IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Spring 2014 - 60

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Robert Meyer Receives the 2014 Donald O. Pederson Award

IEEE President Roberto de Marca presented the Donald O. Pederson and
Frederik Philips field awards, at the
ISSCC 2014 plenary awards program,
respectively, to University of California, Berkeley, Professor Emeritus
Robert G. Meyer and Henry T. Nicholas III, a cofounder and the first CEO
of Broadcom.
Of Prof. Meyer, de Marca said,
"Today we are honoring IEEE Life
Fellow Robert G. Meyer 'for pioneering contributions to the design and
modeling of analog and radio frequency circuits.'
"Robert Meyer revolutionized the
use of on-chip inductors in silicon
radio frequency integrated circuits for

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2014.2316072
Date of publication: 24 June 2014

IEEE President Roberto de Marca (right) and SSCS President Bill Bidermann congratulating
University of California, Berkeley, Professor Emeritus Robert G. Meyer (center) on receiving the
2014 IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award.

communications. Prior to his work,
on-chip inductors were thought to be
too bulky and inefficient for high-performance RF applications. Dr. Meyer

took a new direction and demonstrated their potential. Today, on-chip
inductors are an integral part of cellular device technology with nearly all

Reminiscing About Robert Meyer
Ali Niknejad, Robert Meyer's nominator for the 2014 Pederson Award,
was a Berkeley M.A. and Ph.D. student during Meyer's tenure at the
-university and has been a faculty member in the Berkeley electrical engineering department since 2002.
When IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine (SSC) approached him for
personal reminiscences about the intersection of their careers, he accepted enthusiastically, saying, "I'm super excited that Prof. Meyer has
been recognized with the Pederson Award and by the magazine."
SSC: What moved you to nominate Prof. Meyer for the Pederson
Award at this point in his career?
AN: I cannot think of anyone more qualified to receive this award
than Prof. Meyer. He's had a great impact on not only several generations of IC students at Berkeley but a worldwide community of students
and practicing engineers who learned from him through his textbooks,
articles, and taped lectures and videos.
SSC: Your remarks single out Prof. Meyer's influence as a teacher.
Is there a personal experience that stands out in your mind for having
formed your view of him as a Berkeley student?

s p r i n g 2 0 14

IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE

AN: Many students I know always cite Prof. Meyer's courses as the
best ones at Berkeley. This is because his courses open your eyes into
a whole new world of silicon-based RF electronics. He is able to teach
complicated subject matter with simple equations and key insights,
something that is too often missing in other sources. For the analog circuit designers, watching him fill the blackboard with circuit diagrams
and equations was like eye candy. It was an unforgettable experience to
be his student in the classroom.
SSC: Donald Pederson is known for having been extraordinarily personable, and Pederson award winners often seem to share
that trait. Would you say that Prof. Meyer, too, has a "Pederson
-personality"?
AN: Indeed, Prof. Meyer's personality and outlook is so amiable that
he is able to break the ice in the most tense of situations (preliminary
examinations, for instance) with his humor and his calm and friendly
manner. He loves circuits, and this comes through very easily in his
classroom. His love for circuits is infectious; it's one of the reasons I think
so many students enjoy his classes.

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