Andrew H. Bobeck

Biography

Andrew H. Bobeck was born on October 1, 1926 in Tower Hill, Pennsylvania. After serving in the Navy he completed his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University (1948). He continued at Purdue, and in 1949, he received his master's degree, also in electrical engineering. That same year he joined Bell Laboratories.

During the early stages of his career, Bobeck designed the first solid-state driven core memory and invented the twister memory. In the late 1960s, he helped invent the bubble memory concept, and he was the sole author of the first technical paper about this topic. This concept contributed to the development of a new class of electronic devices. Bobeck is also recognized for his work with garnet materials.

Bobeck holds over 120 patents and has received numerous awards and honors from the Franklin Institute, Electronics Magazine, the American Institute of Physics, ASME, the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences, and the IEEE (W.R.G. Baker Prize '71, Morris N. Liebmann Award '75, Magnetics Society Achievement Award '87). He received an honorary doctorate in engineering from Purdue in 1972, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1975.