Dawon Kahng (Korean: 강대원; May 4, 1931 – May 13, 1992) was a Korean-American electrical engineer and inventor. He is best known for helping to create the MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) in 1959 with his colleague, Mohamed Atalla. Kahng and Atalla developed the PMOS and NMOS processes for making MOSFET semiconductor devices. The MOSFET is the most commonly used type of transistor and is a key part of most modern electronic equipment.

Later, Kahng and Atalla introduced the idea of the MOS integrated circuit. They also did early research on Schottky diodes and nanolayer-base transistors in the early 1960s. In 1967, Kahng invented the floating-gate MOSFET (FGMOS) with Simon Min Sze. Kahng and Sze suggested that FGMOS could be used as memory cells for non-volatile memory (NVM) and reprogrammable read-only memory (ROM). These ideas led to the development of EPROM (erasable programmable ROM), EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable ROM), and flash memory technologies. Kahng was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2009.

Biography

Dawon Kahng was born on May 4, 1931, in Keijō, Keiki-dō, Korea, Empire of Japan (now known as Seoul, South Korea). He studied physics at Seoul National University in South Korea and moved to the United States in 1955 to attend Ohio State University. There, he earned a doctorate in electrical engineering in 1959.

He worked as a researcher at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. In 1959, he and Mohamed Atalla invented the MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), a key component in most modern electronic devices. Together, they created both PMOS and NMOS devices using a 20 μm process.

Building on their work with MOS technology, Kahng and Atalla conducted early research on hot carrier devices, which used a structure later called a Schottky barrier. The Schottky diode, also known as the Schottky-barrier diode, had been theorized for years but was first made practical by their work between 1960 and 1961. In 1962, they published their findings, describing their device as a "hot electron" triode structure with a semiconductor-metal emitter. The Schottky diode became widely used in mixer applications. They later studied high-frequency versions of this diode.

In 1962, Kahng and Atalla proposed and built an early metal nanolayer-base transistor. This device had a very thin metal layer between two semiconductor layers, with the metal acting as the base and the semiconductors as the emitter and collector. Because of its low resistance and fast operation, the device could function at higher frequencies than traditional bipolar transistors. Their method involved placing metal layers on top of single crystal semiconductor substrates, with the emitter made from a crystalline semiconductor piece pressed against the metal layer. They used 10 nm thick gold (Au) films on n-type germanium (n-Ge), and the point contact was made from n-type silicon (n-Si).

With his colleague Simon Min Sze, Kahng invented the floating-gate MOSFET, which they first described in 1967. They also created the floating-gate memory cell, the basis for many semiconductor memory devices. In 1967, he developed floating-gate non-volatile memory and suggested that the floating gate in an MOS device could be used to make a reprogrammable ROM. This idea led to the creation of EPROM, EEPROM, and flash memory technologies. He also studied ferro-electric semiconductors and materials that produce light, making important contributions to electroluminescence research.

After retiring from Bell Laboratories, Kahng became the founding president of the NEC Research Institute in New Jersey. He was a fellow of the IEEE and a fellow of Bell Laboratories. He received the Stuart Ballantine Medal from the Franklin Institute and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Ohio State University College of Engineering. He died in 1992 due to complications from emergency surgery for a ruptured aortic aneurysm.

Awards and honors

In 1975, Kahng and Mohamed Atalla received the Stuart Ballantine Medal from the Franklin Institute Awards for inventing the MOSFET. In 2009, Kahng was added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 2014, the 1959 invention of the MOSFET was added to the IEEE milestones in electronics list.