Inventors’ Corner: Hall of Fame induction for magnetic memory breakthrough

Two IBM scientists, Drs. Lubomyr Romankiw and David Thompson (retired), will be inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame on May 2, 2012 for their three U.S. patents that revolutionized data storage density and device ubiquity.

IBM has more than 4,000 active storage patents.

The patents – 4,295,173, 3,921,217, and 3,908,194 – are for techniques that produce thin film magnetic heads in storage devices. These heads greatly increased data storage density, while drastically reducing the cost, and today are used in everything from computer hard drives to commercial disk storage in digital cameras and mobile devices.

Dr. Romankiw holds over 65 patents and has published over 150 scientific papers. He is an IBM Fellow, a member of the IBM Academy of Technology, an IEEE Fellow, and an Electrochemical Society Fellow.

Dr. Thompson holds over 20 patents and has published over 30 scientific papers. He is an IBM Fellow, a member of the IBM Academy of Technology, a IEEE Fellow, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Other IBMers in the Inventors Hall of Fame

• Norman Joseph Woodland; Optically Scanned Barcode (UPC code), inducted 2011
• Louis Stevens: Data Storage Machine, inducted 2008
• William Goddard: Magnetic Disk Drive, inducted 2007
• John Lynott: Magnetic Disk Drive, inducted 2007
• Samuel Blum: LASIK Eye Surgery, inducted 2002
• Rangaswamy Srinivasan: LASIK Eye Surgery, inducted 2002
• Jim Wynne: LASIK Eye Surgery, inducted 2002
• Mark Dean: Microcomputer System with Bus Control Means for Peripheral Processing Devices, inducted 1997
• Dennis Moeller: Microcomputer System with Bus Control Means for Peripheral Processing Devices, inducted 1997
• Robert Heath Dennard: Field-Effect Transistor Memory DRAM, inducted 1997
• Gerd Karl Binnig: Scanning Tunneling Microscope, inducted 1994 
• Heinrich Rohrer: Scanning Tunneling Microscope, inducted 1994

Other IBM Milestones in Memory

	RAMAC
	The Floppy Disk
	DRAM
	Magnetic Tape Storage
	Rewritable Magneto-Optical Disk
	Racetrack Memory
	Atomic Scale Magnetic Memory