150-fold increase in the power emitted by MIXSELs. Keller’s development of carrier phase stabilization and frequency comb technology during the 1990s was integral to Hänsch and Hall’s development of laser-based spectroscopy that garnered them the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics.

An IEEE Fellow and recipient of the Optical Society’s Charles H. Townes Award (2015) and the 2018 IEEE Photonics Award, Keller is director of the Swiss National Centre of Competence for Research in Molecular Ultrafast Science and Technology (NCCR MUST) at ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.

The technologies developed by Eli Yablonovitch affect anyone who uses a mobile phone or searches the Internet. Yablonovitch proposed that semiconductor lasers should be strained, in order to benefit from reduced valence band (hole) effective mass. Today, with almost every human interaction with the Internet, optical telecommunication occurs by strained semiconductor lasers. Most likely, billions of people are unknowingly using his idea every time they connect to the Internet, make a phone call, or check e-mail. In his photovoltaic research, Yablonovitch’s 4n2 light-trapping factor is in worldwide use for almost all commercial solar panels. Known as the Yablonovitch Limit, this factor increased the theoretical limits and practical efficiency of solar cells. To the extent that solar electricity is blended with other power sources, there are billions of people unknowingly taking advantage of the Yablonovitch Limit. In his photonics work, Yablonovitch unified Maxwell’s Equations and Schrodinger’s Equation through the concept of the photonic crystal. The geometrical structure of the first experimentally realized photonic bandgap is often called Yablonovite. His invention of photonic crystals unifies optics, solid-state physics, electromagnetics, and quantum optics. Among other applications, photonic crystals are used in telecommunications, particularly in polarization splitting, two-dimensional, grating couplers—which are a critical part of silicon photonic integrated circuits. His original paper on photonic crystals has been cited over 10,000 times and is the second-most-cited paper in the history of Physical Review Letters. Yablonovitch has cofounded four science-based companies, including Ethertronics, which became a major independent cellphone antenna manufacturer, having shipped over 2 billion antennas.

An IEEE Fellow and member of both the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences, Yablonovitch holds the James and Katherine Lau Chair in Engineering and is a professor with the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.

An innovator of light-emitting diode (LED) technology for over 45 years, M. George Craford’s pioneering contributions are illuminating the world with higher-efficiency, lower-cost, and more environmentally friendly solid-state alternatives to traditional incandescent light bulbs. Using gallium arsenide phosphide technology, Craford created the first yellow LED and increased the performance of red LEDs by ten. Craford then led the development of the world’s highest-performance red, orange, and amber LEDs based on aluminum gallium indium phosphide (AlGaInP), demonstrating 100 lumens per watt (lm/W). To achieve this, Craford focused on using metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), which at the time was considered high risk for low-cost LED manufacturing. However, Craford had the vision to realize that MOCVD technology was evolving and was critical to making high-volume production of efficient LEDs a reality. Craford and his team led the development of processes for the successful, high-volume, commercial implementation of MOCVD for LEDs. Today, almost all of the world’s multibillion-dollar LED industry is based on MOCVD. Further advances by Craford and his team incorporating compound semiconductor wafer bonding enabled yellow-orange-red spectrum AlGaInP LEDs with efficiencies exceeding unfiltered incandescent lamps. Another first was an LED with efficiency exceeding 100 lm/W, revolutionizing the LED industry and ushering in the viability of solid-state lighting. Craford’s team then led the field in the development and commercialization of the first high-power, high-brightness LEDs with an output greater than 10?20 lm across the entire visible spectrum. These high-power white LEDs were used in the creation of the first LED light bulbs to meet the requirements of the U.S. Department of Energy’s “L Prize,” awarded to a company that could provide, on a commercial scale, an LED light bulb to replace the conventional 60W incandescent bulb.

An IEEE Life Fellow and recipient of the 2015 U.S. National Academy of Engineering Charles Stark Draper Prize and the 2002 National Medal of Technology, among other awards, Craford is currently Solid State Lighting Fellow at Lumileds LLC, San Jose, CA, USA.

