Carver A. Mead
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Carver Andress Mead (born May 1, 1934) is an American 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 The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
(Caltech), having taught there for over 40 years. He taught Deborah Chung, the first female engineering graduate of Caltech. He advised the first female electrical engineering student at Caltech, Louise Kirkbride. His contributions as a teacher include the classic textbook ''Introduction to VLSI Systems'' (1980), which he coauthored with
Lynn Conway Lynn Ann Conway (born January 2, 1938) is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and transgender activist. She worked at IBM in the 1960s and invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advance used in out-of-order ...
. A pioneer of modern
microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre-sc ...
, he has made contributions to the development and design of
semiconductors A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...
, digital chips, and
silicon compiler A silicon compiler is a software system that takes a user's specifications and automatically generates an integrated circuit (IC). The process is sometimes referred to as hardware compilation. Silicon compilation takes place in three major steps ...
s, technologies which form the foundations of modern
very-large-scale integration Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) c ...
chip design. In the 1980s, he focused on electronic modelling of human neurology and biology, creating " neuromorphic electronic systems." Mead has been involved in the founding of more than 20 companies. Most recently, he has called for the reconceptualization of modern physics, revisiting the theoretical debates of
Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. B ...
,
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
and others in light of later experiments and developments in instrumentation.


Early life and education

Carver Andress Mead was born in
Bakersfield, California Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...
, and grew up in
Kernville, California Kernville is a census-designated place (CDP) in the southern Sierra Nevada, in Kern County, California, United States. Kernville is located northeast of Bakersfield, at an elevation of . The population was 1,395 at the 2010 census, down from 1,7 ...
. His father worked in a power plant at the
Big Creek Hydroelectric Project The Big Creek Hydroelectric Project is an extensive hydroelectric power scheme on the upper San Joaquin River system, in the Sierra Nevada of central California. The project is owned and operated by Southern California Edison (SCE). The use and reu ...
, owned by
Southern California Edison Company Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of app ...
. Carver attended a tiny local school for some years, then moved to
Fresno, California Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, makin ...
to live with his grandmother so that he could attend a larger high school. He became interested in electricity and electronics while very young, seeing the work at the power plant, experimenting with electrical equipment, qualifying for an
amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communic ...
license and in high school working at local radio stations. Mead studied
electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
at Caltech, getting his BS in 1956, his MS in 1957, and his PhD degree in 1960.


Microelectronics

Mead's contributions have arisen from the application of basic physics to the development of electronic devices, often in novel ways. During the 1960s, he carried out systematic investigations into the energy behavior of electrons in insulators and semiconductors, developing a deep understanding of
electron tunneling Quantum tunnelling, also known as tunneling ( US) is a quantum mechanical phenomenon whereby a wavefunction can propagate through a potential barrier. The transmission through the barrier can be finite and depends exponentially on the barrier h ...
, barrier behavior and
hot electron Hot or the acronym HOT may refer to: Food and drink *Pungency, in food, a spicy or hot quality *Hot, a wine tasting descriptor Places *Hot district, a district of Chiang Mai province, Thailand **Hot subdistrict, a sub-district of Hot District ...
transport. In 1960, he was the first person to describe and demonstrate a three-terminal solid-state device based on the operating principles of electron tunneling and hot-electron transport. In 1962 he demonstrated that using tunnel emission, hot electrons retained energy when traveling nanometer distances in gold. His studies of
III-V compounds Semiconductor materials are nominally small band gap insulators. The defining property of a semiconductor material is that it can be compromised by doping it with impurities that alter its electronic properties in a controllable way. Because of t ...
(with W. G. Spitzer) established the importance of interface states, laying the groundwork for
band-gap engineering Band-gap engineering is the process of controlling or altering the band gap of a material. This is typically done to semiconductors by controlling the composition of alloys, constructing layered materials with alternating compositions, or by ind ...
and the development of
heterojunction A heterojunction is an interface between two layers or regions of dissimilar semiconductors. These semiconducting materials have unequal band gaps as opposed to a homojunction. It is often advantageous to engineer the electronic energy bands in many ...
devices.


