Ralph Kelley Ungermann (20 January 1942 – 2 June 2015) was an American

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

. He is best known for founding

Zilog Zilog, Inc. is an American manufacturer of microprocessors and 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers. It is also a supplier of application-specific embedded system-on-chip (SoC) products. Its most famous product is the Z80 series of 8-bit microp ...

with

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 ...

and

Ungermann-Bass Ungermann-Bass, also known as UB and UB Networks, was a computer networking company in the 1980s to 1990s. Located in Santa Clara, California, UB was the first large networking company independent of any computer manufacturer. Along with competito ...

with Charlie Bass. Due to his work in U-B, he was considered to be a founding father of the data communications industry.

Early life and education

Ralph was born in

Provo, Utah Provo ( ) is the fourth-largest city in Utah, United States. It is south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Provo is the largest city and county seat of Utah County and is home to Brigham Young University (BYU). Provo lies between the ...

on January 20, 1942. When he was 3 years old, his family moved to

Santa Paula, California Santa Paula (Spanish for " St. Paula") is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. Situated amid the orchards of the Santa Clara River Valley, the city advertises itself to tourists as the "Citrus Capital of the World". Santa Pau ...

. At first, Ralph wanted to study

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

but he changed his idea to study engineering after witnessing the launch of

Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for t ...

, first satellite ever to the space. He enrolled to

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

and received a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

. Then he received

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

Computer architecture In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, t ...

from

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

. After college, Ralph started to work at Collins Radio, where he got fascinated with

semiconductor 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 ...

s and early LAN technology.https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2018/03/102738765-05-01-acc.pdf 1 year before

Rockwell International Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate involved in aircraft, the space industry, defense and commercial electronics, components in the automotive industry, printing presses, avionics and industrial products. R ...

acquired Collins Radio in 1971, Ralph left the company due to

business failure __NOTOC__ Business failure refers to a company ceasing operations following its inability to make a profit or to bring in enough revenue to cover its expenses. A profitable business can fail if it does not generate adequate cash flow to mee ...

Work at Intel

After searching for a company involved in

semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconduct ...

, Ralph joined

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

in 1971 under supervision of

. At Intel, he was responsible for microprocessor development and his team developed the

USART A universal synchronous and asynchronous receiver-transmitter (USART, programmable communications interface or PCI) is a type of a serial interface device that can be programmed to communicate asynchronously or synchronously. See universal asynchron ...

and the I/O chips. During the

1973–1974 stock market crash The 1973–1974 stock market crash caused a bear market between January 1973 and December 1974. Affecting all the major stock markets in the world, particularly the United Kingdom, it was one of the worst stock market downturns since the Great ...

, Ralph and Faggin decided to leave Intel due to low wages and form their own company. At first they planned to be involved in systems business, but as their departure became public via

Electronic News ''Electronic News'' was a publication that covered the electronics industry, from semiconductor equipment and materials to military/aerospace electronics to supercomputers. It was originally a weekly trade newspaper, which covered all aspects of ...

due to Intel's popularity,

Exxon ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

reached and convinced them to keep their dedication in microprocessors.

Work at Zilog

In 1974, Ralph and Faggin founded Zilog, Inc., the first company dedicated to

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

production for the

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

. Together with Faggin, they decide to develop a better competitor to

Intel 8080 The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibil ...

. Exxon gets interested in this and decides to invest in the newly found company. Thanks to the funds from Exxon, Zilog completes

Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...

and gets enormous commercial success. Due to the success of Z80, Exxon invests more to Zilog but as a result demands more from the company. Ungermann gets dissatisfied with the pressure and clashes with the Exxon management. As a result, he was asked to leave at the end of 1978.

Founding Ungermann-Bass

In 1979, Ungermann and a former Zilog employee named Charlie Bass founded

(U-B), one of the first companies specialized in networking. With the aid of new engineers and marketing experts, the company closes its first round of venture capital financing of $1.5 Million. Ungermann expands the company in a vast variety of fields by acquiring other companies such as Amdax in January 1983 and Linkware in February 1986. Due to stock market crash of 1987, company's financial status exacerbates. Thinking that its necessary to get under a big computer manufacturer for stabilizing the company and reaching to bigger clients, Ungermann pursued talks with

Tandem Computers Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for Automated teller machine, ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, and other similar commercial transaction processing applicati ...

. In February 1988 Tandem acquires U-B for $260 Million. Ungermann became a vice-president and board member of Tandem.

Later life and death

In 1993 Ralph briefly led the foundation of a company that developed online

videoconference Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...

software. In 2003 he was among founders of a Chinese investment company called China Seed LLC. Ralph died on June 2, 2015, due to

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

and his remains were cremated at Fernwood Funeral Home on June 28.

References

External links

Ralph Ungermann Interviewed by James Pelkey 7/19/88
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ungermann, Ralph 1942 births 2015 deaths American engineers American businesspeople