With the vision that wireless technology would fundamentally change the way people interact with information, Robert Brodersen has been at the forefront of introducing innovative technologies that are changing the wireless landscape even today. Focusing on using standard low-cost CMOS semiconductor technologies for integrated systems, Brodersen’s work has enabled higher data rates, better energy efficiency, and better spectrum utilization critical to wireless devices. A testament to Brodersen’ vision was the development of the Infopad as the first wireless tablet during the early 1990s. A complete integrated system, the project demonstrated the potential of cloud computing, broadband wireless connectivity, and low-power mobile computing well before the true emergence of the Internet and wireless networks. It took technology 15 years to catch up to his concept with the emergence of devices like the iPad, but the proliferation of personal devices people now take for granted shows that Brodersen’s vision was spot on. Before energy efficiency of devices was an issue, Brodersen was one of the first to demonstrate that improving energy efficiency was critical to the continued scaling of digital circuitry. His combination of concurrency with voltage scaling in 1992 radically changed the way people build computer systems, making possible the multicore paradigms that fuel today’s high-performance and mobile computing systems. He later extended this concept to include dynamic voltage scaling, which allows processors to scale energy efficiency proportional to the requested performance. In the late 1970s Brodersen also pioneered the idea of using switched capacitors for monolithic integrated filters. Originally used for single-chip realizations of pulse code modulation interfaces for wired telephony, switched-capacitor circuits have been the preferred choice for the efficient implementation of on-chip filters for the past four decades.

An IEEE Fellow and member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Brodersen is a Professor Emeritus with the University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.

As one of the principal designers and analysts of the Global Positioning System (GPS), James J. Spilker Jr.’s contributions to GPS development have truly benefited billions of people around the world. The satellite-based navigation system has become an integral part of society through mobile phones and other portable devices that rely on GPS timing, commercial and private aviation, sea navigation, geolocating personal vehicles, and providing disaster warning and recovery support. Dr. Spilker developed the initial technologies to enable successful GPS operation, and he has continued to provide innovations important to the further growth of the GPS. Dr. Spilker designed the L1 C/A code during the 1970s, which became the GPS civilian signal now used by 2 billion people worldwide. His delay lock loop process for tracking code division multiple access (CDMA) signals is essential to GPS accuracy. He has since helped develop the new L5 civilian signal, first launched in 2011, which provides higher accuracy and more resistance to the effects of interference, such as space weather, on navigation. Dr. Spilker also co-invented the split spectrum mode (now called binary offset carrier, or BOC) for modern GPS ranging that will allow civilian and military signals to use separate areas of the spectrum. He also developed adaptive vector tracking for simultaneously tracking ranging signals from multiple satellites while maintaining accuracy and improving performance against interference. Vector tracking will be critical to handling GPS satellite navigation expansion as new GPS satellites and signals are introduced by agencies around the world. Dr. Spilker’s highly cited book Global Positioning System: Theory and Applications (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1996) is considered the standard reference for the GPS and won the AIAA Sommerfield Book Award. His popular textbook Digital Communications by Satellite (Prentice-Hall, 1977) went through ten printings.

An IEEE Life Fellow and member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Dr. Spilker is currently executive chairman of AOSense Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA and Professor (Consulting), Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

Known as the “father of video games,” Ralph H. Baer’s development and commercialization of video-game technology spurred the creation of a multibillion-dollar industry and has greatly influenced the way we play and work. With a vision of using home televisions for more than just passively watching broadcasts, Baer’s pioneering work turned televisions into interactive instruments by creating the concept of home video games and developing the critical technology to make it a reality. His 1971 patent on a “television gaming and training apparatus” is the pioneer patent of video-game technology and was based on his “Brown Box” console. Enshrined in the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History, Baer’s Brown Box concept became the Magnavox Odyssey video-game console in 1972 and sold over 200,000 units. From the original ball-and-paddle concept of the Odyssey to subsequent patents that enable the delivery of content and game-related data via video tape and disc and the use of digitized faces of famous people in video games, Baer’s innovations have become standard features of current-generation video games. He was also the first to develop interactive quiz games, a television shooting game using a light gun, and one of the first microprocessor-controlled handheld sequence games, which became commercially known as Milton-Bradley’s “Simon.” Baer also foresaw the application of his technology for training and simulation, which has benefited the military and the airline and medical industries. Baer’s current projects include updates to his earlier work as well as products involving skateboards, race cars, programmable interactive books, and electronic training kits.

