Philip L. Hower was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on
April 9, 1934. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical
engineering from Lehigh University and University of Southern
California, and the PhD degree in electrical engineering from
Stanford University.
From 1966 to 1971 he worked at Fairchild R&D Laboratories
in Palo Alto, California. There in collaboration with V.G.K.
Reddi, he identified avalanche injection as a triggering mechanism
for second breakdown in bipolar transistors. Other work included
the design and development of GaAs FET's and modeling of
high-voltage bipolar transistors.
From 1971 to 1981 he worked at Westinghouse R&D
Laboratories in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he designed a new
class of large area, high-voltage power transistors. Other work
included the development of models for forward and reverse second
breakdown and various charge control analyses of the
quasi-saturation region. He also developed models for predicting
the I-V behavior of ZnO varistors and polysilicon resistors.
Since 1981, Dr. Hower has been with Unitrode Corporation in
Watertown, Massachusetts. His work is concerned with the design
and development of power MOSFETs, bipolar transistors, and
fast-recovery rectifiers. Recent efforts have led to the
development of a new bipolar transistor intended for synchronous
rectifier applications.
Dr. Hower has published over 35 papers dealing with device
behavior and power electronic applications. he has served on
numerous professional committees and is presently a member of the
IEEE Power Electronics Council