GaAs MESFET

In 1966, Mead designed the first
gallium arsenide Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a Zincblende (crystal structure), zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monoli ...
gate
field-effect transistor The field-effect transistor (FET) is a type of transistor that uses an electric field to control the flow of current in a semiconductor. FETs (JFETs or MOSFETs) are devices with three terminals: ''source'', ''gate'', and ''drain''. FETs contro ...
using a
Schottky barrier A Schottky barrier, named after Walter H. Schottky, is a potential energy barrier for electrons formed at a metal–semiconductor junction. Schottky barriers have rectifying characteristics, suitable for use as a diode. One of the primary char ...
diode to isolate the gate from the channel. As a material, GaAs offers much higher
electron mobility In solid-state physics, the electron mobility characterises how quickly an electron can move through a metal or semiconductor when pulled by an electric field. There is an analogous quantity for holes, called hole mobility. The term carrier mobili ...
and higher
saturation velocity Saturation velocity is the maximum velocity a charge carrier in a semiconductor, generally an electron, attains in the presence of very high electric fields. When this happens, the semiconductor is said to be in a state of velocity saturation. Ch ...
than silicon. The
GaAs Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monolithic microwave integrated circui ...
MESFET A MESFET (metal–semiconductor field-effect transistor) is a field-effect transistor semiconductor device similar to a JFET with a Schottky (metal–semiconductor) junction instead of a p–n junction for a gate. Construction MESFETs are constr ...
became the dominant microwave semiconductor device, used in a variety of high-frequency
wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
electronics, including microwave communication systems in
radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...
s, satellite dishes and cellular phones. Carver's work on MESFETs also became the basis for the later development of
HEMT A high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT), also known as heterostructure FET (HFET) or modulation-doped FET (MODFET), is a field-effect transistor incorporating a junction between two materials with different band gaps (i.e. a heterojunction) ...
s by Fujitsu in 1980. HEMTs, like MESFETs, are accumulation-mode devices used in microwave receivers and telecommunication systems.


Moore's law

Mead is credited by
Gordon Moore Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law. As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is rep ...
with coining the term
Moore's law Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empir ...
, to denote the prediction Moore made in 1965 about the growth rate of the component count, "a component being a transistor, resistor, diode or capacitor," fitting on a single integrated circuit. Moore and Mead began collaborating around 1959 when Moore gave Mead "cosmetic reject" transistors from
Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...
for his students to use in his classes. During the 1960s Mead made weekly visits to Fairchild, visiting the research and development labs and discussing their work with Moore. During one of their discussions, Moore asked Mead whether electron tunneling might limit the size of a workable transistor. When told that it would, he asked what the limit would be. Stimulated by Moore's question, Mead and his students began a physics-based analysis of possible materials, trying to determine a lower bound for Moore's Law. In 1968, Mead demonstrated, contrary to common assumptions, that as transistors decreased in size, they would not become more fragile or hotter or more expensive or slower. Rather, he argued that transistors would get faster, better, cooler and cheaper as they were miniaturized. His results were initially met with considerable skepticism, but as designers experimented, results supported his assertion. In 1972, Mead and graduate student Bruce Hoeneisen predicted that transistors could be made as small as 0.15 microns. This lower limit to transistor size was considerably smaller than had been generally expected. Despite initial doubts, Mead's prediction influenced the computer industry's development of submicron technology. When Mead's predicted target was achieved in actual transistor development in 2000, the transistor was highly similar to the one Mead had originally described.


