40 Facts About Mohamed Atalla

Mohamed M Atalla was an Egyptian-American engineer, physicist, cryptographer, inventor and entrepreneur.

Mohamed Atalla was a semiconductor pioneer who made important contributions to modern electronics.

Mohamed Atalla is best known for inventing the MOSFET in 1959, which along with Atalla's earlier surface passivation and thermal oxidation processes, revolutionized the electronics industry.

Mohamed Atalla is known as the founder of the data security company Atalla Corporation, founded in 1972.

Mohamed Atalla received the Stuart Ballantine Medal and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his important contributions to semiconductor technology as well as data security.

Mohamed Atalla made several important contributions to semiconductor technology at Bell, including his development of the surface passivation and thermal oxidation processes, his invention of the MOSFET with Kahng in 1959, and the PMOS and NMOS fabrication processes.

Mohamed Atalla later left the semiconductor industry, and became an entrepreneur in cryptography and data security.

Mohamed Atalla later founded the Internet security company TriStrata Security in the 1990s.

In recognition of his work on the PIN system of information security management as well as cybersecurity, Mohamed Atalla has been referred to as the "Father of the PIN" and an information security pioneer.

Mohamed Atalla died in Atherton, California, on December 30,2009.

Mohamed Mohamed Atalla was born in Port Said, Kingdom of Egypt.

Mohamed Atalla studied at Cairo University in Egypt, where he received his Bachelor of Science degree.

Mohamed Atalla later moved to the United States to study mechanical engineering at Purdue University.

Mohamed Atalla researched, among other things, the surface properties of silicon semiconductors and the use of silica as a protective layer of silicon semiconductor devices.

Mohamed Atalla eventually adopted the alias pseudonyms "Martin" M Atalla or "John" M Atalla for his professional career.

Between 1956 and 1960, Mohamed Atalla led a small team of several BTL researchers, including Eileen Tannenbaum, Edwin Joseph Scheibner and Dawon Kahng.

An initial focus of Mohamed Atalla's research was to solve the problem of silicon surface states.

Mohamed Atalla made a breakthrough with his development of the surface passivation process.

Mohamed Atalla found that silicon oxide layers could be used to electrically stabilize silicon surfaces.

Mohamed Atalla developed the surface passivation process, a new method of semiconductor device fabrication that involves coating a silicon wafer with an insulating layer of silicon oxide so that electricity could reliably penetrate to the conducting silicon below.

Mohamed Atalla's surface passivation method was a critical step that made possible the ubiquity of silicon integrated circuits, and later became critical to the semiconductor industry.

Mohamed Atalla first published his findings in BTL memos during 1957, before presenting his work at an Electrochemical Society meeting in 1958, the Radio Engineers' Semiconductor Device Research Conference.

Mohamed Atalla assigned the task of assisting him to Dawon Kahng, a Korean scientist who had recently joined his group.

Mohamed Atalla proposed the concept of the MOS integrated circuit chip in 1960.

Mohamed Atalla noted that the MOS transistor's ease of fabrication made it useful for IC chips.

In 1962, Mohamed Atalla joined Hewlett-Packard, where he co-founded Hewlett-Packard and Associates, which provided Hewlett-Packard with fundamental solid-state capabilities.

Mohamed Atalla was the Director of Semiconductor Research at HP Associates, and the first manager of HP's Semiconductor Lab.

Mohamed Atalla continued research on Schottky diodes, while working with Robert J Archer, at HP Associates.

Mohamed Atalla continued his work on light-emitting diodes, proposing they could be used for indicator lights and optical readers in 1971.

Mohamed Atalla left the semiconductor industry in 1972, and began a new career as an entrepreneur in data security and cryptography.

Mohamed Atalla invented the first hardware security module, the so-called "Atalla Box", a security system that secures a majority of transactions from ATMs today.

Mohamed Atalla was an early competitor to IBM in the banking market, and was cited as an influence by IBM employees who worked on the Data Encryption Standard.

In recognition of his work on the PIN system of information security management, Mohamed Atalla has been referred to as the "Father of the PIN" and as a father of information security technology.

In 1972, Mohamed Atalla filed for a remote PIN verification system, which utilized encryption techniques to assure telephone link security while entering personal ID information, which would be transmitted as encrypted data over telecommunications networks to a remote location for verification.

At the National Association of Mutual Savings Banks conference in January 1976, Mohamed Atalla announced an upgrade to its Identikey system, called the Interchange Identikey.

In 1979, Mohamed Atalla introduced the first network security processor.

Mohamed Atalla was awarded the Stuart Ballantine Medal at the 1975 Franklin Institute Awards, for his important contributions to silicon semiconductor technology and his invention of the MOSFET.

In 2003, Mohamed Atalla received a Distinguished Alumnus doctorate from Purdue University.

Mohamed Atalla was referred to as one of the "Sultans of Silicon" along with several other semiconductor pioneers.

In 2015, Mohamed Atalla was inducted into the IT History Society's IT Honor Roll for his important contributions to information technology.