Robert M. Metcalfe: invented Ethernet and developed Metcalfe's law, which says that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users
Gordon Moore: co-founder of Intel Corp.; developed Moore's Law, which says IC complexity will double every 18 months
Robert N. Noyce: invented the integrated circuit (on a silicon substrate) while at Fairchild Semiconductor; also invented the first field-effect transistor; co-founder of Intel Corp.
Robert A. Pease: built the first adjustable negative regulator at National Semiconductor
Donald O. Pederson: the father of SPICE
George Philbrick: developed the first commercial operational amplifier and the first analog computer for simulation and converted the op amp to solid-state design using transistors
Dennis Ritchie: created the C language
Claude E. Shannon: discovered the analogy between George Boole's logical algebra and digital switching circuits, enabling the design and analysis of digital circuits
William B. Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter H. Brittain: developed the first transistor
Al Shugart: pioneer of floppy-disk technology; founded Shugart Associates and then Seagate Technology
Philip Smith: creator of the Smith Chart, which graphically matches transmission lines to antennas to show what must be achieved to obtain a better match
Nikola Tesla: invented the ac induction motor, the telephone repeater, the Tesla coil transformer, and fluorescent lights
Linus Torvalds: developed Linux as an alternative to MS-DOS and Unix so he could access newsgroups on the then-emerging Internet
James Truchard and Jeff Kodosky: co-invented LabVIEW and co-founded National Instruments
Alan M. Turing: founder of computer science, codebreaker, and inventor of the Turing Machine
Patrizio Vinciarelli: founded Vicor and invented zero-current switching and zero-voltage switching technologies, which let power converters be designed much smaller and more efficiently
C. Howard Vollum: co-founded Tektronix with Jack Murdock; developed the 511 oscilloscope (also known as the "Vollumscope"), which set a new industry standard for speed
John von Neumann: invented the stored program
concept
Robert Widlar: designed the first monolithic op amp
Jim Williams: designed hundreds of fundamental applications circuits and perfected the art of getting the maximum performance from high-performance amplifiers and data converters
Steve Wozniak and Steven P. Jobs: co-founded Apple and co-invented the PC, the Apple I
Barrie Gilbert
When Electronic Design launched its Engineering Hall Of Fame last year, one inductee—Barrie Gilbert—was inadvertently omitted from the inaugural honor roll. We apologize and are correcting this oversight here. He is also one of our featured honorees (see this issue, p. 110). Barrie Gilbert (Life Fellow, IEEE) pursued an early interest in semiconductors and alloy junction transistors at Mullard Ltd. in the U.K. In 1964, at Tektronix, he developed advances in oscilloscopes and the company's first integrated circuits. In 1970-72, he was Group Leader at Plessey Research Labs (the U.K.), working on holographic memories. He consulted to Analog Devices Inc. (1972-77) and later joined that company as its first ADI Fellow in 1979. He manages the Northwest Labs, ADI's first remote design center, in Beaverton, Ore., developing a variety of IC products for the communications industry. Holder of 65 patents, he has authored papers in JSSC and other journals, is a contributor to several texts, and is a co-editor of a recent book. For work on merged logic, he received the IEEE Outstanding Achievement Award (1970), and for contributions to nonlinear signal processing, the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Council Outstanding Development Award (1986). He was Oregon Researcher of the Year in 1990 and received the Solid-State Circuits Award in 1992, the ISSCC Outstanding Paper Award on five occasions, the Best Paper Award at ESSCIRC twice, and various awards for Best Product of the Year. In 1997, he received an Honorary Doctorate from Oregon State University. For recreation, he composes and plays music, writes poetry, and communes with his feline companions.