IEEE Awards Booklet - 2009 - 11

I E E E

M E D A L S

2009 IEEE
Founders Medal

2009 IEEE
Edison Medal

Sponsored by IEEE Foundation

Sponsored by Samsung Electronics Company, Ltd.

Craig R. Barrett

Tingye Li

For bold, creative and effective leadership in the
electronics industry, and promoting education, research,
competitiveness and corporate responsibility

For leadership, vision and pioneering contributions in
the field of broadband optical fiber communications

Combining a superb technical background with excellent
leadership skills, Craig R. Barrett developed Intel Corporation
into a leading innovator of microprocessor technology and
impacted the microelectronics industry as a whole. With a
career that has spanned from academician to technical contributor to corporate leader, Dr. Barrett rose from technology
development manager to chairman of the board at Intel, and
when U.S. leadership in integrated circuit technologies was
threatened during the late 1980s, it was Dr. Barrett's vision
that restored Intel as a leading innovator of microelectronics,
raising industry standards with processes that served as
models for other companies to emulate.

One of the most well-known individuals in optical fiber communications, Tingye Li has shaped the lightwave network
infrastructure we know today. With a career spanning over 50
years, Dr. Li's technical contributions, insight and leadership
have led to innovations and advancements resulting in highspeed commercial telecommunication transmission systems.
Optical fiber technology enables a huge increase in transmission capacity compared to copper-wire and radio-wave
methods and provides the capacity to accommodate ever-increasing amounts of Internet traffic. Among Dr. Li's many
technical contributions was his work with Gardner Fox in the
early 1960s that formulated the fundamental concepts of laser
resonator modes, demonstrating that an electromagnetic wave
bouncing back and forth between a pair of mirrors can resonate
for a number of modes of energy distribution. This work was
the first to show that an open-sided resonator containing a
laser medium has unique transverse modes of resonance,
which was fundamental to laser theory and practice.

He has driven significant improvements to the company's process
control, statistical analysis and problem-solving methods, and he
has fine-tuned Intel's manufacturing process, improving yields
and developing a higher quality materials supply base, fueling
enhancements in quality consciousness and introducing a standardization methodology that allowed processes to be transferred
from site to site, resulting in improved factory performance.

Dr. Li also led several research groups at AT&T Bell Labs that
demonstrated the first optical repeaters and experimented with
systems showing the potential of new optical fiber technology.
He was the chief proponent of adopting Erbium-doped fiber
amplifiers and amplified wavelength-division multiplexing technology during the 1990s, which revolutionized high-speed
long-distance communication by upgrading capacity over a hundred-fold. An IEEE Life Fellow, Dr. Li has previously received the
OSA/IEEE John Tyndall Award, AT&T Science and Technology
Medal and the IEEE Photonics Award. Retired from AT&T, Dr. Li
is now an independent consultant who serves on the board of
directors of several optical component and systems companies.

As an industry and education spokesman, Dr. Barrett has championed issues such as education, competitiveness, international
development and corporate responsibility. He has led the development of the Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, which
identifies technical challenges facing the industry, and the
University Focus Research Program, which funds and coordinates semiconductor research efforts for universities.
Dr. Barrett is the author of over forty technical papers dealing
with the influence of microstructure on the properties of materials.
An IEEE Life Member, Dr. Barrett served as chairman of the board
at Intel Corporation until his retirement in May 2009.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2009