Jayant Baliga, a professor of engineering at NC State, recently earned the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Medal of Honor, which is considered by some to be the “Nobel Prize” of electrical engineering and is the highest honor awarded in this field.
“The IEEE has recognized great achievements and great contributors,” Baliga said. “From my point of view, these are the people that in high school and in college, I grew up looking to them as great heroes in this field, and they’re inspiring to me. Now to be joining that company is quite a special event.”
Baliga’s teaching pursuits at NC State’s engineering department and his award from the IEEE are still just the latest in his long list of acomplishments. Baliga is responsible for the creation of revolutionary electrical technologies that are found in regularly used devices today.
Baliga has received a multitude of awards for his expertise and inventions in semiconductor technology. He has received awards ranging from the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, which was awarded by President Barack Obama, to recognition by the Power Electronic Society, even though he is not a member of the organization.
Baliga has been recognized so widely because of the success of two of his important inventions, the insulated-gate bipolar transistor and wide-bandgap semiconductor technology. Though the wide-bandgap took years to develop, the IGBT went into immediate production.
“What’s funny is that both echnologies were made around the same time in about 1980,” Baliga said. “It was a very good year for me.”
The IGBT combines two semiconductor technologies to increase device performance and power efficiency. Many thought the combination would simply average the performance of the two technologies, but Baliga predicted a quantum boost in performance. He proved to be correct, and the technology went into mass production a year later, now found in household objects such as refrigerators, CFL light bulbs and vehicles.
“It was very fruitful to see it take off,” Baliga said. “Now it is used for practically everything. It is an embedded technology that the public doesn’t see. Even my neighbors don’t know that they’re using my invention every day. I have to explain that I do more than teaching.”
Use of the device increases fuel efficiency, most notably in cars, saving massive amounts of energy while proving to be economically and environmentally adequate.
The wide-bandgap semiconductor, though it has taken longer to develop due to cost, boosts performance of electronic devices even more than the IGBT. During Obama’s visit to NC State in January, one of the ideas he promoted was the increase in manufacturing this technology.
Since its creation, the wide-bandgap technology has become internationally recognized, and other countries are competing economically with the United States by producing this technology large-scale and at a much faster rate. This demtonstrates how much of an effect this technology has had on the world since 1980 and the effect it will continue to have on future innovations.
“If you want to be successful, you have to have innovative ideas,” Baliga said. “That’s what people want to hear. You need to make them practical as well. It is easy to make an invention that is hard to build and unrealistic.”
“Think about what has already been done,” Bailga said. “If you don’t research, you will probably invent something that has already been done. Believe in yourself. There will be a lot of skeptics, so you have to be passionate about your idea.”