An IEEE Fellow and member of the US National Inventors Hall of Fame, Baer’s honors include the 2006 US National Medal of Technology and the 2013 IEEE Region 1 Technological Innovation Award. Baer is currently the owner of R.H. Baer Consultants, Manchester, NH, USA.

View "Inventive Minds: Ralph Baer" video, on display at the Lemelson Center, Smithsonian Institute

A photonics luminary, Ivan Paul Kaminow’s pioneering contributions have advanced the field of optical fiber communications for nearly five decades. Photonic devices within optical communication systems transfer information using light pulses, enabling high-rate sending and receiving of data. Dr. Kaminow’s innovations have enabled high-capacity and low-cost optical fiber networks important to the development and growth of the Internet. Dr. Kaminow explored electro-optic materials for high-speed modulation of optical signals and developed a titanium-diffused waveguide for lightwave communications at microwave frequencies up to 100 gigahertz. His modulator is the technology of choice for today’s long-distance broadband lightwave systems. He also pioneered the distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser and the ridge-waveguide structure for semiconductor lasers at telecommunication wavelengths. These devices are found in many of today’s commercial lightwave systems. Importantly, Dr. Kaminow also led research that resulted in early wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) systems, which combines several lasers beams of different wavelengths in a single glass fiber. Each beam can carry one million phone calls or 10,000 television channels over thousands of miles. With huge information capacity at low cost, WDM systems made the high-capacity, commercial Internet a practical reality.

An IEEE Life Fellow and Fellow of the American Physical Society and Optical Society of America, Dr. Kaminow’s many honors include the IEEE Quantum Electronics Award (1983), IEEE Third Millennium Medal (2000), IEEE Photonics Award (2010), and OSA Ives Medal (2011). Dr. Kaminow is an Adjunct Professor with the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.

Michael F. Tompsett’s development of the charge-coupled device (CCD) for imaging provided the major technology behind high-quality digital imaging in cameras, and his contributions to night-vision and thermal imaging devices have led to important applications for the military, fire fighting, and medicine. Dr. Tompsett joined Bell Labs in 1969 with the goal of developing solid-state imaging devices. Dr. Tompsett advanced the charge-coupled concept of Willard Boyle and George E. Smith at Bell Labs by exploiting its potential for imaging applications. Dr. Tompsett and his team were able to capture images with simple linear devices in 1971, and then went on to develop a series of CCD cameras, the first of which captured the first discrete-pixel CCD color image in 1973. Dr. Tompsett led the development of the first full television-resolution CCD camera in 1976. One of the components of Dr. Tompsett’s original patent still serves as the basis for today’s astronomical and nuclear event imagers. Prior to his groundbreaking CCD research, Dr. Tompsett had made important advances to thermal and night-vision technology working in the United Kingdom from 1966 to 1969. He first invented the uncooled pyroelectric vidicon camera tube to provide electronic scanning at room temperature, replacing large, slow, and low-resolution single-pixel scanners cooled by liquid nitrogen. At the same time Dr. Tompsett invented the first uncooled solid-state thermal imager, which serves as the basis for today’s devices used for night vision, fire fighting, to see through smoke, and for medical imaging. He also has helped revolutionize the video analog-to-digital converters used today in cameras and mobile phones.

An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Tompsett is currently Founder and Executive Director of TheraManager, LLC, Murray Hill, N.J.

