Dawon Kahng

Dawon Kahng
Name	Dawon Kahng
Birth date	1931
Birth place	Seoul, Korea
Death date	1992
Death place	United States
Fields	Physics, Electrical engineering, Materials science
Institutions	Bell Labs, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Samsung, Bell Telephone Laboratories
Known for	Invention of the MOSFET, floating-gate transistor, work on semiconductor devices

Dawon Kahng was a Korean-American electrical engineer and physicist noted for co-inventing the metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) and pioneering the floating-gate transistor. His work at Bell Telephone Laboratories influenced integrated circuit development, memory technology, and the semiconductor industry, impacting companies and institutions worldwide. He collaborated with prominent scientists and contributed to technologies later employed by firms and standards bodies across the globe.

Early life and education

Born in Seoul during the period preceding the Korean War, Kahng pursued higher education that led him from Korea to the United States, where he studied under prominent researchers associated with institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Harvard University, Columbia University, and California Institute of Technology. His academic trajectory connected him indirectly with figures and departments linked to John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Shockley, Robert Noyce, and Gordon Moore through the broader semiconductor research community centered around Bell Labs and Silicon Valley. Kahng's formative training occurred in environments that interacted with entities like IBM, AT&T, Fairchild Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, and Bell Telephone Laboratories research groups.

Career and major inventions

Kahng joined Bell Labs where he worked alongside researchers who had ties to Nobel laureates and industrial pioneers including Isidor Isaac Rabi, Claude Shannon, William O. Baker, and John Pierce. At Bell Labs he collaborated with engineers and physicists from organizations such as Western Electric, Lucent Technologies, Raytheon, General Electric, and Hughes Aircraft Company. During this period he co-developed key semiconductor devices that were essential to companies like Intel Corporation, Advanced Micro Devices, Samsung Electronics, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, and NEC. His inventions intersected with technologies used by research programs at DARPA, National Science Foundation, NASA, European Organization for Nuclear Research, and industrial labs involved with semiconductor manufacturing and microelectronics supply chains.

Development of the MOSFET and contributions to semiconductor devices

Kahng is best known for co-inventing the MOSFET with a colleague at Bell Labs, a device that transformed the work of contemporaries such as Jean Hoerni, Robert Noyce, Jack Kilby, Robert Dennard, and Elliott B. Sullivan. The MOSFET's adoption influenced the roadmaps of standards and consortia like JEDEC, SEMI, International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, and impacted product lines from Intel, Motorola, Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi. The device enabled scaling principles later articulated by Gordon Moore and supported architectures developed by John von Neumann, Maurice Wilkes, Claude Shannon, and designers at Bell Labs and IBM Research. Kahng's work also underpinned nonvolatile memory advances pursued by teams at Fairchild Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, Micron Technology, STMicroelectronics, and academic groups at University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University.

Later research and academic positions

After Bell Labs, Kahng held positions and collaborations that linked him with institutions such as Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul National University, Yonsei University, KAIST, and research partnerships with Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. He contributed to international conferences and societies including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, International Electron Devices Meeting, Materials Research Society, American Physical Society, and IEEE Electron Device Letters. His later research intersected with developments at IBM Research, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Xerox PARC, Hitachi, and government labs like Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Awards and honors

Throughout his career Kahng received recognition from scientific societies and industry organizations connected to awardees such as John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Shockley, Jack Kilby, and Robert Noyce. He was acknowledged in venues and lists compiled by entities like IEEE, National Academy of Engineering, American Institute of Physics, Royal Society, Korean Academy of Science and Technology, and industry award committees that also honored contributors from Intel, Texas Instruments, Bell Labs, and Sony. His inventions are referenced in historical accounts and retrospectives produced by museums and archives including the Smithsonian Institution, Computer History Museum, and national patent offices of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and counterparts in Japan and Korea.

Personal life and legacy

Kahng's legacy is preserved through citations, patents, and the continuing use of MOSFET and floating-gate technologies by corporations such as Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Micron Technology, SK Hynix, and Toshiba. His influence extends to educational curricula at MIT, Stanford University, KAIST, Seoul National University, and Peking University, and to standards bodies like JEDEC and SEMI. Historical narratives from institutions like Bell Labs, Computer History Museum, Smithsonian Institution, and academic histories at Harvard University and Columbia University document his role alongside contemporaries including Robert Noyce, Jack Kilby, Gordon Moore, Jean Hoerni, and Robert Dennard. Kahng remains a pivotal figure in the story of microelectronics, influencing technologies that power devices produced by Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics, Intel Corporation, Sony, and LG Electronics.

Category:Korean scientists Category:Electrical engineers Category:20th-century physicists