Morris Tanenbaum
Silicon microchip inventor
Fellow, 94; died 26 February
Tanenbaum’s analysis within the mid-Fifties proved that silicon was a greater semiconductor materials for transistors than germanium, which was generally used on the time. His discovery paved the best way for extra environment friendly transistors crucial in applied sciences that ushered within the Info Age.
He started his profession in 1952 at Bell Labs, in Murray Hill, N.J., as a researcher in its chemical physics division. Two years later, below the path of physicist and inventor William Shockley, who on the time labored at Bell Labs, Tanenbaum started investigating whether or not silicon crystals could possibly be used for transistors.
In 1955 he and colleague Ernest Buehler demonstrated the primary silicon transistor.
Tanenbaum later developed the primary gas-diffused silicon transistor, which may amplify and swap alerts above 100 megahertz at a switching velocity 10 occasions that of earlier silicon transistors.
Regardless of Tanenbaum’s early work on silicon transistors, AT&T didn’t assist additional analysis or development of the know-how. On the time, Bell Labs was the analysis arm of AT&T. Though Bell Labs had “a big technological lead in silicon transistor know-how, it stopped doing correct analysis within the subject—partly as a result of it simply wasn’t instantly related to AT&T’s enterprise—so silicon transistor know-how, together with the built-in circuit, was carried out by Intel and Texas Devices as a substitute,” Tanenbaum stated in a 1999 oral historical past carried out by the IEEE Historical past Middle.
Tanenbaum as a substitute labored on different new applied sciences within the a long time that adopted. In 1962 he was named assistant director of Bell Labs’ metallurgical division. He led the staff there that created the primary high-field superconducting magnets, which at the moment are utilized in MRI machines and different medical imaging applied sciences. Later he helped develop optical fiber and digital phone switching.
Tanenbaum went on to function president of AT&T’s New Jersey Bell (now a part of Verizon) within the late Seventies and early Eighties.
He was appointed president of AT&T Communications in 1984. He retired 5 years later as AT&T’s vice chairman and chief monetary officer.
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he additionally was a Fellow of the American Bodily Society and a member of the MIT board of trustees.
He acquired a bachelor’s diploma in chemistry in 1949 from Johns Hopkins College, in Baltimore, and earned a Ph.D. in bodily chemistry from Princeton.
Adolf Goetzberger
Photovoltaics pioneer
Life Fellow, 94; died 24 February
Goetzberger was an early proponent of photo voltaic vitality applied sciences. In the present day photo voltaic is the third largest renewable-electricity sector behind hydropower and wind.
Along with physicist Armin Zastrow, he pioneered the idea of agrivoltaics—using land for each agriculture and photo voltaic vitality technology.
After receiving a doctorate in physics in 1955 from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, in Munich Goetzberger joined Siemens, a multinational conglomerate, additionally in Munich. He then moved to america in 1958 to work as a senior scientist at Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, in Palo Alto, Calif.
After 5 years at Shockley, he left to affix Bell Labs, in Murray Hill, N.J., the place he carried out analysis on metal-oxide-semiconductor know-how. He returned to Germany in 1968 and have become director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Utilized Strong State Physics (IAF), in Freiburg. Three years later, whereas working on the IAF, he was named an honorary professor within the College of Freiburg physics division.
In 1981 Goetzberger based the Fraunhofer Institute for Photo voltaic Power Techniques (ISE)—now Europe’s largest photo voltaic analysis institute—additionally in Freiburg. That very same 12 months, he and Zastrow launched the agrivoltaic idea, through which photo voltaic panels are constructed atop greenhouses or in constructions above subject crops to maximise land use. As of 2021, agrivoltaic techniques had been able to producing greater than 14 gigawatts of electrical energy, based on an ISE estimate.
Within the early Eighties, Goetzberger carried out pioneering analysis into fluorescent planar collector-concentrators, using photovoltaic (PV) materials blended with fluorescent dyes to separate the varied wavelengths of sunshine and convert them utilizing photo voltaic cells with totally different band gaps. The analysis paved the best way for simpler solar energy technology. Beneath Goetzberger’s management, the ISE developed the primary extremely environment friendly, totally digital inverter for stand-alone PV techniques.