The persistent research efforts of Isamu Akasaki have resulted in the technology behind today’s high-brightness display lighting and advanced entertainment devices. During the late 1960s, Dr. Akasaki began researching solutions to the roadblocks that had prevented realization of high-performance blue LEDs and lasers. While many abandoned the challenge, his work using gallium nitride materials paid off in the 1990s with pioneering developments that led to high-brightness blue, green, and white LEDs and high-performance blue-violet semiconductor lasers. His work has influenced all subsequent developments on these LEDs and lasers and has enabled devices such as the blue-ray disc player, white illumination sources, and solid-state full-color displays. His first achievement important to the development of blue LEDs came in 1985 when he successfully grew high-quality single-crystal gallium nitride on sapphire substrates using a low-temperature buffer technology. His second was in 1989 when he used low-energy electron beam irradiation for p-type doping of gallium nitride. These achievements made at Nagoya University were necessary for further development of gallium nitride as the wide bandgap semiconductor system to enable the new light source. He then realized the first blue/ultraviolet gallium nitride LEDs. During the 1990s, Dr. Akasaki demonstrated stimulated emission in the ultraviolet region with optical excitation from gallium nitride at room temperature and electrically injected ultraviolet/purple-blue laser diodes. His inventions launched a new market for optoelectronics devices, and the Akasaki Institute at Nagoya University was founded in 2006 based on royalties from his patents.

An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Akasaki is a professor with Meijo University’s Graduate School of Science and Technology and a Distinguished University Professor of Nagoya University, Japan.

Ray Dolby’s noise reduction techniques have revolutionized the music recording industry, movies and consumer audio products. Dr. Dolby developed algorithms during the 1960s to reduce the annoying hiss produced during analog recordings on magnetic tape. His idea was to compress audio signals during recording and expand them during playback, processing soft signals but not the loud signals that mask noise.

He founded Dolby Laboratories in 1965 to commercialize his methods, and his technology was soon in demand by record companies around the world. It also played a key role in the successful introduction of cassette-based recording of songs and albums, providing sound quality that was comparable to or better than vinyl recordings. Dr. Dolby adapted his technology for the broadcast and motion picture industries during the 1970s, providing immersive “surround sound.” His original recording process was refined for consumer use and “Dolby B” was licensed to large consumer electronics companies, making the technology available to the masses.

During the 1990s Dolby Laboratories transitioned from analog to address emerging digital audio technologies. “Dolby Digital” technology won widespread adoption and is an integral component built into CD and DVD players, surround-sound home theater systems and high-definition televisions. An IEEE Life Fellow and member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Dr. Dolby is currently a member of the board at Dolby Laboratories, Inc., San Francisco, Calif.

One of the most well-known individuals in optical fiber communications, Tingye Li has shaped the lightwave network infrastructure we know today. With a career spanning over 50 years, Dr. Li?s technical contributions, insight and leadership have led to innovations and advancements resulting in high-speed commercial telecommunication transmission systems. Optical fiber technology enables a huge increase in transmission capacity compared to copper-wire and radio-wave methods and provides the capacity to accommodate ever-increasing amounts of Internet traffic. Among Dr. Li?s many technical contributions was his work with Gardner Fox in the early 1960s that formulated the fundamental concepts of laser resonator modes, demonstrating that an electromagnetic wave bouncing back and forth between a pair of mirrors can resonate for a number of modes of energy distribution. This work was the first to show that an open-sided resonator containing a laser medium has unique transverse modes of resonance, which was fundamental to laser theory and practice.

Dr. Li also led several research groups at AT&T Bell Labs that demonstrated the first optical repeaters and experimented with systems showing the potential of new optical fiber technology. He was the chief proponent of adopting Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and amplified wavelength-division multiplexing technology during the 1990s, which revolutionized high-speed long-distance communication by upgrading capacity over a hundred-fold. An IEEE Life Fellow, Dr. Li has previously received the OSA/IEEE John Tyndall Award, AT&T Science and Technology Medal and the IEEE Photonics Award. Retired from AT&T, Dr. Li is now an independent consultant who serves on the board of directors of several optical component and systems companies.

