Research history highlights

IBM Research is playing a critical role in the development and application of new technologies that are revolutionizing information technology and science. Following is a sampling of leading innovations that IBM Research has pioneered, illustrating the scientific and technological advances of the organization during the past fifty years.

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  Carbon Nanotube Technology

  IBM has been a nanotechnology pioneer for more than 20 years. Most recently, scientists built the world's smallest solid-state light emitter, demonstrating the rapidly improving understanding of molecular devices. Other achievements include creating the highest performing nanotubes transistors to date and showing that CNTs can outperform the leading contemporary silicon transistor prototypes; demonstrating the world's first logic-performing computer circuit based on a single carbon nanotube; and developing a groundbreaking technique to produce arrays of CNT transistors, bypassing the need to meticulously separate metallic and semiconducting nanotubes.

  
  
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  Chip Technology

  IBM has long been a leader in innovative semiconductor research. From the development of the original building blocks for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) to advanced microprocessors such as the Cell processor, advances in underlying chip materials and manufacturing technologies have made it all possible by allowing chip circuitry to be made smaller, faster and less power-consuming. The advances include the introduction of the first copper circuits, enhancements to transistor performance through the use of silicon-on-insulator (SOI), strained silicon and silicon germanium (SiGe) technologies, and the development of new photolithography processes and materials. IBM's leadership in this field was recognized in 2005 with the announcement that the U.S. Government was awarding IBM a National Medal of Technology for its long history of groundbreaking work in this field.

  
  
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  Cryptographic Coprocessor

  IBM Research developed the 4758 Cryptographic Coprocessor, which is an advanced tamper-sensing and responding, programmable PCI card to be used with servers. Its specialized cryptographic electronics, along with a microprocessor, memory and random number generator are housed within a tamper-responding environment to provide a highly secure subsystem in which data processing and cryptography can be performed. In 1998, the 4758 Cryptographic Coprocessor achieved FIPS 140-1 level 4. The 4758 is the first computing device to achieve the level 4, the highest government validation possible to cryptographic modules.

  
  
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  Data Encryption Standard

  IBM has been a leader in security research. During mid-70s, IBM Research developed Data Encryption Standard (DES), block cipher cryptography. DES is a widely-used method of data encryption using a private key that was judged so difficult to break by the U.S. government. Since DES was adopted as a federal standard in 1977, it has served as the cryptographic standard for 25 years and enables secure communications and commerce. In 2002, Don Coppersmith, who was one of the research team members developed DES, won the RSA Security Award for Mathematics for his work in the field of cryptography.

  
  
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  Formula Translation System (FORTRAN)

  Formula Translation System (FORTRAN), introduced commercially in 1957, represented an enormous advance in computer programming languages. It was the first high-level language to gain widespread acceptance in scientific communities, as well as throughout business and industry, and to set a high standard for the way computers were programmed. FORTRAN continues as a tool for mathematically oriented jobs that require scientific and numeric calculations, such as geological exploration. Most of the world's large-scale simulation models are written at least partly in FORTRAN.

  
  
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  Fractals

  Fractal geometry makes it possible to describe mathematically the kinds of irregularities existing in nature. In 1967, a scientist at IBM Research, Benoit B. Mandelbrot, published a paper in Science introducing this concept -- seeming irregular natural shapes, such as the branching of trees, have the same form when viewed from close up or from far away. "The Mandelbrot Set," a fractal object discovered in 1980, has been described as the most complex, and possibly most beautiful, object ever seen in mathematics. In the 30 years since they were first identified, the study of fractals has brought new insight to a wide variety of fields, including mathematics, physics, earth sciences, economics, and computer graphics and animation.

  
  
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  Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) Head

  The Giant Magnetoresistive effect (GMR), wherein multilayer materials of various metallic elements exhibit greatly increased inherent magnetoresistance, was discovered by two European scientists in the late 1980s. Less than 20 years after the discovery of this amazing phenomenon, IBM Research scientists devised processes to easily and economically build GMR microstructures and harness the power of GMR. By using GMR structures in Magnetic Recording heads, IBM has introduced products with the highest areal densities in the world. IBM's GMR head technology will lead to disk drives of up to 40 Gigabits per square inch. Increased areal density has revolutionized the role of the PC allowing for complex digital image and even video production using a single desktop machine.

  
  
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  High-temperature superconductivity

  Two IBM scientists received the Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery in 1986 of high-temperature superconductivity in ceramic materials, an important breakthrough. These materials required significantly less cooling than previous generation superconductors and are far more efficient than the copper materials currently in use. As research in this area continues, high-temperature superconductors could have a broad spectrum of commercial applications ranging from high-speed interconnects on integrated circuits and printed circuit boards to more efficient electrical motors, power transmission lines, and magnetically levitated trains.

