Bijan Davari (born September 16, 1954) is an

Iranian-American Iranian Americans are United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian ancestry or who hold Iranian citizenship. Iranian Americans are among the most highly educated people in the United States. They have historically excelled in busine ...

engineer. He is an IBM Fellow and Vice President at IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center, Yorktown Hts, NY. His pioneering work in the

miniaturization Miniaturization ( Br.Eng.: ''Miniaturisation'') is the trend to manufacture ever smaller mechanical, optical and electronic products and devices. Examples include miniaturization of mobile phones, computers and vehicle engine downsizing. In el ...

semiconductor devices A semiconductor device is an electronic component that relies on the electronic properties of a semiconductor material (primarily silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide, as well as organic semiconductors) for its function. Its conductivity l ...

changed the world of

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

. His research led to the first generation of voltage-scaled deep-submicron

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 MOSF ...

with sufficient performance to totally replace bipolar technology in IBM mainframes and enable new high-performance UNIX servers. As head of IBM’s Semiconductor Research Center (SRDC), he led IBM into the use of Copper interconnect, silicon on insulator (SOI), and Embedded DRAM before its rivals. He is a member of the U.S.

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 of ...

and is known for his seminal contributions to the field of

technology. He is an IEEE Fellow, recipient of the

J J Ebers Award The J. J. Ebers Award was established in 1971 to foster progress in electron devices. It commemorates Jewell James Ebers, whose contributions, particularly to transistors, shaped the understanding and technology of electron devices. It is presen ...

in 2005 and

IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award The IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award is a Technical Field Award presented by the IEEE for outstanding contributions to solid-state devices and technology. The award may be presented to an individual or a team of up to three people. It was established ...

in 2010. At the present time, he leads the Next Generation Systems Area of research.

Education

Bijan Davari was born in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, in 1954. He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from

Sharif University of Technology Sharif University of Technology (SUT; fa, دانشگاه صنعتی شریف) is a public research university in Tehran, Iran. It is widely considered as the nation's most prestigious and leading institution for science, technology, enginee ...

, Tehran, Iran, and his master's degree from

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

(RPI). He received his doctorate from RPI as well with a thesis on the interface behavior of semiconductor devices, and joined IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center in 1984.

Technical achievements

At IBM, Dr. Davari worked on ways to improve

MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...

(metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) and

(complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) technology, which provides the basis for much of today's

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...

processing. In 1985, Davari began the task of defining IBM's next generation of CMOS integrated circuits, which came to be called CMOS-5X. He led the research efforts that produced the first generation of high-performance, low voltage deep submicron CMOS technology. CMOS-5X served as the basis for the PowerPC® 601+ and several other microprocessors, including those used in IBM System/390 servers. Dr. Davari defined the roadmap for technology and voltage scaling for IBM which influenced the CMOS roadmap for the industry down to 70 nm regime. This technology led to several generations of high-performance, low-voltage and low-power CMOS technologies that enabled servers, portable

computers A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

and battery powered handheld devices. Dr. Davari and his team at IBM also demonstrated the first

shallow trench isolation Shallow trench isolation (STI), also known as box isolation technique, is an integrated circuit feature which prevents electric current leakage between adjacent semiconductor device components. STI is generally used on CMOS process technology ...

(STI) process. STI helps prevent electrical current leakage between semiconductor devices on an integrated circuit. STI process was first used in IBM's 0.5-micrometer technology node for high-performance CMOS logic and in 16-Megabit dynamic RAM. It was eventually used widely throughout the industry. In 1987, Dr. Davari led an IBM research team that demonstrated the first MOSFET with

10 nanometer In semiconductor fabrication, the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) defines the 10 nm process as the MOSFET technology node following the 14 nm node. 10 nm class denotes chips made using process technologies between 10 a ...

gate oxide The gate oxide is the dielectric layer that separates the gate terminal of a MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) from the underlying source and drain terminals as well as the conductive channel that connects source and drain ...

thickness, using

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isol ...

-gate technology. In 1988, he led an IBM team that demonstrated high-performance dual-gate

devices with

180 nm The 180 nm process refers to the level of MOSFET (CMOS) semiconductor process technology that was commercialized around the 1998–2000 timeframe by leading semiconductor companies, starting with TSMC and Fujitsu, then followed by Sony, Tosh ...

to 250nm channel lengths. In 1998, Dr. Davari was appointed as the Vice President in charge of IBM’s Semiconductor Research Center (SRDC). In this role he is credited with leading IBM to become a pioneer in the use of Copper Interconnect, silicon on insulator (SOI), and Embedded DRAM. SRDC attracted many industry partners, including semiconductor manufacturers, tools vendors, material suppliers, and chip design houses. The users included the big three in gaming chips Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft’s Xbox--along with Apple for their Mac offerings and AMD. This gave IBM the economy of scale and powerful financial recoveries to sustain and expand its leadership in Semiconductor technology. Dr. Davari was one of the leaders in the

Cell Broadband Engine Cell is a multi-core microprocessor microarchitecture that combines a general-purpose PowerPC core of modest performance with streamlined coprocessing elements which greatly accelerate multimedia and vector processing applications, as well as m ...

work at IBM, which was used to build the first Cell-based supercomputer, IBM Roadrunner. In 2008, the Roadrunner supercomputer was the first to break the petaflop barrier, reaching a processing speed of 1.026 petaflops.

Selected awards and honors

IBM Fellow An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM's CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achiev ...

, 1996. *

, 2005 *

, 2010 *

, 2014

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davari, Bijan Living people IBM Fellows American electronics engineers IBM employees Fellow Members of the IEEE Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering 1954 births Iranian electrical engineers Iranian electronics engineers Sharif University of Technology alumni American people of Iranian descent