Ralph Ernest Meagher

Co-creator of the ILLIAC series, culminating with the ILLIAC IV supercomputer, the largest and fastest in the world, Meagher completed his physics degree at the University of Illinois in 1949. He had...

Heinrich Rohrer

Co-designer of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), Rohrer shared half of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gerd Binnig for this invention; the other half of the Prize was awarded to...

Frank Hall Sumner

Co-developer of the implementation of Virtual Memory for the Atlas central processing unit — a concept now used in most computers — Sumner made a lasting contribution to modern computing. Born in Manchester,...

Ken E. Batcher

Designer of the Massively Parallel Processor, Batcher created one of the most significant parallel computing architectures of its era. Among the designs Batcher worked on at Goodyear were the: Massively Parallel Processor (16,384...

Chandu Visweswariah

Pioneer in circuit analysis and optimization and inventor of statistical timing, Visweswariah developed techniques used in every IBM chip design—including formal circuit tuning and gate-level timing sign-off. These fundamental contributions improved performance,...

David Andrew Patterson

One of the innovators of Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks (RAID), Patterson is an American computer pioneer and academic. A native of Evergreen Park, Illinois, he attended UCLA, receiving his B.A. in...

Charles Eric Leiserson

Inventor of the fat-tree interconnection network, a hardware-universal interconnection network used in many supercomputers, Leiserson is also a pioneer developer of VLSI theory. He designed the fat-tree for the Connection Machine CM5,...

Monte M. Toole

Builder of the device testing lab at Fairchild Semiconductor, Toole went on to found Novellus Surface Integrity Group (aka GaSonics International Corporation) in March 1971, serving as its Chairman until April 1998,...

Gerald (Jerry) Anderson Lawson

Inventor of the video game cartridge and the Fairchild Channel F console, Lawson transformed how games were distributed and played. A lifelong engineer and tinkerer, he was born in 1940 and grew...

Charles Ingerham Peddle

Main designer of the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, the KIM-1 SBC, and the Commodore PET personal computer, Peddle was an American electrical engineer. Born in Bangor, Maine, he worked in a radio...

Peter Andreas Grunberg

Peter Andreas Grunberg discovered the Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) effect, which is the basis of all modern magnetic read/write heads. He received the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics for this groundbreaking contribution.

Severo M. Ornstein

Co-designer of Mockingbird, the first interactive computer-based music-score editor, and overseer of its programming, Ornstein is a retired computer scientist and son of Russian-American composer Leo Ornstein. He joined MIT's Lincoln Laboratory...

Bradford Brooks

Leader of a team that developed a global program to test emissions from IBM products and ensure compliance with relevant requirements, Brooks has served as Corporate leader of IBM's Global Toxicology and...

Robert (Bob) E. Watson

Directed such "firsts" for HP as the first HP desktop calculator family, HP's first handheld calculators, HP's first LaserJets, and HP's first ink-jet products, Watson spent 30 years with Hewlett-Packard, serving in...

Marc Snir

Leader of the research group responsible for major contributions to the IBM SP scalable parallel system and to the IBM Blue Gene system, Snir is a parallel computing expert whose research and...

Harold Locke Hazen

Pioneer in the development of differential analyzers, Hazen collaborated with Vannevar Bush at MIT to construct the first widely practical such machine, built 1928–1931 and comprising six mechanical integrators. In the same year,...

Clive Marles Sinclair

Developer of the first mass-market UK home computer for under £100, Sinclair was a British entrepreneur and inventor responsible for the ZX80, ZX81, and ZX Spectrum computers, as well as the slim-line...

Leonard Bosack

Pioneer of commercialization of routing technology and co-founder of Cisco Systems, Bosack received the Computer Entrepreneur Award in 2009 for pioneering and advancing the commercialization of routing technology and the profound changes...

Sophie Wilson

Primary designer of the ARM microprocessor, Wilson is a British computer scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). She was born in Leeds, England, and was educated at the University of...

Terry G. Johnson

Founder of Miniscribe in 1980, an early manufacturer of 5.25-inch and later 3.5-inch drives, Johnson was a pioneer in disk storage products. Born in Ogden, Utah, Johnson graduated from high school in 1953....