Dov Frohman-Bentchowsky, developer of EPROM, has had a significant impact on the computer memory industry. EPROM became a key product for the digital processing and control engineering community. Using a simple poly silicon floating gate buried in pure silicon dioxide, EPROM became the first commercially successful non-volatile memory technology. Dr. Frohman-Bentchowsky?s work led to current generations of flash memory, which are found in devices ranging from mobile phones to media players to personal computers.

A former vice president and general manager of Intel Israel until his retirement in 2001, Dr. Frohman-Bentchowsky?s career began in 1965 as a member of the technical staff at Fairchild Semiconductor, where his work focused on Metal Oxide Semiconductors (MOS). Upon joining Intel in 1969, his concentration shifted from MOS to the fundamental research that led to EPROM, which overcame many of the limitations of other early non-volatile memory technologies including complex processing, exotic materials and poor charge retention.

An IEEE Fellow, he holds six U.S. patents, has authored or co-authored more than 30 published works, including one of his most recent books, co-authored with Robert Howard, Leadership The Hard Way (www.leadershipthehardway.com). He has previously received numerous awards, among them, the IEEE Jack Morton Award and Israel Prize in Engineering. Dr. Frohman-Bentchowsky holds a bachelor?s degree in electrical engineering from the Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, and a masters and doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. He also holds an honorary doctorate from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa.

The R. Jamieson and Betty Williams Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and former vice president for research at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Dr. Fawwaz T. Ulaby is one of the world?s foremost authorities in radar remote sensing.

In 1968, when he was an assistant professor at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, he obtained a small grant to start a research program that, over the next decade, became the world?s leading team for measuring and modeling complex, inhomogeneous terrestrial media. A critical edge to his success was his design and use of radar spectrometers, which allowed his team to develop optimum design configurations for specific radar applications. The extensive database from this program became a gold mine for theoretical modelers, allowing them to verify the applicability and predictability of their mathematical models.

This radar database became the reference standard for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, industry and military laboratories. Dr. Ulaby was involved in the design and data analysis of several space flights that, in addition to providing a wealth of scientific information, led to a new industry that supplies radar-derived information to the timber and oil industries.

In the mid1980s, as a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Dr. Ulaby began exploring the terahertz (THz) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. During the next decade he worked with a research team that developed the micro-electronics for a suite of circuits and antennae for THz sensors and communication systems. Today, THz technology is a major player in new types of industrial sensor applications.

An IEEE Fellow and member of the National Academy of Engineering, he is the recipient of the IEEE Millennium Medal, the IEEE Centennial Medal and the IEEE Electromagnetics Award.

Dr. Peter Lawrenson is widely known as the father of the switched reluctance (SR) drive. SR drives, the only radically new family of machine drives in a century, operate entirely on magnetic attraction, and offer an ideal fit for the electronically controlled drive systems used throughout industries and products today.

Initially, Dr. Lawrenson's new concepts were regarded by some experts as heretical but, over time, the evidence became irrefutable. After demonstrating major advantages over traditional motors, he left his post as dean of engineering at the University of Leeds to create a global business that spawned SR applications in market sectors ranging from automotive, household,mining and textiles to earth-moving equipment, industrial pumps, medical equipment and high-performance servo systems. This business, SRD, Ltd.,was later acquired by Emerson Electric Company of St. Louis, Missouri.

Previously, Dr. Lawrenson had invented and had brought to the market greatly improved synchronous reluctance motors (and precursor to SR). Also, he headed a major international study of stepping motors and systems, which led to greater understanding of their critical operating factors, such as damping, resonance and stability, and to advances in their design. He is co-author of a master reference text on electromagnetic field solutions, "The Analytical and Numerical Solution of Electric and Magnetic Fields."

An IEEE Life Fellow, Dr. Lawrenson is the recipient of the Faraday Medal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the ESSO Energy Gold Medal of The Royal Society and the J.A. Ewing Gold Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was president of The Institution of Electrical Engineers from 1992 to 1993. Dr. Lawrenson is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and The Royal Society in London.

