Albert Medwin Explained

Albert H. Medwin (October 27, 1925 – October 26, 2020) was an American electrical engineer. He held several US patents, including ones in the field of electronic encoders. Medwin was involved in the early development of integrated circuits while working at RCA in Somerville, New Jersey. In the 1960s he led the engineering group that developed the world's first low power CMOS chips ^[1] including a high speed shift register.^[2] He is also credited with leading the RCA group that introduced the 4000 series CMOS integrated circuit to the market.^[3]

Medwin was born in New York City, New York. He served in the United States Army during World War II. Medwin died on October 26, 2020, a day short of his 95th birthday.^[4]

Technical Background

Medwin's first patent (US 3,390,314) was issued in 1968 when he was 43. It is entitled "Semiconductor Translating Circuit" and was assigned to Radio Corporation of America (RCA). His second patent (US 3,588,635) was issued in 1971 and is simply titled "Integrated Circuit." It was also assigned to the RCA Corporation. At this point, Medwin left RCA to start his own integrated circuit development company called Ragen Semiconductor. He received his next patent (US 3,789,388) in 1972, titled "Apparatus for Providing a Pulsed Liquid Crystal Display." This was the first of his patents that was assigned to Ragen Semiconductor.

A number of companies were competing in the early 1970s to develop and commercialize a pocket sized calculator. Medwin's activities in this space were chronicled in Business Week, Electronics and other periodicals.^{[5] [6] [7] [8]}

Several years later, Medwin started another company call CGS Systems, Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey. His next patent (US 4,110,701) was issued in 1978 and is titled "Method and Apparatus for Near-Synchronization of a Pair of Oscillators, and Measuring Thereby." His final two patents are related to electronic encoders, "Electronic Measuring Apparatus" (US 4,367,438) issued in 1983 and "Electronic Vernier" (US 4,459,702) issued in 1984. Neither of these was assigned to a company.

References

1. RF Power Amplifiers for Mobile Communications, Patrick Reynaert and Michiel Steyaert. Springer Netherlands, 2006
2. "C/MOS Shift Register Clocks at 25 MHz" Electronics, September 14, 1970, page 180
3. Book: R. Jacob Baker. CMOS: Circuit Design, Layout, and Simulation. 2010. John Wiley & Sons. 978-1-118-03823-9. 7. 3rd.
4. https://orlandsmemorialchapel.com/albert-medwin/ Orland's Ewing Memorial Chapel: Albert Medwin
5. "Calculators Slim Down in Size and Price" Business Week, October 9, 1971, page 50
6. "Ragen Confident It Can Build Under-$100 Calculator" Electronics, October 25, 1971, page 32
7. "C/MOS Pocket Size Calculator...All American Engineered" Quality Management and Engineering, March 1972, page 10
8. "Liquid Crystals, Once Merely Curiosities, May Become Boon to Industry, Consumers" The Wall Street Journal, February 29, 1972