Its technology is used in virtually every computer, server and consumer electronic device on the market today.
If today you can watch videos on YouTube, listen to music on Spotify or use AI-based chatbots like ChatGPT, it’s partly thanks to this man. Robert Dennard, American inventor of the technology called dynamic random access memory (DRAM) in the 1960s, which laid the foundation for modern computing, died last month at the age of 91, the Journal reported. New York Times this week.
An engineer at IBM throughout his career, it was in 1966 that he invented the technology that would make him famous, allowing faster and larger capacity memory storage. “His discovery opened the door to a previously unimaginable improvement in data capacity, with lower costs and higher speeds, all using tiny silicon chips”Write the New York Times.
Numerous scientific prizes
“DRAM made much of modern computing possible”, greeted John Hennessy, computer scientist and president of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Patented in 1968, it is today used in almost all computers, servers and consumer electronic devices on the market, including mobile phones, video game consoles and digital cameras.
Throughout his career, Robert Dennard has received numerous scientific awards for his work. He was awarded the United States Medal of Technology by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, and was inducted into the United States National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1997.
