IBM Fellow Bernard S. Meyerson named inventor of the year for 1997 by the eastern New York Intellectual Property Law Association
Yorktown Heights, NY (February 11, 1998) – IBM Research’s Bernard S. Meyerson today will receive the Eastern New York Intellectual Property Law Association (ENYIPLA) Inventor of the Year Award for 1997 at the annual ENYIPLA meeting in Albany. Meyerson is being honored for his patented and perfected method for making low-cost semiconductor chips from silicon germanium, an alloy that improves their speeds and versatility.
A legislative proclamation from Senator Hugh Farley (District 44) will be read honoring Meyerson as Inventor of the Year and proclaiming the second week of February as Inventors Week in New York State.
Meyerson is being recognized as Inventor of the Year for his specific patent contributions in the field of advanced silicon and silicon-germanium epitaxial layers for use in microelectronics applications, such as integrated circuit fabrication. The award recognizes Meyerson’s U.S. patents, numbered 5,607,511 and 5,298,452, which are titled “Method and Apparatus for Low Temperature, Low Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition and Epitaxial Silicon Layers” and were issued in 1994 and 1997, respectively.
These patents have proven essential for commercially viable production of silicon-germanium bipolar transistors and field effect transistors, which are used in advanced telecommunications applications today. Using a novel method and apparatus, Meyerson discovered that epitaxial silicon layers and epitaxial silicon-germanium layers may be formed at temperatures far below those conventionally employed, an advantage which translates into increased speed in the operation of microelectronic devices. To date, IBM has a growing list of silicon germanium customers, including Hughes Electronics, Tektronix, Northern Telecom, National Semiconductor and Harris Semiconductor.
Meyerson is an IBM Fellow, and a senior manager of Electronic Materials at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. and at IBM’s Microelectronics Division in East Fishkill, N.Y. Prior to joining IBM, Meyerson earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from the City College of the City University of New York.
The ENYIPLA is an association of intellectual property attorneys and related intellectual property professionals whose practice is located within a geographical corridor which includes the eastern border of New York State.
IBM Research, staffed by approximately 2,800 researchers worldwide, currently operates facilities in seven locations around the globe: the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y.; the Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA; the Zurich Research Laboratory in Ruschlikon, Switzerland; the Tokyo Research Laboratory in Yamato, Japan; the Haifa Research Laboratory in Haifa, Israel; the China Research Laboratory in Beijing, China; and the Austin Research Laboratory in Austin, TX. Major areas of research include computer systems, computer applications and solutions, systems technology, physical sciences, mathematical sciences, storage and communications.
Source: IBM