Mead–Conway VLSI design

Mead was the first to predict the possibility of creating millions of transistors on a chip. His prediction implied that substantial changes in technology would have to occur to achieve such scalability. Mead was one of the first researchers to investigate techniques for very-large-scale integration, designing and creating high-complexity microchips. He taught the world's first LSI design course, at Caltech in 1970. Throughout the 1970s, with involvement and feedback from a succession of classes, Mead developed his ideas of integrated circuit and system design. He worked with
Ivan Sutherland Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in computer graphics as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subje ...
and Frederick B. Thompson to establish computer science as a department at Caltech, which formally occurred in 1976. Also in 1976, Mead co-authored a DARPA report with Ivan Sutherland and Thomas Eugene Everhart, assessing the limitations of current microelectronics fabrication and recommending research into the system design implications of "very-large-scale integrated circuits". Beginning in 1975, Carver Mead collaborated with
Lynn Conway Lynn Ann Conway (born January 2, 1938) is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and transgender activist. She worked at IBM in the 1960s and invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advance used in out-of-order ...
from
Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
. They developed the landmark text ''Introduction to VLSI systems'', published in 1979, an important spearhead of the
Mead and Conway revolution Mead () is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 20%. The defining charact ...
. A pioneering textbook, it has been used in VLSI integrated circuit education all over the world for decades. The circulation of early preprint chapters in classes and among other researchers attracted widespread interest and created a community of people interested in the approach. They also demonstrated the feasibility of multi-project shared-wafer methodology, creating chips for students in their classes.''THE MPC Adventures: Experiences with the Generation of VLSI Design and Implementation Methodologies''
by Lynn Conway, Microprocessing and Microprogramming – The Euromicro Journal, Vol. 10, No. 4, November 1982, pp 209–228.
Their work caused a
paradigm shift A paradigm shift, a concept brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. Even though Kuhn restricted t ...
, a "fundamental reassessment" of the development of integrated circuits, and "revolutionized the world of computers". In 1981, Mead and Conway received the Award for Achievement from ''
Electronics Magazine ''Electronics'' is a discontinued American trade journal that covers the radio industry and subsequent industries from 1930 to 1995. Its first issue is dated April 1930. The periodical was published with the title ''Electronics'' until 1984, when ...
'' in recognition of their contributions. More than 30 years later, the impact of their work is still being assessed. Building on the ideas of VLSI design, Mead and his PhD student David L. Johannsen created the first
silicon compiler A silicon compiler is a software system that takes a user's specifications and automatically generates an integrated circuit (IC). The process is sometimes referred to as hardware compilation. Silicon compilation takes place in three major steps ...
, capable of taking a user's specifications and automatically generating an integrated circuit.Johannsen, D. L., "Bristle Blocks: A Silicon Compiler," ''Proceedings 16th Design Automation Conference'', 310–313, June 1979. Mead, Johannsen, Edmund K. Cheng and others formed Silicon Compilers Inc. (SCI) in 1981. SCI designed one of the key chips for
Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
's
MicroVAX The MicroVAX is a discontinued family of low-cost minicomputers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). The first model, the MicroVAX I, was introduced in 1983.(announced October 1983) They used processors that implemen ...
minicomputer. Mead and Conway laid the groundwork for the development of the
MOSIS MOSIS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Implementation Service) is multi-project wafer service that provides metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) chip design tools and related services that enable universities, government agencies, research institutes and ...
(Metal Oxide Semiconductor Implementation Service) and the fabrication of the first
CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...
chip. Mead advocated for the idea of
fabless manufacturing Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclus ...
in which customers specify their design needs to fabless semiconductor companies. The companies then design special-purpose chips and outsource the chip fabrication to less expensive overseas semiconductor foundries.


Neural models of computing

Next Mead began to explore the potential for modelling biological systems of computation: animal and human brains. His interest in biological models dated back at least to 1967, when he met biophysicist
Max Delbrück Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück (; September 4, 1906 – March 9, 1981) was a German–American biophysicist who participated in launching the molecular biology research program in the late 1930s. He stimulated physical science, physical scientist ...
. Delbrück had stimulated Mead's interest in
transducer A transducer is a device that converts energy from one form to another. Usually a transducer converts a signal in one form of energy to a signal in another. Transducers are often employed at the boundaries of automation, measurement, and contr ...
physiology, the transformations that occur between the physical input initiating a perceptual process and eventual perceptual phenomena. Observing graded synaptic transmission in the retina, Mead became interested in the potential to treat transistors as analog devices rather than digital switches. He noted parallels between charges moving in MOS transistors operated in weak inversion and charges flowing across the membranes of neurons. He worked with
John Hopfield John Joseph Hopfield (born July 15, 1933) is an American scientist most widely known for his invention of an associative neural network in 1982. It is now more commonly known as the Hopfield network. Biography Hopfield was born in 1933 to Pol ...
and Nobelist
Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superflu ...
, helping to create three new fields:
neural networks A neural network is a network or circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up of biological ...
,
neuromorphic Neuromorphic engineering, also known as neuromorphic computing, is the use of electronic circuits to mimic neuro-biological architectures present in the nervous system. A neuromorphic computer/chip is any device that uses physical artificial ne ...
engineering, and the physics of computation. Mead, considered a founder of neuromorphic engineering, is credited with coining the term "neuromorphic processors". Mead was then successful in finding
venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
funding to support the start of a number of companies, in part due to an early connection with
Arnold Beckman Arnold Orville Beckman (April 10, 1900 – May 18, 2004) was an American chemist, inventor, investor, and philanthropist. While a professor at California Institute of Technology, he founded Beckman Instruments based on his 1934 invention of th ...
, chairman of the Caltech Board of Trustees. Mead has said that his preferred approach to development is "technology push", exploring something interesting and then developing useful applications for it.


