#Dram #Ieeemembernews Robert Dennard, DRAM Pioneer, Dies at 91: Robert Dennard
Inventor of Dynamic RAM
Fellow, 91; died 23 April
In 1967 Dennard invented what is known as DRAM—a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell consisting of a tiny capacitor and transistor.
Before his invention, RAM required bulky, power-hungry components that were expensive to produce. His breakthrough paved the way for inexpensive, high-density, and commercially available memory.
The computing pioneer received the 2009 IEEE Medal of Honor for his innovation.
Dennard began his career as a staff engineer at IBM’s New York City research lab. He worked on new devices and circuits for logic and memory applications and developed advanced data communication techniques.
He was transferred in 1961 to IBM’s newly opened Watson Research Center, in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., where he worked on field-effect transistors and integrated circuits, using a six-transistor memory cell for each bit of data, the standard at the time. In 1968 Dennard successfully reduced a RAM cell to a small capacitor and a single field-effect transistor—the device that became known as DRAM. He was granted a U.S. patent for his invention in 1968.
By the early 1970s, DRAM was standard in virtually all computers. A decade later, the device powered the first PCs—including the IBM 5150—allowing them to perform more complex operations.
After DRAM’s success, Dennard turned his attention to transistors. In 1972 he developed principles for scaling metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) devices, the main building block in low-power and high-performance very-large-scale integration (VLSI) chips. IEEE Fellow Gordon Moore had predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double every two years, but Dennard proposed that as transistors got smaller, their power consumption would remain nearly constant. He published his theory, now known as Dennard scaling, with a set of supporting principles in the 1974 paper “Design of Ion-Implanted MOSFETs With Very Small Physical Dimensions.”
Dennard was named an IBM Fellow in 1979. For the next several decades at the company, he worked on metal-oxide-semiconductor technology, refining RAM and developing low-voltage, high-performance circuits.
During his career, he was honored with dozens of awards including the 2019 IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal and the 2001 IEEE Edison Medal. In 1997 Dennard was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering in 1954 and 1956 from Southern Methodist University, in Dallas. Two years later he earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now part of Carnegie Mellon).
Richard P. Schulz
Power systems engineer
Life Fellow, 87; died 29 May
Schulz began his career in 1959 as a power… http://dlvr.it/TDyZLf
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