  
  
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  Magnetic disk storage

  In 1956, IBM revolutionized computing by announcing the first magnetic hard disk for data storage. Developed in San Jose, the 305 Random Access Method of Accounting and Control (RAMAC) offered unprecedented performance by permitting random access to any of the 5 million bytes of data stored on both sides of 50 two-foot-diameter disks. In 1984, the 305 RAMAC was designated an International Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. With the success of magnetic hard disks -- essential components of all computers today -- IBM built pioneering research, development and product organizations that continue to lead the data storage industry.

  
  
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  One-transistor dynamic RAM (DRAM)

  Most all computer memory chips today use the Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) technology in which each bit of information is stored in a memory cell consisting of one transistor and a tiny capacitor. This memory concept was first described in a patent by an IBM researcher issued in 1968. The one-transistor memory cell simplified a circuit in which multiple transistors were once used, permitting a significant increase in memory density. Today's DRAM chips typically store 64 million bits. DRAM is a key component of large computers, personal computers, and many other electronic products.

  
  
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  Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) architecture

  Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) architecture is the basis for most workstations and UNIX based servers in use today, and is widely viewed as the computing architecture of the future. The RISC concept simplified the instructions given to run computers, making them much faster and more powerful. Based on pioneering work at Watson starting in 1975, a first prototype was completed in 1980, and the ground breaking RISC Superscalar RS/6000 was introduced into the market in 1990, providing a lower-cost method of conducting high-performance calculations necessary for engineers and scientists. Today, this powerful computer architecture has applications in many fields owing to its simplicity and speed, and it is evolving as the basis for a new generation of faster and more powerful personal computing devices.

  
  
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  Relational database

  Individuals and businesses are able to manage and access large amounts of data faster and more easily because of the relational database. The concept, first published in a paper by an IBM researcher in 1970, enables computer users to easily query a database and quickly access the findings.

  
  
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  Scalable parallel systems

  IBM is a pioneer in scalable parallel computing, a technology that offers flexibility by joining together multiple computer processors and breaking down complex, data-intensive jobs to speed their completion. These systems are used in design simulations in several areas -- including weather prediction, oil exploration and manufacturing design for such items as jets, automobiles and turbine engines. Parallel architecture permits users to link personal desktop computers together in such a way that they can achieve the computing power once available only with high-end mainframes. A key benefit of this new technology is the ability to scale -- maximize or minimize -- computing power by linking several computers to use as one system, or by using each machine separately.

  
  
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  Scanning Tunneling Microscope

  The invention of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in 1981 allowed scientists to view the world from an atomic perspective for the first time. The revolutionary microscope, for which two IBM researchers Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer received the 1986 Nobel Prize in physics, revealed the topography of surfaces, atom by atom. As the STM evolved, its capabilities and those of related instruments have greatly expanded the abilities of research scientists to study a wide variety of atomic-scale structures and properties, and even to manipulate individual atoms and molecules.

  
  
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  Speech recognition technology

  IBM continues to advance computerized speech recognition, a technology that not only will revolutionize data input, but also will affect the way in which computers are used in business, government, academic and international settings. Among several key developments, IBM devised a way to apply statistics to a technique called dynamic programming, which addresses the problems associated with variation in how fast or slow words and parts of words are spoken. This technology forms the basis of IBM ViaVoice, which is now available in nine languages around the world. Among the speech recognition projects currently in development at IBM are efforts to expand and enhance the vocabulary of speech recognition, and to make the computer capable of not only recognizing what words are spoken, but also who spoke them and what was the intention behind the words.

  
  
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  Supercomputing

  In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue, a 32-node (256 processor) IBM RS/6000 SP high-performance supercomputer, became the first machine to beat a reigning world chess champion in a traditional match. Deep Blue now resides at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

  The underlying technology used for Deep Blue has continued to help with many business and industry challenges, including weather forecasting, financial market modeling, automotive design, and medical research and development. On November 8, 2004, an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer (a descendant of the Deep Blue work) officially claimed the top spot as the world's most powerful supercomputer. With its small size and power efficiency, Blue Gene has revolutionized the economics of supercomputing and brought this technology to the point where it can now be made more widely available and applied to a broader set of applications, including work with ASTRON to explore the origins of the universe or with EPFL to model the human brain's function to a degree never before possible.

  
  
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  Thin-film magnetic recording heads

  The thin-film recording head, introduced into hard disk drives by IBM in 1979, established our technological leadership in "areal density"- storing the most data in the least space. Using photolithography and plating techniques to make the coil for the inductive elements, rather than hand-wound wire structures, IBM designers made heads with higher performance than earlier heads made of ferrite ceramic. This development not only led to higher-capacity and higher-performance disk drives but also provided critical manufacturing expertise that would enable future developments to be quickly incorporated into IBM products.