Touch

In 1986, Mead and
Federico Faggin Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group du ...
founded
Synaptics Inc. Synaptics is a publicly owned San Jose, California-based developer of human interface (HMI) hardware and software, including touchpads for computer laptops; touch, display driver, and fingerprint biometrics technology for smartphones; and touch ...
to develop analog circuits based in neural networking theories, suitable for use in vision and speech recognition. The first product Synaptics brought to market was a pressure-sensitive computer
touchpad A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...
, a form of sensing technology that rapidly replaced the trackball and mouse in laptop computers. The Synaptics touchpad was extremely successful, at one point capturing 70% of the touchpad market.


Hearing

In 1988, Richard F. Lyon and Carver Mead described the creation of an analog
cochlea The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.75 turns around its axis, the modiolus. A core component of the cochlea is the Organ of Corti, the sensory org ...
, modelling the fluid-dynamic traveling-wave system of the auditory portion of the inner ear. Lyon had previously described a computational model for the work of the cochlea. Such technology had potential applications in hearing aids, cochlear implants, and a variety of speech-recognition devices. Their work has inspired ongoing research attempting to create a silicon analog that can emulate the signal processing capacities of a biological cochlea. In 1991, Mead helped to form Sonix Technologies, Inc. (later Sonic Innovations Inc.). Mead designed the computer chip for their hearing aids. In addition to being small, the chip was said to be the most powerful used in a hearing aid. Release of the company's first product, the Natura hearing aid, took place in September 1998.


Vision

In the late 1980s, Mead advised
Misha Mahowald Michelle Anne Mahowald (January 12, 1963 – December 26, 1996) was an American computational neuroscientist in the emerging field of neuromorphic engineering. In 1996 she was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame f ...
, a PhD student in computation and neural systems, to develop the
silicon retina An event camera, also known as a neuromorphic camera, silicon retina or dynamic vision sensor, is an imaging sensor that responds to local changes in brightness. Event cameras do not capture images using a shutter as conventional (frame) camer ...
, using analog electrical circuits to mimic the biological functions of
rod cells Rod cells are photoreceptor cells in the retina of the eye that can function in lower light better than the other type of visual photoreceptor, cone cells. Rods are usually found concentrated at the outer edges of the retina and are used in per ...
,
cone cells Cone cells, or cones, are photoreceptor cells in the retinas of vertebrate eyes including the human eye. They respond differently to light of different wavelengths, and the combination of their responses is responsible for color vision. Cones ...
, and other
excitable cell Membrane potential (also transmembrane potential or membrane voltage) is the difference in electric potential between the interior and the exterior of a biological cell. That is, there is a difference in the energy required for electric charges ...
s in the retina of the eye. Mahowald's 1992 thesis received Caltech's Milton and Francis Clauser Doctoral Prize for its originality and "potential for opening up new avenues of human thought and endeavor". her work was considered "the best attempt to date" to develop a stereoscopic vision system. Mead went on to describe an adaptive silicon retina, using a two-dimensional resistive network to model the first layer of visual processing in the outer plexiform layer of the retina. Around 1999, Mead and others established
Foveon Foveon, Inc., is an American company that manufactures and distributes image sensor technology. It makes the Foveon X3 sensor, which captures images in some digital cameras. Foveon was founded in 1997 and is based in Santa Clara, California. In 2 ...
, Inc. in
Santa Clara, California Santa Clara (; Spanish for " Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in the Bay Area. Located in the southern Bay Area, the cit ...
to develop new digital camera technology based on neurally-inspired
CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...
image
sensor A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...
/
processing Processing is a free graphical library and integrated development environment (IDE) built for the electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching non-programmers the fundamentals of computer programming ...
chips. The image sensors in the Foveon X3 digital camera captured multiple colors for each pixel, detecting red, green and blue at different levels in the silicon sensor. This provided more complete information and better quality photos compared to standard cameras, which detect one color per pixel. It has been hailed as revolutionary. In 2005, Carver Mead,
Richard B. Merrill Richard Billings Merrill (1949–2008), a.k.a. Dick Merrill, was an American inventor, engineer, and photographer. Merrill was born in New York City, the son of Dr. Frederick Hamilton Merrill and Joan Williams Merrill. He was the adoptive grands ...
and Richard Lyon of Foveon were awarded the Progress Medal of the
Royal Photographic Society The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, commonly known as the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), is one of the world's oldest photographic societies. It was founded in London, England, in 1853 as the Photographic Society of London with ...
, for the development of the
Foveon X3 sensor The Foveon X3 sensor is a digital camera image sensor designed by Foveon, Inc., (now part of Sigma Corporation) and manufactured by Dongbu Electronics. It uses an array of photosites that consist of three vertically stacked photodiodes. Each o ...
.


