IEEE Awards Booklet - 2009 - 8

I E E E

M E D A L S

2009 IEEE
Robert N. Noyce Medal

2009 IEEE
Alexander Graham Bell Medal

Sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs

Eli Harari

Robert J. McEliece

For leadership in development and commercialization of
flash memory data storage products

For fundamental contributions to the theory and practice
of error-correcting codes and to the design of deep-space
telecommunication systems

Chairman and founder of SanDisk, one of the world's leading
semiconductor nonvolatile memory companies, Dr. Eli Harari is a
recognized leader in flash memory. Dr. Harari's vision for SanDisk
has been to create a revolutionary flash memory technology that
would enable low-cost solid-state storage to replace chemical
film or rotating magnetic disk drives.

Robert J. McEliece is best known for his many seminal
contributions to the theory and implementation of algebraic error-correcting codes. His numerous research articles have been
invaluable to the understanding of a wide range of problems in
information theory and coding. Dr. McEliece was one of the first
researchers to study convolutional codes, which became a staple
of channel coding for deep-space communications systems, and
of notable importance was his work on NASA's Galileo mission to
Jupiter. When the spacecraft's high-gain antenna failed to deploy,
threatening the ability to transmit photos and data from Jupiter,
Dr. McEliece was an important member of the team that reprogrammed the on-board convolutional encoder in a way that
saved most of the data.

In 1988, embryonic flash memory technology was slow, unreliable and expensive. SanDisk pioneered numerous technological
breakthroughs, captured in more than 1500 patents, which systematically overcame these limitations, drove costs down and
opened new large-scale markets. The flash chip was re-architected and mated with sophisticated controllers that provided
reliable high-speed multiple writes, while multi-level cell (MLC)
technology and Moore's Law lowered costs drastically. SanDisk
worked with major competitors to create new industry-standard
formats such as the PC Card, CompactFlash, Secure Digital (SD)
card, Memory Stick, miniSD and microSD.

His other achievements include the much-celebrated "McEliece,
Rodmich, Rumsey, Welch Bound." The MRRW Bound is the best
known upper bound on the tradeoff between rate and minimum
distance of the best binary codes.

Over the past 20 years, flash products brought about the demise
of 35 mm film due to digital film cards, eliminated tape and CDs
in favor of flash-based MP3 players, replaced floppy disks with
USB flash drives and will soon gradually supplant DVDs and hard
disk drives with flash solid-state disks. Flash has become
pervasive and ubiquitous, enabling content on-the-go any time,
anywhere-in consumer electronics, mobile phones and industrial/automotive/medical and military devices.

He also created the McEliece Theorem, which identifies the
largest power of p that divides all the weights in a p-ary cyclic
code, and which contains the Ax divisibility theorem as a special
case, considered to be one of the deepest mathematical results
to come out of coding theory.
Dr. McEliece has contributed to the design of error-correction
telecommunication systems for NASA/JPL spacecraft and for
mass-market data storage systems (flash memories and disks)
for Sony consumer electronics. An IEEE Life Fellow, Dr. McEliece
is the Allen E. Puckett Professor and Professor of Electrical
Engineering Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, and is also a consultant to the NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena.

An IEEE member with over 100 patents, Dr. Harari's contributions have earned him widespread recognition, including the
2006 IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Data Storage Device Technology
Award. He has served as Chairman and CEO since SanDisk's
inception in 1988, growing the company to over $3 billion in
annual revenues.

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