Carlos A. Paz de Araújo (born in Natal) is a

Brazilian American Brazilian Americans ( pt, brasileiros americanos or ) are Americans who are of full or partial Brazilian ancestry. The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates the Brazilian American population to be 1,775,000, the largest of any Brazilia ...

scientist and

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

with nearly 600 patents registered in his name. Most of them are associated with

nanotechnology Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...

, particularly a ferroelectric memory chip (

FeRAM Ferroelectric RAM (FeRAM, F-RAM or FRAM) is a random-access memory similar in construction to dynamic random-access memory, DRAM but using a ferroelectric layer instead of a dielectric layer to achieve non-volatility. FeRAM is one of a growing ...

)

Career and inventions

As a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs The University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) is a public research university in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is one of four campuses that make up the University of Colorado system. As of Fall 2017, UCCS had over 12,400 undergraduate an ...

, Paz de Araujo's work led to the development of integrated circuit-embedded FeRAMs used in smart cards,

electronic money Digital currency (digital money, electronic money or electronic currency) is any currency, money, or money-like asset that is primarily managed, stored or exchanged on digital computer systems, especially over the internet. Types of digital cu ...

and other products. As a founder of

RAMTRON Cypress Semiconductor was an American semiconductor design and manufacturing company. It offered Flash memory, NOR flash memories, F-RAM and SRAM Traveo microcontrollers, PSoC, PSoC programmable system-on-chip solutions, analog and Power manage ...

and chairman and founder of Symetrix Corporation, both in Colorado Springs, Colorado, he identified SrBi2Ta203 (SBT), the ferroelectric material used in the most advanced FeRAMs. This material resolves the fatigue problem and fabrication difficulties in memory chips and ensures that stored information is retained. Paz de Araujo and his colleagues were the first to use ferroelectric thin-films as a high-k capacitor for cellular phones, integrated on a set of gallium arsenide chips. The resulting devices were 50 times smaller and drew a fraction of the power of their predecessors. Working with scientists at Matsushita Electric Industry Company in Japan, he then adapted SBT technology to contactless smart cards that permit information to be continuously upgraded during use. He is the editor o
Integrated Ferroelectrics
and chairman of the International Symposium on Integrated Ferroelectrics. He has edited two books on integrated ferroelectrics and is the author or coauthor of more than 290 papers on ferroelectrics. He has bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. He was the first Brazilian to win the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

IEEE Daniel E. Noble Award. Panasonic, the Japanese electronics giant, has acquired 9% of the equity of his company, Symetrix Corporation.

References

External links

IEEE - 2006 Daniel E. Noble Award

University of Notre Dame - Notre Dame Triple Domer Wins 2006 IEEE Daniel E. Noble Award
{{DEFAULTSORT:Araujo, Carlos Paz De Brazilian scientists Living people People from Natal, Rio Grande do Norte IEEE award recipients Brazilian expatriate academics in the United States Year of birth missing (living people)