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Biography
Dr. Eric R. Fossum is the inventor of the modern CMOS active
pixel image sensor used in camera phones, web cameras, DSLRs, high speed motion
capture cameras, automotive cameras, dental x-ray cameras and swallowable pill
cameras. Dr. Fossum’s career has encompassed the fields of education,
government and entrepreneurial business.
Born and raised in Connecticut, he attended public school
in Simsbury and spent Saturdays at the Talcott Mountain Science Center in
Avon. He received his B.S. in Physics
(with Honors) and Engineering from Trinity College in Hartford. in 1979 while
writing business and academic enterprise software. He then attended Yale University’s Department
of Engineering and Applied Science in New Haven working on ultra-thin
tunnel-oxide MOS structures, and charge-coupled devices (CCDs). As a Howard Hughes Doctoral Fellowship
holder, he spent summers working at the Hughes Aircraft Company Missile Systems
Group on infrared focal plane arrays in
In
In 1990, Dr. Fossum joined the NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and managed JPL’s image sensor
and focal-plane technology research and advanced development. He served
concurrently as Asst. Section Manager for both the visible and infrared imaging
Sections, each with about 100 engineers.
In 1994, he was named a Senior Research Scientist, the highest level on
the technical ladder at JPL. At JPL he invented the
In 1995 he co-founded Photobit Corporation to commercialize
the technology and joined as Chief Scientist in 1996. He became CEO of Photobit
Technology Corporation in 2000. In late
2001, with over 100 employees and revenue exceeding $20M per year, Photobit was
acquired by Micron Technology Inc. and Dr. Fossum was named a Senior Micron
Fellow. He left Micron in 2003 and spent two years semi-retired as a consultant
and expert witness. From 2005 to 2007 he
accepted an assignment to lead Siimpel Corporation as Chairman and CEO, a
venture-backed start up developing MEMS-based camera modules with autofocus and
shutter functions for cell phones. During this period he transformed the
company from a 20-person R&D organization to 100+ person product-focused
company, raising over $25M in venture funding and creating strategic ties to
tier1 handset makers and their manufacturing partners. He returned to a semi-retirement in 2007 and
is presently a consultant with the Samsung Electronics Semiconductor R&D
Center, South Korea, working on advanced image sensors.
Dr. Fossum has published over 240 technical papers, holds
over 120 U.S. patents, and is a Fellow member of the IEEE. He has been primary
thesis adviser to 13 graduated Ph.D.s. He received Yale’s Becton Prize in 1984,
the
He founded the biannual International Image Sensor Workshop
(formerly the IEEE Workshops on CCDs and Advanced Image Sensors) and the SPIE
Conferences on Infrared Readout Electronics. He has served on program
committees for the IEDM, ISSCC, and SPIE conferences. He has served as
associate editor for IEEE Trans. on VLSI, guest editor for IEEE JSSC, and was
Guest Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices Special Issues on
Solid-State Image Sensors published in October 1997, January 2003 and November
2009. He formed and serves as President
of ImageSensors Inc., a non-profit public-benefit corporation for image sensor
specialists around the world and which operates the International Image Sensor
Workshop.
He is married to Susan Briggs Fossum, a public school
science teacher, and has three daughters, and two stepchildren. With residences
in
Contact: Eric at
this web address
Updated 14 January 2010