San Jose, California and Helsinki, Finland - 09 Apr 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that researcher and IBM Fellow, Dr. Stuart Parkin, is the winner of the prestigious Millennium Technology Prize, awarded every two years by the Technology Academy Finland (TAF), an independent foundation aimed at supporting scientific research and new technologies that will benefit humanity. Dr. Parkin is selected for his discovery and invention of the spin valve, which enabled a more than 1,000-fold increase in the ability of computer hard-disk drives to store data. This groundbreaking technology gave us the ability to organize, archive, analyze and share vast amounts of human history, culture and knowledge in digital form. The prize is worth 1 million Euros.
Dr. Parkin, a pioneer in the science and application of spintronic materials, invented the spin-valve read head in 1989 at IBM Research and later transformed this scientific achievement into a practical and cost-efficient data storage technology at the heart of every computing device.
At the time and still today, businesses in every industry were looking to the future of storage and data management as they faced a problem springing from the very core of their success managing the increasing amounts of data created on a daily basis. Dr. Parkin's ability to understand and manipulate the properties, movement and interaction of various materials at the atomic scale brought the world a new class of storage technology still found in nearly every hard drive sold today and signaled a shift to a more data-centric than computing-centric world.
Technology Academy Finland is proud to be able to award the 2014 Millennium Technology Prize to Prof. Stuart S.P. Parkin and his innovations leading to a revolutionary growth in digital information storage capacity, said Juha Yl -J ski, CEO, Technology Academy Finland. Prof. Parkin's innovations represent the true spirit and every aspect of the Millennium Technology Prize: groundbreaking innovations opening up possibilities to totally new services which address a large audience and improve the quality of life. Furthermore, in the future Prof. Parkin's innovations may pave the way to a totally new era in computing with dramatically increased capacity and reduced power consumption.
Since the invention of the spin-valve twenty five years ago, Dr. Parkin continues to play a pivotal role in forging a new era of computing and the integration of technology into our daily lives. Building off decades of research into systems, semiconductors and their underlying chemical, electrical and computational bases, he also invented a new technology - Racetrack memory - that uses magnetic nanowires as high-density data storage devices and has the potential to out-perform and replace all of todays data storage and memory devices (disk drives, FLASH, DRAM & SRAM).
"I am both humbled and honored to receive the Millennium Technology Prize from the Technology Academy Finland, said Dr. Stuart Parkin, IBM Fellow, IBM Research. Who would have known that my invention would one day sit at the heart of today's cloud, social media and data analytics applications, and affect the way people share information and communicate with each other on the Internet, on our mobile devices and across the world. This prize is a wonderful affirmation of the importance and relevance of my research on artificially-engineered materials, which has been the focus of my work for over 30 years.
While continuing his work at IBM Research, Dr. Parkin has also been appointed to the positions of Director of the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics, a leading research organization located in Halle, Germany, and Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenburg, a university with a long and strong tradition in the sciences and humanities. Dr. Parkin will be pursuing a range of research activities including new storage-class memory devices, room temperature superconductivity and post-silicon cognitive computing at these institutes as well as at the IBM Research Almaden laboratory in San Jose, California. Throughout its history, IBM has collaborated with external entities, including universities, organizations and other corporations to advance research in a variety of technologies.
This includes investigating materials whose properties are influenced by spin-polarized currents that could allow for high-performance and high density memory-storage devices, and, secondly, materials whose conductivity is managed by the controlled flow of tiny ionic currents, leading to very low-power memory and computing devices that are inspired by the workings of the human brain.
About Dr. Stuart Parkin
Dr. Stuart Parkin is an IBM Fellow and Manager of the Magnetoelectronics group at IBM Research - Almaden in San Jose, California and a consulting professor in the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford University. He is also director of the IBM-Stanford Spintronic Science and Applications Center, which was formed in 2004. He received his BA and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge and joined IBM as a postdoctoral fellow in 1982, becoming a permanent member of the staff the following year.
About The Millennium Technology Prize
The Millennium Technology Prize is Finland's tribute to life-enhancing technological innovation. The prize is awarded every second year for a technological innovation that significantly improves the quality of human life, today and in the future. It is awarded by the Technology Academy Finland, an independent foundation established by Finnish industry, in partnership with the Finnish state. The laureates were selected by the Board of the Foundation on the basis of recommendations made by the International Selection Committee.
To learn more about how the spin valve wor
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
28/04/2024
Mediahaus delivers the first SRT live-streaming sports production over 5G with U...
27/04/2024
On April 26, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher E. Kubasik joined CNBC's Mor...
27/04/2024
PORTLAND, Oregon Audinate Group Limited, the developer of the Dante AV-over-IP solution, announced significant new additions to Dante Connect, its cloud-based D...
27/04/2024
TORONTO Bell Media has launched 10 English and French-language FAST channels featuring entertainment, factual, news, and sports programming. The new free stream...
27/04/2024
An extensive new analysis of the news segments in the broadcast evening news programs of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS has found that broadcasters devoted most of their...
27/04/2024
GERMANTOWN, Md. EchoStar's Hughes Network Systems has opened a new manufacturing facility and private 5G incubation center in Germantown, Maryland....
27/04/2024
Harry Pappas, one of three brothers who founded Pappas Telecasting Companies in 1971, died April 24. He was 78 years old....
27/04/2024
ATLANTA and LONDON Mexican telecommunications and broadcast company Televisa has selected Synamedia for an overhaul of its broadcast distribution....
27/04/2024
Participate in the Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this surve...
27/04/2024
SDVI Rally Access Workstation Earns Two Top Awards at 2024 NAB Show
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
SDVI, the leading platform provider for clo...
27/04/2024
Berklee's Music and Health Institute Launches Community Health Musician Cert...
