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 Carver Mead in 2005 | |
| Born | (1934-05-01) May 1, 1934 (age 90) Bakersfield, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Awards | National Medal of Technology |
| Scientific career | |
| Thesis | Transistor Switching Analysis (1960) |
| Doctoral advisor | R. D. Middlebrook Robert V. Langmuir |
Carver Andress Mead (born 1 May 1934, in Bakersfield, California) is a US scientist and engineer. He currently holds the position of Gordon and Betty Moore Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), having taught there for over 40 years.
Mead studied electrical engineering at Caltech, getting his BS in 1956, his MS in 1957, and his PhD degree in 1960.
Mead–Conway VLSI design and Moore's law
Carver Mead and Lynn Conway co-wrote the landmark text Introduction to VLSI systems in 1980, an important spearhead of the Mead & Conway revolution. A pioneering and well-written textbook, it has been used in VLSI integrated circuit education all over the world for decades. Mead is credited by Intel's (at that time Fairchild Semiconductor's) Gordon Moore of coining the term Moore's Law, denoting the observation/prediction Moore did in 1965 about the growth rate of the transistor amount fitting on a single integrated circuit.
"Firsts"
In relation to his 2002 award with the National Medal of Technology, his biography at a webpage of the Technology Administration of the United States government says:
Carver Mead is a key pioneer of modern microelectronics. His 40-year academic and industry career touches all aspects of microelectronics, from spearheading the development of tools and techniques for modern integrated circuit design, to laying the foundation for fabless semiconductor companies, to catalyzing the electronic design automation field, to training generations of engineers, to founding more than twenty companies, including Actel Corporation, Silicon Compilers, Synaptics, and Sonic Innovations.
Carver's career is characterized by an endless string of "firsts." He built the first GaAs MESFET, a device that is today a mainstay of wireless electronics. He was the first to use a physics-based analysis to predict a lower limit to transistor size. His predictions, along with the notions of scalability that came with them, were instrumental in setting the industry on its path toward submicrometre technology. He was the first to predict millions of transistors on a chip, and, on the basis of these predictions, he developed the first techniques for designing big, complex microchips. He taught the world's first VLSI design course. He created the first software compilation of a silicon chip.
Halfway through his career he switched direction, teaming with Professor John Hopfield and Nobelist Richard Feynman to study how animal brains compute. The trio catalyzed three fields: Neural Networks, Neuromorphic Engineering, and Physics of Computation. Carver created the first neurally inspired chips, including the silicon retina and chips that learn from experience, and founded the first companies to use these technologies: Synaptics, and Foveon, Inc., a Santa Clara, California company developing CMOS image sensor/processing chips (for use in e.g. digital photography).
Carver's teaching legacy is every bit as significant as his research. He taught the original founders of Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Silicon Design Labs, and countless others. His work in electronic design automation (EDA) created companies such as Silicon Compilers, Silerity, and Cascade Semiconductor Design. He and Ivan Sutherland created the computer science department at Caltech. The 1980 textbook he coauthored with Lynn Conway, Introduction to VLSI Design, was standard training for a generation of engineers. His 1989 textbook, Analog VLSI and Neural Systems, trained interdisciplinary researchers who are poised today to revolutionize the frontier of computing and neurobiology. Although retired, Carver continues his teaching tradition today: His new passion is finding a better way to teach freshman physics, using the quantum nature of matter as a sole basis.
Carver also pioneered the use of floating-gate transistors as a means of non-volatile storage for neuromorphic and other analog circuits.
"Collective Electrodynamics" approach to electromagnetism
Carver Mead has developed an approach he calls Collective Electrodynamics in which electromagnetic effects, including quantized energy transfer, are derived from the interactions of the wavefunctions of electrons behaving collectively. In this formulation, the photon is a non-entity, and Planck's energy–frequency relationship comes from the interactions of electron eigenstates. The approach is related to John Cramer's transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics, to the Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory of electrodynamics, and to Gilbert N. Lewis's early description of electromagnetic energy exchange at zero interval in spacetime.
Companies founded
Awards
- In 1981 Electronics Magazine presented Mead and Conway with its annual Award for Achievement.
- In 1985 he was awarded the John Price Wetherill Medal from The Franklin Institute.
- In 1996 Mead was honored with the Phil Kaufman Award for his impact on electronic design industry.
- In 1999 Mead received the Lemelson-MIT Prize.
- In 2002 Mead was awarded the National Medal of Technology.
- In 2002, he was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his contributions in pioneering the automation, methodology and teaching of integrated circuit design".
- 2011 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award of Information and Communication Technologies "... for his influential thinking in silicon technology. His work has enabled the development of the microchips that drive the electronic devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones, DVD players) ubiquitous in our daily lives."
References
- Computer History Museum Fellow Award
- Mead's Page at Caltech
- Moore says nanoelectronics face tough challenges - CNET News.com
- ^ Silicon compiler
- Carver Mead (2002). Collective Electrodynamics: Quantum Foundations of Electromagnetism. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-63260-8.
- "Carver Mead and Chris Diorio, founders of Impinj".
- Reiss, Spencer (September 2004). "Carver Mead's Natural Inspiration" (PDF). Technology Revies. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - 1981 Electronics Award for Achievement
- Carver Mead- recipient of the Wetherill Medal
- A. Richard Newton: "Presentation of the 1996 Phil Kaufman Award to Professor Carver A. Mead", 12th November, 1996
- Carver Mead- Winner of the 1999 Lemelson–MIT Prize
- 2002 recipients of the National Medal of Technology
- 2002 recipients of the Computer History Museum Fellow Award
- BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award
External links
Categories:
- Use dmy dates from August 2010
- 1934 births
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Living people
- American computer scientists
- American electronics engineers
- American computer businesspeople
- Electronic design automation people
- Lemelson–MIT Prize
- National Medal of Technology recipients
- California Institute of Technology alumni
- California Institute of Technology faculty
- Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering