Links

Curriculum Vitae

Publications

Patents

Some Presentations

Articles of Interest

Some Photos

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, Eric R. Fossum received his B.S. in Physics (with Honors) and Engineering from Trinity College, Hartford, CT in 1979 while writing business and academic enterprise software. He then attended Yale University’s Department of Engineering and Applied Science in New Haven, CT 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 Canoga Park, CA. He received the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Yale University in 1984.

In New York City, as a member of Columbia University’s Electrical Engineering faculty from 1984-1990, he taught undergraduate and graduate classes in semiconductor devices and device microfabrication and performed research on CCD focal-plane image processing and high speed III-V CCDs. After leaving Columbia, he continued to work with students as an Adjunct Professor at UCLA and then at the University of Southern California where he has taught classes in semiconductor devices, quantum mechanics, and E&M, and guided the Ph.D. research of four additional students. He has also served on Trinity College’s Engineering Advisory Council since 1998 and Trinity’s Board of Fellows from 2002-2004.

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. While at JPL, he invented the CMOS active pixel sensor (APS) camera-on-a-chip technology and led its development and subsequent transfer of the technology to US industry. The CMOS image sensor technology is now used in most cell-phone cameras, PC cameras, digital SLR cameras, smart cars, swallowable "pill cameras", and in high-resolution, high-speed cameras for special-effects and motion analysis and represents a billion-dollar-plus per year IC business. While at JPL he was also named a Senior Research Scientist, the highest level on the technical ladder at JPL.

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. In early 2005, 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, where he leads a team of researchers in advanced image sensors.

Dr. Fossum has published 242 technical papers, holds 119 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 IBM Faculty Development Award in 1984, the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1986, the JPL Lew Allen Award for Excellence in 1992, and the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 1996. He was inducted into the US Space Foundation Technology Hall of Fame in 1999. In 2003 he received the Photographic Society of America's Progress Medal, and in 2004 received the Royal Photographic Society's Progress Medal for the invention of the CMOS active pixel image sensor technology. In 2009 he will receive the IEEE Andrew S. Grove Award for his “significant contributions to the invention, development and commercialization of CMOS image sensors.”

He founded the biannual IEEE Workshops on CCDs and Advanced Image Sensors (now the International Image Sensor Workshop) 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 the forthcoming 2009 Special Issue. 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 (IISW).

He is married to Susan Briggs Fossum, a public school science teacher, and has three daughters, and two stepchildren. With residences in California and New Hampshire, they enjoy living on Lake Winnipesaukee and restoring their rural NH farm property.

Contact: Eric at this web address