Goetzberger was ISE director till he retired in 1993. He then served as president of the German Photo voltaic Power Society (DGS), from 1993 to 1997. Based mostly in Berlin, the DGS helps the introduction of photo voltaic applied sciences and renewable vitality sources into the ability grid.
He coauthored the seminal 2005 textbook Photovoltaic Photo voltaic Power Era.
Goetzberger, who held greater than 30 patents in Europe, was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Patent Workplace in 2009. In 1997 he acquired three prestigious awards: the Karl Böer Photo voltaic Power Medal of Benefit from the Worldwide Photo voltaic Power Society, the Becquerel Prize from the European Fee, and the Cherry Award from the IEEE Electron Units Society. IEEE EDS additionally honored him in 1983 with its Ebers Award for his improvement of the silicon subject impact transistor, which makes use of an electrical subject to manage the move of present in a semiconductor. Goetzberger was the primary German to obtain the consideration.
Peter W. Sauer
2022 IEEE Nikola Tesla Award recipient
Life Fellow, 75; died 27 December
Sauer was a professor {of electrical} and pc engineering on the College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the place he taught programs and directed analysis on energy techniques.
He acquired the 2022 IEEE Nikola Tesla Award “for contributions to dynamic modeling and simulation of synchronous mills and for management in energy engineering schooling.”
Sauer served within the U.S. Air Power as {an electrical} engineer, designing and establishing airfield lighting and electrical distribution techniques at Langley Air Power Base, in Virginia. He left lively obligation in 1973 however continued to serve within the Air Power Reserve for almost three a long time, retiring in 1998 as a lieutenant colonel.
He joined the College of Illinois in 1977 as a professor. His analysis there was targeted on the way to enhance the soundness of electrical energy techniques utilizing large-scale simulations.
In 1991 and 1992 he served as program director of energy techniques within the Nationwide Science Basis’s electrical and communication techniques division.
In 1996 he cofounded PowerWorld, an influence system data and evaluation firm, in Champaign, Ailing. Transmission planners and techniques operators use the corporate’s PowerWorld Simulator, a set of interactive software program instruments, to mannequin energy grid operations below totally different situations. He retired in 2019.
Sauer, a member of the Nationwide Academy of Engineering, wrote Energy System Dynamics and Stability, and he authored or coauthored greater than 200 technical papers.
He acquired an IEEE Energy & Power SocietyLifetime Achievement Award in 2020 “for distinctive career-long contributions to energy techniques modeling and dynamic evaluation, and for management in energy engineering schooling.”
After receiving a bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering in 1969 from the College of Missouri at Rolla (now the Missouri College of Science and Know-how), he went on to earn grasp’s and doctoral levels in EE from Purdue College, in West Lafayette, Ind., in 1974 and 1977, respectively.
Robert W. “Bob” Lawson
Telecommunications engineer
Senior member, 89; died 18 November
Lawson labored for Bell Phone of Pennsylvania (now a part of AT&T) in Pittsburgh for 35 years. He climbed the ranks and retired in 1988 as a member of the manager staff.
In the course of the Korean Struggle, he served within the U.S. Navy as a cryptologic technician specializing in airborne, shipborne, and land-based radar alerts.
He started his civilian profession in 1953 as a phone set up professional at Bell. On the time, he additionally attended night time faculty on the College of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, the place he earned an affiliate diploma in engineering in 1963.
After retiring from Bell in 1988, he started working with the U.S. authorities as a telecommunications contractor. He additionally labored for a number of years as an engineer at IT providers firm Unisys in Blue Bell, Pa. He then turned a advisor; his major consumer was the Philippine Lengthy Distance Phone Co. (now PLDT), in Makati. He retired from consulting in 1998.
Lawson loved taking part in pool, flying stunt kites, singing, taking part in golf, and serving to his neighbors clear up know-how issues.
