INDUSTRY

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies today announced that one of its distinguished engineers, Dr. Fredrick (Rick) Dill, has been selected as the recipient of the inaugural IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal for outstanding contributions to material and device science technology. Dr. Dill was selected for his leadership and pioneering innovations in the field of microelectronics processing, which have been instrumental in the miniaturization of storage devices over the last several decades. His pioneering research has most recently focused on products such as the Hitachi 4GB Microdrive, a new improvement to the industry's first 1-inch digital media, which can hold an entire continent of maps or 1,000 songs in a matchbox-sized form factor. "We selected Dr. Dill for the IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal because his pioneering research has had a profound impact in driving the storage industry forward and into new frontiers," said Dov Jaron, chairman of the IEEE Awards Board. "As a technology visionary, Dr. Dill's work has had a far reaching effect that will continue to be felt for years to come as the industry moves toward even smaller and more sophisticated methods of storage." Starting his career in 1958 with IBM and currently with Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Dr. Dill has more than 45 years of experience in a broad range of areas including microelectronics, measurements, display technologies, semiconductor manufacturing and process modeling. Throughout his career, Dr. Dill has been awarded more than 30 patents. His development of the semiconductor laser became the basis for CD players and he invented the Video-RAM for high performance displays. A decade ago, Dr. Dill observed that in building magnetic recording heads, very flat surfaces would be required in order to allow the continued shrinking of dimensions needed to keep improving the capacity of hard disk drives. He introduced a CMP planarization process from microelectronics that creates the necessary flat surfaces and has allowed continued improvement in disk drive capacity. Since then he has made major contributions to technologies that make smaller devices possible. "The fields of microelectronics and storage technology have benefited enormously from Dr. Dill's efforts. His research and innovations in storage technology have led to breakthroughs that have in turn enabled digital music players and other consumer electronics devices to continually shrink in size while increasing in storage capacity. None of these devices that we take for granted today would be as advanced, portable or small as they now are were it not for contributions from Dr. Dill's work," said Currie Munce, vice president of research, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "Hitachi GST prides itself on employing the best and brightest minds in the industry and we are pleased to see that Dr. Dill's lifetime of work is being recognized by his peers with such a prestigious award." Dr. Dill will receive the award at IEEE's annual event in Kansas City, Missouri on June 19, 2004. The award consists of a gold medal, bronze replica, certificate and cash honorarium. He is a previous recipient of multiple IEEE awards including the Electron Devices Society's Distinguished Service award and the Centennial and 3rd Millennium medals. The IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal is awarded by the Federation of Electric Power Companies and Semiconductor Research Foundation (both of Japan). The award was named after Jun-ichi Nishizawa, the "Father of Japanese Microelectronics" and recognized by the IEEE Spectrum as one of the geniuses of the 20th century. The winner is selected by the Medal's Council of the IEEE Awards Board competitively based upon the individual's contributions within the scope of the medal.