Walt Jung
Widely considered a "guru" of audio op-amp design, Jung has been a prolific, authoritative writer on analog design topics for nearly 35 years, specializing in op-amp and audio-related applications. His articles have appeared in numerous audio-oriented periodicals. His first article appeared in Electronic Design in 1968, and there have been many more since then. His analog-oriented column, "Walt's Tools and Tips," ran in Electronic Design from January 1997 through December 1998. Jung has also written several books, such as IC Op-Amp Cookbook and Audio IC Op-Amp Applications, both considered primary sources for a generation of professional audio engineers. In 1991, following a three-and-a-half-year tenure at Linear Technology Corp., Jung joined Analog Devices Inc., where he is a corporate staff applications engineer.
Charles Kao
Recognized as the "father of fiber optics," Kao did his pioneering work during a 10-year period beginning in 1960 as a research scientist, then manager, at Standard Telecommunications Laboratories Ltd., ITT's central research facility in the United Kingdom. Kao predicted the performance levels that fiber optics could attain and described the basic design and means to make fiber optics a practical and significant communications medium. Thereafter, he contributed significantly to the development and subsequent commercialization of optical fiber components and systems. In the early 1980s, as the first executive scientist and subsequently as corporate director of research at ITT, Kao addressed the high-frequency limits of signal processing, known as "terabit technology," to help R&D managers improve the effectiveness of materials and device research.
Jack Kilby
In early 1958, Kilby joined Texas Instruments in Dallas. By the end of that summer, he had changed the course of the electronics industry. Working with borrowed and improvised equipment, Kilby conceived and built the first electronic circuit in which all components, both active and passive, were fabricated in one piece of semiconductor material half the size of a paper clip. Demonstrated successfully on Sept. 12, 1958, Kilby's monolithic integrated circuit laid the conceptual and technical foundation for the entire field of modern microelectronics. Kilby went on to pioneer military, industrial, and commercial applications for microchip technology and headed construction of the first military system and the first computer to incorporate ICs. He also co-invented the handheld calculator and the thermal printer. Kilby won the Nobel prize in physics for his part in inventing the IC.
Gary Kildall
In 1973, while working for Intel Corp., Kildall created the first computer operating system (OS) to see popular use. Seeking a way to control the storage and retrieval of data on floppy disks, Kildall realized the need for a basic OS that could accept and interpret operator commands using less than 4k of memory. Originally named Control Program/Monitor, the initials later came to stand for Control Program/Microprocessor or Microcomputer. But it was best known as CP/M, and the programming language he developed for it was called PL/M. Intel saw no use for CP/M and gave the rights to Kildall, who sold it himself, eventually through his own company, Intergalactic Digital Research (later Digital Research Inc.). CP/M proved to be the OS that fueled the birth of the PC. For the first few years, it was used on virtually every PC manufactured.
Hedy Lamarr
Dubbed by MGM's Louis B. Mayer as the "most beautiful girl in the world," Lamarr fled the rise of Nazism, leaving her native Austria for Hollywood in 1937. But the most fascinating chapter in her life occurred during World War II, when Lamarr and the avant garde musician George Antheil received a patent for a "secret communications system" intended for use in guiding U.S. Navy torpedoes. Lamarr and Antheil conceived the idea of "frequency hopping" to quickly shift the radio signals of control devices, making them invulnerable to radio interference or jamming. Truly ahead of its time, the system was never implemented by the military, in part because the technology of the time was inadequate. The system finally came into its own in the cellular telephone age. Now called "spread spectrum" instead of "frequency hopping," the basic idea is the same.
Bob Mammano
A pioneer in the power electronics industry with more than 40 years of experience in analog power control, Mammano is widely recognized for giving birth to the pulse-width modulation (PWM) controller IC industry. He designed the first PWM controller IC, the SG1524, in 1974. The founder of power IC divisions at both Silicon General (now Linfinity Microelectronics) and Unitrode (now part of Texas Instruments), Mammano continues to expand the state of the art in power ICs by both designing and guiding the development of new products. Holder of more than 20 patents in this field, Mammano shares his insights on power IC design and development as a Fellow in TI's power-management products division and as a popular speaker on topics important to the work of power-system designers at TI's power-supply design seminars.
Guglielmo Marconi
Immortalized as the inventor of radio, Marconi conducted his first experiments on wireless signals at his father's estate in Pontecchio, Italy, in 1895. His success in sending wireless signals over a distance of one-and-a-half miles made Marconi, at 21, the inventor of the first practical system of wireless telegraphy. One year later, he received the world's first patent for such a system. In 1899, Marconi established wireless communication between France and England. In 1901, one year after his famous patent No. 7777 for "tuned or syntonic telegraphy," Marconi transmitted the first wireless signals across the Atlantic Ocean, between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John's, Newfoundland—2100 miles. Marconi's research into shorter wavelengths culminated in the opening of the world's first microwave radiotelephone link in 1932.
Robert M. Metcalfe
In 1972, one year before completing his doctorate in computer science at Harvard University, Metcalfe began working at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where he met D.R. Boggs. Together they invented a local-area networking (LAN) technology that turned PCs into communications tools by linking them. Since its invention, the protocol, Ethernet, has become the most widely used LAN technology, connecting more than 50 million PCs. At Xerox's Systems Development Division, Metcalfe was responsible for developments that led to the Xerox Star workstation, the first PC to include a bit-map screen, a mouse, word processing, Ethernet, and software to handle text and graphics in the same document. In 1979, Metcalfe founded 3Com Corp., which stands for "computer, communication, and compatibility."
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