Synapses

Mead's work underlies the development of computer processors whose electronic components are connected in ways that resemble biological
synapses In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron or to the target effector cell. Synapses are essential to the transmission of nervous impulses from ...
. In 1995 and 1996 Mead, Hasler, Diorio, and Minch presented single-transistor silicon synapses capable of analog learning applications and
long-term memory Long-term memory (LTM) is the stage of the Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model in which informative knowledge is held indefinitely. It is defined in contrast to short-term and working memory, which persist for only about 18 to 30 seconds. Long-t ...
storage. Mead pioneered the use of
floating-gate transistors The floating-gate MOSFET (FGMOS), also known as a floating-gate MOS transistor or floating-gate transistor, is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) where the gate is electrically isolated, creating a floating no ...
as a means of
non-volatile Non-volatile memory (NVM) or non-volatile storage is a type of computer memory that can retain stored information even after power is removed. In contrast, volatile memory needs constant power in order to retain data. Non-volatile memory typic ...
storage for
neuromorphic Neuromorphic engineering, also known as neuromorphic computing, is the use of electronic circuits to mimic neuro-biological architectures present in the nervous system. A neuromorphic computer/chip is any device that uses physical artificial ne ...
and other analog circuits. Mead and Diorio went on to found the radio-frequency identification (RFID) provider
Impinj Impinj, Inc. is a manufacturer of radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices and software. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The company was started based on the research done at the California Insti ...
, based on their work with
floating-gate transistor The floating-gate MOSFET (FGMOS), also known as a floating-gate MOS transistor or floating-gate transistor, is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) where the gate is electrically isolated, creating a floating no ...
s (FGMOS)s. Using low-power methods of storing charges on FGMOSs, Impinj developed applications for
flash memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...
storage and radio frequency identity tags.


Reconceptualizing physics

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
eigenstate In quantum physics, a quantum state is a mathematical entity that provides a probability distribution for the outcomes of each possible measurement on a system. Knowledge of the quantum state together with the rules for the system's evolution in t ...
s. The approach is related to John Cramer's
transactional interpretation The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics (TIQM) takes the wave function of the standard quantum formalism, and its complex conjugate, to be retarded (forward in time) and advanced (backward in time) waves that form a quantum interact ...
of quantum mechanics, to the
Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory The Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory (also called the Wheeler–Feynman time-symmetric theory), named after its originators, the physicists Richard Feynman and John Archibald Wheeler, is an interpretation of electrodynamics derived from the assump ...
of electrodynamics, and to
Gilbert N. Lewis Gilbert Newton Lewis (October 23 or October 25, 1875 – March 23, 1946) was an American physical chemist and a Dean of the College of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. Lewis was best known for his discovery of the covalent bond a ...
's early description of electromagnetic energy exchange at zero interval in
spacetime In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why differen ...
. Although this reconceptualization does not pertain to gravitation, a gravitational extension of it makes predictions that differ from general relativity. For instance,
gravitational waves Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that Wave propagation, propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliv ...
should have a different polarization under "
G4v The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...
", the name given to this new theory of gravity. Moreover, this difference in polarization can be detected by advanced
LIGO The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large ...
.