27/04/2024
Charter Communications reported higher first-quarter profits despite continued cord-cutting and competition for broadband customers....
27/04/2024
Two environmentally-focused groups are partnering to engage the unscripted TV world in finding better ways to address climate change. Reality of Change is an ec...
27/04/2024
Sarah Garcia has been promoted to weekend anchor at KTLM McAllen, Texas, known as Telemundo 40. Starting April 27, she will anchor Noticias Telemundo 40 weekend...
27/04/2024
CBS Sports said it launched a new 24-hour free, ad supported streaming television (FAST) channel devoted to the UEFA Champions League....
27/04/2024
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts received $35.4 million in compensation in 2023, up 11% from the previous year, according to a proxy statement filed by th...
27/04/2024
Art Happens Here With John Lithgow, which sees the actor study dance, ceramics, silk-screen printing and vocal jazz with students in Los Angeles, debuts on PBS ...
27/04/2024
Remember Leave It to Beaver? Bewitched? Dragnet? When cable ratings were rising?...
27/04/2024
Next up for the weekend binge at Catchy Comedy is Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Every weekend, Catchy Comedy features The Catchy Binge, a marathon of a classic sitcom....
26/04/2024
Sundance Film Festival CDMX 2024 kicks-off today with screenings in 5 theaters in Mexico City and the opening-night film, FRIDA, directed by Carla Guti rrez...
26/04/2024
[Editor's Note: This interview is part of a larger feature about the women d...
26/04/2024
Once again this year, SGL Carbon opened its doors to interested children and young people. On the occasion of the German Girls and Boys Day, which took place on...
26/04/2024
Orders1 of $5.5 billion; book-to-bill of 1.06x
Revenue of $5.2 billion, up 17%,...
26/04/2024
Five Considerations For Communications Modernization In The 21st Century
In the digital-enabled battlespace, the Joint Force needs to shoot, move and communica...
26/04/2024
CBS Sports has launched Champions League as a new, 24-hour streaming channel that will serve as the year-round destination for nonstop highlights of the UEFA ...
26/04/2024
Despite tough competition in the streaming space, Roku reported solid results in Q1 2024, beating revenue expectations, with total net revenue up 19% YoY to $88...
26/04/2024
LONDON AND TORONTO Pinewood Toronto Studios has appointed Sarah Farrell as general manager of the Studios in downtown Toronto....
26/04/2024
Quantum to Offer Advanced Filesharing Technology and Performance in StorNext and...
26/04/2024
FilmLight Colour Awards welcomes 2024 entries and introduces new Emerging Talen...
26/04/2024
Picture Shop Announces Chris Evans as Head of Unscripted
Brie Clayton April 26, 2024
0 Comments
Picture Shop announced Chris Evans will lead Unscripte...
26/04/2024
Participate in a Survey - The Impact of AI on Media and the Creative Industry
Pascal Wagner April 26, 2024
0 Comments
By participating in this survey,...
26/04/2024
Toy maker Mattel said it is working with Samsung to launch its first free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels later this year....
26/04/2024
Trusted Media Brands (TMB) said it named Marty Moe as president....
26/04/2024
Ron Howard is the director on Jim Henson Idea Man, a documentary that premieres on Disney Plus May 31. Henson of course created Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Big...
26/04/2024
The ice continues to melt under the regional sports network business as the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League have made a long-term deal to broadcast...
26/04/2024
Heading into the upfronts, Warner Bros. Discovery said it launched Olli, a first-party data platform advertiser can use for converged, targeted advertising camp...
26/04/2024
CBS has renewed the drama The Equalizer, which will see season five on in 2024-2025. Queen Latifah stars....
26/04/2024
The CW has entered into an exclusive multiyear broadcast partnership for the Miss USA Pageant and the Miss Teen USA Pageant. The 73rd Miss USA Pageant will air ...
26/04/2024
Fuse Media isn't mincing words in a campaign urging its young viewers to register and participate in the 2024 elections....
26/04/2024
Dead Boy Detectives, a series from Neil Gaiman about a detective agency staffed by ghosts, debuts on Netflix April 25. George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri are in t...
26/04/2024
The Story Collective has gradually repurposed the former Mortlake Brewery to include production offices, workshops and sound stages
By Matthew Corrigan
Publi...
26/04/2024
Perkett joins the company following a 25 year career in product management, product marketing, engineering and user experience (UX) across multiple industries
...
26/04/2024
Teradek, the industry leader in wireless video transmitters and receivers, announced today the launch of new Bolt 6 LT 750 and Bolt 6 Monitor Module 750 RX with...
26/04/2024
NEW YORK Amagi has appointed Richard Perkett chief product officer (CPO)....
26/04/2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has announced the results of the 2024 NAB Radio and Television Board of Directors elections. The...
26/04/2024
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. & NEW YORK Mattel has announced a deal to launch its first three 24/7 free ad supported streaming (FAST) channels on Samsung TV Plus, Samsung...
26/04/2024
PORTLAND, Maine Viewers here can now receive the NextGen TV signals of five local stations with the launch of ATSC 3.0 service from host station WPFO, which is ...
San Jose, California and Helsinki, Finland - 09 Apr 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that researcher and IBM Fellow, Dr. Stuart Parkin, is the winner of the prestigious Millennium Technology Prize, awarded every two years by the Technology Academy Finland (TAF), an independent foundation aimed at supporting scientific research and new technologies that will benefit humanity. Dr. Parkin is selected for his discovery and invention of the spin valve, which enabled a more than 1,000-fold increase in the ability of computer hard-disk drives to store data. This groundbreaking technology gave us the ability to organize, archive, analyze and share vast amounts of human history, culture and knowledge in digital form. The prize is worth 1 million Euros. 
