Fujio Masuoka facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Fujio Masuoka (舛岡 富士雄)
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| Born | May 8, 1943 (age 82) |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Alma mater | Tohoku University |
| Known for | Flash memory NOR flash NAND flash GAAFET |
| Awards | IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Electrical engineering |
| Institutions | Toshiba Tohoku University Unisantis |
| Doctoral advisor | Jun-ichi Nishizawa |
Fujio Masuoka (舛岡 富士雄, Masuoka Fujio, born May 8, 1943) is a Japanese engineer. He is famous for inventing flash memory. This is the type of memory used in phones, cameras, and USB drives. He also invented a special type of transistor called the gate-all-around (GAA) MOSFET (GAAFET).
Contents
Early Life and Education
Fujio Masuoka was born on May 8, 1943, in Japan. He went to Tohoku University in Sendai. He earned his first engineering degree in 1966. Later, he completed his doctorate degree in 1971.
Career and Inventions
Working at Toshiba
After finishing his studies, Dr. Masuoka joined Toshiba in 1971. There, he worked on different kinds of computer memory. He helped create a memory called SAMOS. This was an early version of electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM).
He was very interested in non-volatile memory. This is memory that remembers information even when the power is off. Older memory types took a long time to erase. Dr. Masuoka developed a new way to erase memory much faster. He called this floating gate technology.
In 1980, he filed a patent for his new idea. His colleague, Shoji Ariizumi, suggested calling it "flash." This was because the erasing process was very quick, like a camera flash.
The Invention of Flash Memory
In 1984, Dr. Masuoka and his team showed their invention. It could store 8192 bytes of information. This was the start of modern flash memory. They presented their invention of NOR flash memory in 1984. Then, in 1987, they introduced NAND flash memory. Toshiba started selling NAND flash memory later that year.
The Gate-All-Around Transistor
In 1988, a research team at Toshiba, led by Dr. Masuoka, showed another important invention. This was the first gate-all-around (GAA) MOSFET transistor. They called it a "surrounding gate transistor" (SGT). This was an early type of 3D transistor.
Later Career
Dr. Masuoka became a professor at Tohoku University in 1994. In 2004, he became the chief technical officer (CTO) of Unisantis Electronics. His goal there was to develop a new 3D transistor, based on his earlier SGT invention.
He has many inventions to his name. He has 270 registered patents and 71 more patents waiting to be approved. Some people have suggested him as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Awards and Recognition
Dr. Masuoka has received several important awards for his work:
- 1997 - IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award
- 2007 - Medal with Purple Ribbon
- 2013 - Person of Cultural Merit
- 2016 - Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star
- 2018 - Honda Prize
See also
In Spanish: Fujio Masuoka para niños
