BILL HEWLETT and DAVE PACKARD — In 1938, these friends and Stanford University alumnae set up their first workspace in a garage in Palo Alto, CA. Their initial capital was reportedly $538. They created the first Hewlett-Packard product—a resistance-capacitance audio oscillator. The HP Model 200A was used to test sound equipment. Sixty years later, they had a $25-billion company that was central to propelling technology forward (and would spin off their test and measurement business as a separate public company, Agilent Technologies). Aside from technology innovation, these famous founders are known for the work atmosphere that they created, dubbed "The HP Way."
See Hewlett. See Packard.

BARRIE GILBERT— This circuit designer, who holds more than 60 patents, created the Translinear Principle that is used in so many of today's ICs. He also is credited with uniting waveform sampling techniques and realtime oscillography in one instrument. Modern communications largely rely on his Gilbert cell, which is used as a mixer and frequency translator. Gilbert, an Analog Devices Fellow, started ADI's Northwest Labs design center in Oregon. There, he continues to work on RF products crafted with high-speed nonlinear circuit techniques.
See Gilbert.

JAMES CLERK MAXWELL — The "father of modern physics," as he is often called, discovered the theory of electromagnetism. His equations, which were proven correct by Heinrich Hertz, are at the root of computational electromagnetics. Maxwell put forth the idea that energies reside in fields as well as bodies. His work has impacted and spawned the fields of communications, thermodynamics, engineering, mathematics,and more. Surprisingly, the genius of his electromagnetic theory was not realized until after his death.

GUGLIELMO MARCONI — This Nobel Prize winner did an immense amount of work to prove that wireless communications was viable. Some of his major accomplishments include receiving the world's first patent for a wireless-telegraphy system in 1896. In July 1897, Marconi demonstrated wireless signals being sent over 12 miles for the Italian government. That year, he also formed the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Co. Ltd. (later re-named Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd.). Marconi transmitted the first wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John's, Newfoundland in December of 1901 (a total of 2100 miles). He also patented a magnetic detector, which long served as a standard wireless receiver. His work in short waves is credited with the creation of the beam system for long-distance communication.
See Marconi.

WILLIAM SHOCKLEY — This controversial character led the Bell Labs group that first designed a solid-state amplifier. The original circuit, which consisted of germanium and two gold point contacts spaced less than a millimeter apart, was created by John Bardeen and Walter-H. Brattain. Shortly thereafter, however, Shockley greatly improved their design. His version comprised three semiconductor layers that were stacked on top of each other. Current flowed through the semiconductor material. Voltage on the center layer could be adjusted to turn the amplifier on and off. They called it a transistor, thereby combining the words "transfer" and "resistor." In 1956, the three men received the Nobel Prize in physics for their work, which led to the development of the first silicon chip.
See Shockley. See Bardeen. See Brattain.

HP 8510 — In the early years of microwave engineering, engineers would measure the input and output voltages of their circuits with a voltmeter and calculate the insertion loss and return loss based on what they could derive from Maxwell's equations. Hewlett-Packard Co. then developed the vector voltmeter, which allowed voltage amplitude and phase to be measured. After some more developments, it came out with the HP 8510 automatic network vector analyzer, which combined HP measurement capability with the power of a microprocessor. Engineers could then automate complex measurements on a microwave DUT and apply error correction.

EDWIN ARMSTRONG — At only 22, Armstrong redesigned Lee de Forest's radio tube. He took the electromagnetic waves from a radio transmission and fed the signal back through the tube repeatedly. Each time, he increased the power. When the feedback increased beyond a critical level, the tube produced oscillation and made its own radio waves. He called this "regeneration." While serving in WWI, he later created the superheterodyne receiver. The "father of FM radio" fought to make frequency-modulation (FM) radio a success against the amplitude-modulation (AM) giants of the time and unfairly lost a patent suit for his "regeneration" concept. The radio tower that he built in Alpine, NJ, in 1937 was used to broadcast signals after the transmitters at the World Trade Center were destroyed on September 11, 2001.
See Armstrong.

WALTER SCHOTTKY — In 1914, this professor and researcher uncovered what became known as the Schottky Effect — the way that an electric field reduces electron work function. He also is credited with developing the space-chargegrid and screen-grid tubes. Schottky created the superheterodyne detection principle, which focuses on shot noise and electron thermodynamics. Among his other namesake discoveries is the Schottky Barrier, which was named for his efforts to verify the barrier layer in the metal-semiconductor contact. The gate contact of all MESFETs has its lineage in his work.

PHILIP SMITH — His namesake Smith Chart has been used for years to develop impedance-matching networks and to solve transmission-line and waveguide problems. The well-known chart is composed of constant-resistance circles, constant-reactance circles, radius lines, and circles of constant standing-wave ratio. It shows every complex impedance in one easily understood circle.

DAVID SARNOFF — This media giant, who founded both RCA and NBC, foresaw the eventuality of static-free radio, color television, VCRs, and more. He understood that by linking hundreds of stations and offering the right programming, television would catch on in America. Sarnoff was known to be a ruthless businessman when it came to patents and other ways of pushing technology forward. To protect its own interests, RCA reportedly did not help Edwin Armstrong in his legal suit against de Forest. Yet this original media giant can be credited with sending microwave engineering into an extraordinarily higher level of production and development.

JACK KILBY — In the early part of 1958, Kilby joined Texas Instruments. That summer, he used borrowed and improvised equipment to research an idea. In September, he proved that idea when he demonstrated the first microchip. Both the active and passive components were fabricated in one piece of semiconductor material, which was about half the size of a paper clip. Kilby's monolithic IC is the foundation upon which modern microelectronics is built. He held over 60 U.S. patents. In 2000, Jack Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.
See Kilby.