Companies

Mead has been involved in the founding of at least 20 companies. The following list indicates some of the most significant, and their main contributions. *Lexitron, videotype word processing *
Actel Actel Corporation (formerly NASDAQ:ACTL) was an American manufacturer of nonvolatile, low-power field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), mixed-signal FPGAs, and programmable logic solutions. It was headquartered in Mountain View, California, with ...
, field programmable gate arrays *
Foveon Foveon, Inc., is an American company that manufactures and distributes image sensor technology. It makes the Foveon X3 sensor, which captures images in some digital cameras. Foveon was founded in 1997 and is based in Santa Clara, California. In 2 ...
, silicon sensors for photographic imaging *
Impinj Impinj, Inc. is a manufacturer of radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices and software. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The company was started based on the research done at the California Insti ...
, self-adaptive microchips for flash memory and RFID *Silicon Compilers, integrated circuit design *Sonic Innovations, computer chips for hearing aids *
Synaptics Synaptics is a publicly owned San Jose, California-based developer of human interface (HMI) hardware and software, including touchpads for computer laptops; touch, display driver, and fingerprint biometrics technology for smartphones; and touch ...
, touch pads for computers * Silerity, automated chip design software


Awards

*2022
Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology The Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology is awarded once a year by the Inamori Foundation. The Prize is one of three Kyoto Prize categories; the others are the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences and the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy. The first Kyo ...
*2011
BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards () are an international award programme recognizing significant contributions in the areas of scientific research and cultural creation. The categories that make up the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards ...
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." * 2005, Progress Medal of the Royal Photographic Society * 2002,
National Medal of Technology The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...
* 2002, Fellow of the
Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...
"for his contributions in pioneering the automation, methodology and teaching of integrated circuit design". * 2001, Dickson Prize in Science, award announced 2001, lecture March 19, 2002 * 1999, Lemelson-MIT Prize * 1997,
Allen Newell Allen Newell (March 19, 1927 – July 19, 1992) was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND Corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and Department ...
Award,
Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
* 1996,
John Von Neumann Medal The IEEE John von Neumann Medal was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in 1990 and may be presented annually "for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology." The achievements may be theoretical, technological, or ...
, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers * 1996,
Phil Kaufman Award The Phil Kaufman Award was established in 1994 by the EDA Consortium (now the Electronic System Design Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community) to recognize individuals for their impact on electronic design by their contributions to electronic de ...
for his impact on electronic design industry * 1992, Award for Outstanding Research, International Neural Network Society * 1985,
John Price Wetherill Medal The John Price Wetherill Medal was an award of the Franklin Institute. It was established with a bequest given by the family of John Price Wetherill (1844–1906) on April 3, 1917. On June 10, 1925, the Board of Managers voted to create a silver ...
from
The Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memoria ...
, with
Lynn Conway Lynn Ann Conway (born January 2, 1938) is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and transgender activist. She worked at IBM in the 1960s and invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advance used in out-of-order ...
* 1985, Harry H. Goode Memorial Award, American Federation of Information Processing Societies * 1984, Elected a member of the
National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...
for great insight into the problems and potentialities of VLSI, and for helping to advance the art. * 1984,
Harold Pender Award The Harold Pender Award, initiated in 1972 and named after founding Dean Harold Pender, is given by the Faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Pennsylvania to an outstanding member of the engineering professio ...
, with Lynn Conway * 1981, Award for Achievement from ''
Electronics Magazine ''Electronics'' is a discontinued American trade journal that covers the radio industry and subsequent industries from 1930 to 1995. Its first issue is dated April 1930. The periodical was published with the title ''Electronics'' until 1984, when ...
'', with
Lynn Conway Lynn Ann Conway (born January 2, 1938) is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and transgender activist. She worked at IBM in the 1960s and invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advance used in out-of-order ...


External links


Official Website
* * *
Carver A. Mead Papers
Caltech Archives, California Institute of Technology. * 2022 Kyoto Priz
Achievement and Profile
page.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mead, Carver 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 Amateur radio people Fellows of the American Physical Society