Dr. B. Jayant
Baliga
1991 William E. Newell Power
Electronics Award Recipient
Professor B. Jayant Baliga of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC received this year's William E. Newell Power Electronics Award during the awards luncheon at the 1991 Power Electronics Specialists Conference on the MIT campus.Dr. Baliga was born in Madras, India, and received his B. Tech. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, in 1969. He received the M.S. and Ph.D degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1971 and 1974.
From 1974 to 1988 Baliga was a member of the General Electric Corporate Research and Development Center, Schnectady, NY, where he was Manager of the High Voltage Device and IC programs. At GE he originated the concept of functional integration of MOS and bipolar physics for power devices. One of his inventions, the insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT), is under world-wide production for power electronics applications. He also pioneered the concept of merging of PIN and Schottky physics for improving power rectifier performance. In 1979 he developed a figure of merit for evaluating semiconductor materials for power devices which demonstrated the significant promise of gallium arsenide, silicon carbide and diamond films for power devices, leading to a new field of research for these materials.
In 1988 Dr. Baliga joined the faculty of North Carolina State University as a Professor where he is continuing his research in power semiconductor technology and is establishing a Power Semiconductor Research Center.
Professor Baliga has published over 300 papers in journals and conferences and ho1ds 56 patents in his field. He has authored four books and contributed to 12 others. He was elected to the grade of Fellow in the IEEE in 1983.
Source: IEEE Power Electronics Society News Letter, Vol. 3, No. 3, July 1991.