Jerald Graeme
When ICs and op amps were separate devices, Jerald Graeme was among the first to develop a combined IC op amp while at Burr-Brown, in a 1968 team effort with Motorola. He designed many more op amps and video amplifiers whose precision, high speed, or low drift amplification made them a very useful component in a variety of analog applications. Nine U.S. patents and numerous foreign counterparts resulted from these designs. The internationally acknowledged authority on electronic amplifiers wrote five very popular books about op amps, the latest being Photodiode Amplifiers: Op Amp Solutions and Optimizing Op Amp Performance. The latter, subtitled "A new approach for maximizing op amp behavior in circuit designs without extensive mathematical analysis," offers design equations and models that reflect real-world op amp behavior and makes analysis of difficult-looking configurations easy. Graeme's earlier books are: Op Amps: Design and Application, Designing with Operational Amplifiers, and Amplifier Applications of Op Amps. He expects signal processing with op amps to be the domain of digital devices, but they will still require an analog interface to integrate with real-world items like process control or avionics.
Luis Navarro
Luis Navarro invented the first portable oscilloscope and led the Tektronix team that developed a highly popular potable digital oscilloscope. Three features patented for the unit are now incorporated in all other oscilloscopes: display processing, real-time sampling, and a peak detector. The digital oscilloscope represented a paradigm change because users could look back in time to discern what caused the flaw that triggered an action. The Tektronix team's innovative program management prevented the "creeping feature creature" and got the product to market in a then record time of one-and-a-half years. His Tektronix team also wisely chose to keep the same basic menu and style as the existing analog oscilloscope, making it easier for users to learn to manipulate the new one.
David Sarnoff
The "father of broadcasting" championed the innovation of radio and television technology and networks, led RCA for nearly 30 years, and had the vision to see the value of continuous R&D in electronics. Perhaps it all began in April 1912, when for 72 hours straight, as a wireless telegraph operator in New York City, David Sarnoff relayed news of survivors from the sinking of S.S. Titanic. In 1915, he first proposed a "radio music box" for people to hear broadcasts. He helped organize the first sports broadcast in 1921 and then, five years later, helped create the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the first permanent radio network. Sarnoff formally introduced black and white television to Americans in 1939, and then electronic color in 1950. An enduring belief in the social improvements possible through technology led to his support for RCA's research labs, which turned out numerous electronics inventions that are used today.
Richard Stallman
Computer users deserve the freedom that Richard Stallman believed they lost: freedom to copy and redistribute software as well as make changes to it. So, in 1984, he left the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab to found the GNU Project. It's the foundation for Linux software, a free operating system that users can copy, alter, and redistribute. Today, Linux-based variants of the GNU system, based on the Linux Kernel developed by Linus Torvalds, are used by nearly 20 million people. Stallman also established the Free Software Foundation to support the production of free software and ensure its free distribution. The GNU system includes the GNU Compiler Collection, a portable optimizing compiler that supports more than 30 diverse architectures and seven programming languages. Stallman is its principal author as well as the author of other GNU programs like GNU symbolic debugger (gdb) and GNU Emacs. He also wrote the first extensible Emacs text editor.
Ray Stata
Back in 1965, Ray Stata became one of the founders of Analog Devices, a leading manufacturer of high-performance analog, mixed-signal, and DSP chips. He served as president from 1971 to 1991, CEO from 1973 to Nov. 1996, and has been chairman of the board since 1973. As a pioneer in the field of analog technology, the company created the first precision analog and mixed-signal ICs. Prior to its formation, Stata was founder of Solid State Instruments, then vice president of marketing of Kollmorgen Corp.'s Inland Controls Division (when it acquired Solid State Instruments). Stata is co-author of two books—Global Stakes: The Future of High Technology in America and The Innovators: Rediscovering America's Creative Energy. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Council on Competitiveness and is on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Overseers. He's a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, and was named Foreign Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering.
Robert Alexander Watson-Watt
To detect enemy aircraft, Scottish physicist Robert Alexander Watson-Watt developed and introduced radar, an acronym for Radio Detection And Ranging technology. It was invaluable in protecting Great Britain during WWII against German air raids, both day and night, and in all types of weather. He had studied at University College, Dundee, part of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. It was during Watson-Watt's first job, which involved designing devices to locate thunderstorms for the Scottish Meteorological Office, when he coined the term "ionosphere" to describe a layer of the atmosphere. It became the basis of his subsequent work in radio detection at Britain's National Physical Laboratory. Watson-Watt also developed a cathode-ray direction finder to study atmospheric phenomena, did research in electromagnetic radiation, and invented other devices for flight safety. He was knighted in 1942 for his role in the development of radar.