Operating at the interface between applied and basic solid-state science, Dr. Federico Capasso has long been recognized by his colleagues as a trailblazer in the fields of semiconductors and lasers. At Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Dr. Capasso pioneered the design of artificially structured materials and devices using semiconductor heterostructures. 

This approach, known as band-structure or bandgap engineering, allows devices to be tailored to specific applications, opening up research directions and commercial possibilities in photonics, electronics and nanotechnology. His seminal work on the quantum cascade (QC) laser has similarly revolutionized infrared science and technology by giving access to the midinfrared spectrum. QC lasers have found wide-ranging applications in chemical sensing, medical diagnostics, spectroscopy and trace gas analysis. Dr. Capasso's many other contributions include multilayer low-noise avalanche photodiodes, the solid-state photomultiplier and seminal mid-eighties work with quantum electron devices that revived interest in multilevel logic and coding.

Dr. Capasso launched his 26-year career at Bell Labs in 1977 as a member of the technical staff. He was vice president of physical research from 2000 to 2003, when he left to become the Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. A Fellow of the IEEE, the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Optical Society of America (OSA), Dr. Capasso is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. His honors include the IEEE David Sarnoff Award and OSA's R. Wood Prize. He has published more than 300 papers and holds over 40 U.S. patents.

For more than 45 years, Mr. Edward E. Hammer has held a place at the forefront of fluorescent lighting research. His significant technological contributions in incandescent, fluorescent and HID light sources have earned him over 35 patents and have helped to shape the modern lighting industry. During the energy crisis of the 1970s, he led the development of General Electric?s pioneering energy-efficient fluorescent lamp, the Watt-Miser. Its success was based on the krypton/argon fill gas?which was compatible with electromagnetic ballasts already in the marketplace?and a novel, electrically conductive coating on the inside of the glass tube to facilitate reliable starting. All major lamp manufacturers still use the design today, and it is the cornerstone of many energy-saving lighting programs.

In 1976, he developed the first compact fluorescent lamp. The original prototype of this spiral-shaped lamp is displayed at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. With more than 40 technical papers to his credit, Mr. Hammer has been called the Father of Fluorescent Signature Analysis. His methods for testing lamp/ballast compatibility are in use today, and are easy to apply and understand. He also has actively participated in ANSI/IEEE Standards activities as well as on IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) technical committees.

A Fellow of the IEEE and the Illuminating Engineering Society, he was won many awards including GE?s Steuben Glass Replica Award and two IAS prize paper awards. He retired earlier this year as GE?s Fluorescent Systems technical advisor, and is now an active consultant in his field.

In his remarkable career at IBM, Dr. Robert H. Dennard has played a key role in two of the most groundbreaking innovations of the microelectronics industry. His work on the one-transistor memory cell led the way to readily available, inexpensive, high-density memory, which has transformed the industry. Further, the principles he helped to develop for scaling MOSFET devices are so ubiquitous that they are now commonly referred to simply as ?the scaling laws.?

Dr. Dennard joined the IBM Research Division in 1958, where his early experience included the study of new devices and circuits for logic and memory applications, and the development of advanced data communication techniques. Since joining the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, in Yorktown Heights, New York, in 1963 he has been involved in microelectronics research and development. His primary work there has been in MOSFETs and integrated digital circuits that use them. His accomplishments include pioneering the dynamic RAM memory cell used in most computers today, and playing a key role in the development of the concept of MOSFET scaling. He has held many titles at IBM, and is currently an IBM Fellow in the Silicon Technology Department. He has been issued 26 U.S. patents, and has 77 published technical papers or articles to his name.

Robert H. Dennard was born in Terrell, Texas, in 1932. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, in 1954 and 1956, respectively. He earned a Ph.D. from Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1958.

A Fellow of the IEEE, Dr. Dennard has earned dozens of awards and honors including the U. S. National Medal of Technology from President Reagan for his work on the one-transistor dynamic memory cell. He was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Dennard received the IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award, the IRI Achievement Award from the Industrial Research Institute, and the Harvey Prize from Technion, Haifa, Israel. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and is a member of the American Philosophical Society.