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Task 7 English

Robert Heath Dennard invented dynamic random access memory (DRAM) in 1967, which reduced computer memory storage from six transistors per memory cell to just one transistor. This made it possible to drastically shrink computer sizes and led to the development of personal computers. Dennard's single-transistor DRAM design became the standard for computer memory and is still used today. He received numerous honors over his career for his pioneering invention, including induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

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19 views

Task 7 English

Robert Heath Dennard invented dynamic random access memory (DRAM) in 1967, which reduced computer memory storage from six transistors per memory cell to just one transistor. This made it possible to drastically shrink computer sizes and led to the development of personal computers. Dennard's single-transistor DRAM design became the standard for computer memory and is still used today. He received numerous honors over his career for his pioneering invention, including induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

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Riris Cuupriit
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TASK 7 ENGLISH

Nama : Niha Nur Aini

Kelas : XII TKJ 1

In 1967, Robert Heath Dennard invented what is considered one of the most significant advances in
computer technology: one-transistor dynamic random access memory, or "DRAM."

Born on Sept. 5, 1932 in Terrell, Texas, Dennard attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas,
receiving his BS in 1954 and MS in 1956 in electrical engineering. Just two years later, he was awarded a
PhD, also in electrical engineering, from Carnegie Technical Institute (now Carnegie Mellon) in
Pittsburgh.

Upon graduation, Dennard joined IBM’s research division as Staff Engineer. He began his career in an
era when technicians fed punchcards into computers so big that they filled rooms and required their own
air conditioning systems. The first commercially available computer, UNIVAC, had been produced in
1951, but the notion of an average person owning a computer was still somewhat of a dream.

In 1959, Jack Kilby's invention of the integrated circuit constituted the first step toward the feasible
personal computer because the microchip made it possible to drastically reduce the size of a computer's
main memory storage unit. In 1966, Dennard took the second step. That year, his research team was
working on field-effect transistors (FETs) and integrated circuits, using the then standard six-transistor
memory cell for each bit of data. After an in-house presentation by a rival IBM team piqued his sense of
competition, Dennard set out to streamline the memory cells that he was working on.

At that time, RAM was a known and used concept: memory reserved for writing to and reading from in a
temporary fashion, to be erased every time the computer is turned off. However, in the mid-1960s RAM
required an elaborate system of wires and magnets that was bulky and power hungry, negating in practice
RAM's theoretical efficiency. Magnetic memory was, in effect, quite expensive as well.

Dennard's revolutionary achievement was to reduce RAM to a memory cell with only a single transistor.
His key insight was that it should be possible to store binary data as a positive or negative charge on a
capacitor. After several months of experimenting, Dennard had reduced his RAM cell to a small capacitor
and a single field-effect transistor, gating the flow of data to and from a data line. The ultimate effect of
Dennard's invention was that a single chip can hold a billion or more RAM cells in today’s computers.

Dennard was granted a patent for his one-transistor DRAM in 1968. By the early 1970s, the first DRAM
chips became commercially available, and by the mid-1970s, DRAM was standard in virtually all
computers. When personal computers became a realistic possibility, Dennard's system allowed them to
perform complex operations and still fit on a desktop and later, to become affordable. The rise to
prominence of the PC made Dennard a natural choice for the National Medal of Technology in 1988.

Since then, "How many megabytes of RAM. . .?" has become a commonplace question, and the answers
are more impressive for each new generation of computers. Dennard’s discovery led to the development
of the portable computing age, making possible the creation of hundreds of gadgets, from laptops and cell
phones to portable music players, gaming devices, and digital cameras.

A Fellow of IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center since 1979, Dennard has continued his career of
invention with refinements to RAM, specialized FETs, and low-voltage, high-performance operation of
circuits. He is also a co-author of "scaling theory," an analytical framework for studying the special
conditions of engineering microchips in ever more microscopic dimensions. He published this theory in
the 1974 paper “Design of Ion-Implanted Metal-Oxide Field Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) With Very
Small Physical Dimensions.” This is now a “classic paper” as recognized by the Proceedings of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in 1999.

Over the course of his career, Dennard’s work has resulted in 35 patents, some 90 published papers, and
numerous awards, including induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Edison
Medal from the IEEE in 2001. In 2005, he was awarded the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Lifetime
Achievement Award.

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