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At the Peak of Technology: Seven IBM Scientists Named IBM Fellows

Seven top IBM scientists, researchers and developers have been named IBM Fellows, the company's most prestigious technical honor.

Announced in May 2001, this year's new Fellows include some of the information technology industry's leading experts in server technology, storage systems design, data management, data compression, laptop development and microelectronics.

"The individuals we honor at this event are IBM's most accomplished and decorated technical leaders," said Nicholas M. Donofrio, IBM's senior vice president, Technology & Manufacturing. "They're the ones creating the breakthrough technologies that are integrated into our products, services and customer solutions. It's their contributions and insights that speed our path to leadership."

Since the IBM Fellows program began in 1963, only 165 individuals have been so honored; 53 are active employees. Included among the IBM Fellows are five Nobel Laureates and four members of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

The seven new Fellows are:

Ravi K. Arimilli (IBM Server Group, Austin, Texas) is IBM's leading expert on symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) system structures, cache/memory hierarchies and system bus protocols.

His innovative concepts have been central to the industry-leading performance of IBM's RS/6000 and new eServer pSeries UNIX systems in commercial, technical and Web server applications. His novel system structures and cache micro architectures delivered such leadership servers as the RS/6000 Models J30/R30 and F50/H50, both of which set new performance records at time of announcement.

Currently, Mr. Arimilli is chief architect and lead engineer of IBM's forthcoming Power4 GigaProcessor Storage (GPS) subsystem, which extends from the level 1 caches outward to the memory and input/output subsystem. By sharing this common design among multiple platforms, the development cost of GPS products has been significantly reduced.

Dr. Donald F. Ferguson (IBM Software Group, Somers, N.Y.) is the chief architect and visionary behind WebSphere, IBM's industry-leading software platform for deploying e-business applications.

Currently, he serves as the overall technical leader for both IBM's application integration middleware architecture and business-to-business e-commerce offerings.

Dr. Ferguson invented WebSphere's predecessor, Component Broker, while working with key IBM enterprise customers to help them solve their application integration problems. As Java emerged as a Web programming language, he converted the concepts of Component Broker into a specification called Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs). Then, after working to make EJBs a principal component of a new enterprise-class version of Java, he led WebSphere's migration to the Java-based Advanced Edition that has become the industry's fastest growing Web application platform.

Dr. Jaishankar M. (Jai) Menon (IBM Research Group, Almaden Research Center, San Jose, Calif.) is a leading authority on the architecture and design of data storage systems and RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) technology. In the late 1980s, he led IBM's effort to create one of the first RAID controllers, which enabled multiple disk drives to appear as a single, large, super-reliable unit. Since then, he has influenced and contributed to the competitiveness of almost every IBM storage systems product, from RAID adapters for IBM's most affordable eServers to large storage area networks.

Dr. Menon has had a profound influence on the data storage industry through his innovations and technical leadership in the development of new and practical techniques for enhancing the performance and reliability of RAID systems, his vision that high-performance storage systems could be built from common inexpensive parts, and his invention of a way to emulate costly mainframe disk drives using industry-standard components.

Dr. Joan L. Mitchell (IBM Research Group, currently working with IBM Personal and Printing Systems Group, Boulder, Colo.) is a leading authority on the compression of image data for more efficient processing, storage and distribution. Her work and its applications have changed the way the world is viewed.

Facsimile machines, video conferencing, the Internet, digital photography and printing all reflect her major contributions to industry standards such as G3 and G4, JPEG, and JBIG-1 and JBIG-2. JPEG, for example, has been key to bringing quality images to the World Wide Web and the explosive growth of digital imaging. Inside IBM, Dr. Mitchell's innovations have resulted in fundamental advances in high-performance compression/decompression hardware and software for a variety of products, from special-purpose microprocessors to high-quality printers.

Arimasa Naitoh (IBM Asia-Pacific Technical Operations, Yamato, Japan) has been the lead architect and chief designer of IBM's highly regarded ThinkPad notebook computers ever since the original ThinkPad 700's 1992 debut.

As a result of his efforts, IBM has consistently launched the industry's thinnest, lightest and longest battery-life notebook PCs with leading-edge technology. His innovations that differentiated ThinkPads from other notebooks and were copied by the industry include the thin-frame LCD screen, removable drive bay concept and intelligent battery pack.

More recently, his legendary focus on usability and providing value to customers generated ease-of-use features and commonality and consistency among the new ThinkPad A, T and X series. Since 1992, ThinkPad products have received nearly 750 industry awards, and Mr. Naitoh has been a major contributor to that success.

Jeffrey M. Nick (IBM Server Group, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.) is IBM's eServer chief systems architect and lead technology innovator. A prolific inventor, his innovations have strongly influenced IBM S/390 (mainframe) core technologies and the delivery of Parallel Sysplex, which positioned S/390 as a leadership platform for advanced e-business applications.

Other key strategies he has championed include embracing Linux as an S/390 operating system, a virtual server technology that enables thousands of system images to execute concurrently on a single hardware platform. As technical chairman of IBM's Advanced e-Business Council, Mr. Nick leads a team of technologists representing IBM units and leading-edge customers that is focused on the infrastructure issues of the e-business transformation. In addition, as chairman of the eServer Design Council, he drives strategy and design initiatives that continue to enhance IBM's e-business solutions.

Dr. Ghavam G. Shahidi (IBM Technology Group, East Fishkill, N.Y.) is the chief architect of IBM's breakthrough silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS logic technology that is the fastest in the world. Overcoming challenges that had long frustrated many researchers outside IBM, he and his team pushed CMOS, the leading microelectronics technology used to manufacture computer chips, ahead by one to two years.

For more than a decade, Dr. Shahidi has been at the forefront of high-performance CMOS development. His fundamental contributions to SOI and high-performance CMOS extended from early research on materials to the qualification and first successful production of commercially viable devices. This achievement has once more strengthened IBM's leadership position in high-performance digital logic, forcing competitors to follow and spurring customer demand for IBM eServers and microelectronics products.