IEEE Electron Devices Society History

Chronology

• 1951 The entity name, as a member of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE), was the 'Electron Tubes and Solid-State Devices Committee'.
• 3/5/52 The Committee name was changed to the 'IRE Professional Group on Electron Devices'.
• 1963 The first year of IEEE operations, resulting from the merger of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) and the IRE. The name was changed to the 'IEEE Professional Technical Group on Electron Devices'.
• 7/1/63 The IEEE Professional Technical Group on Electron Devices merged with the `Solid State Devices Committee'.
• 5/20/64 The 'Professional Group on Electron Devices' merged with the 'New Energy Sources Committee' to become the 'IEEE Electron Devices Group'.
• 6/23/65 Committee 28 merged into the Electron Devices Group.
• 2/17/76 The 'IEEE Electron Devices Group' became the 'IEEE Electron Devices Society'.
  

Archives

EDS Announces its Archival Collection on DVD (1954-2004)

Technological changes are by far the most powerful in driving human behavior. Gone are the days when one could walk into a gigantic library with rows upon rows of bookcases with neatly stacked journals ready for easy access albeit by one person at a time. As I sit in the ornate Rose Reading Room of the New York Public library on 42nd street in Manhattan writing this communication, the contrast is clear. I see bound periodicals and books stacked along the perimeter of the room and in the mezzanine apparently for ambiance. Very few readers are accessing them. However, of the forty 30-feet mahogany tables on the floor, six are dedicated exclusively for computer use with terminals and printers provided. The rest of the tables have reading aids such as lamps in an already well-lit hall, but in addition, electrical outlets mounted in gold circular faceplates along the centerline of the table. Coexisting with these electrical outlets are RJ45 LAN connectors ready for hook-up to individual laptops free-of-charge. The paradigm has evolved even further. Instead of centralizing the information in one place, the emphasis is to bring the information to the reader’s desk via high-speed data lines. This mode of operation is inherently more efficient. However, it still requires membership in large organizations to utilize access via their bulk subscriptions to technical databases. So fundamental are these changes that if some piece of information is not available electronically, it is tacitly assumed that the information does not exist.

It gives me great pleasure to announce the release of this invaluable collection of technical information that chronicles the history the Electron Devices Society and the field of electron devices. This 2 DVD-set includes all issues of Transactions on Electron Devices (1954-August 2004), Electron Device Letters (1980-August 2004), and all technical digests of the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) (1955-2004). After about three years of effort and with help from all EDS volunteers and staff in locating past issues, I believe, we have finally been able to put together an excellent resource which should prove to be extremely valuable to our members.

This DVD-set provides 15 gigabytes of a complete listing of the technical content from offers many other features that are unique. This is indeed, what I call, “live information”. Users can navigate easily across publications, issues, articles, subjects and authors. All articles are in searchable PDF format. The search function allows one to look through metadata, abstracts and full text of the article for the entire content. Also, one can search by keywords, which include author supplied keywords, IEEE index terms obtained from IEEE’s Abstracting and Indexing Database, index terms from INSPEC and from annual subject indices in the periodical. In addition, the DVD-set offers a subject index for easy browsing, as well as an author index, in which one can search using just the first two letters of the authors’ last name or by full name. Author profiles provide a comprehensive sketch of every author in the digital library with pointers to all associated publications, biography, affiliations and other available data. This could prove to be invaluable at annual merit reviews. A strong synergy exists between electronic devices and solid-state circuits. To make this offering more powerful, we were able to negotiate with IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society to allow us to include most up-to-date information on papers from Journal of Solid-State Circuits and International Solid-State Circuits conference in this DVD-set. What this means to you as a user is that if any of our device paper refers to any circuit paper you can get all the information about that paper with a click of a button. However, full text from these circuit papers is still left out as SSCS intellectual property.

The Electron Devices Society celebrated its 50th anniversary with a 48 page booklet to commemorate this event. We are able to include this booklet also on this DVD-set for your enjoyment.

I would like to thank the volunteers and staff that have worked with me in getting this project off the ground and making sure that it is completed for distribution in time for our flagship conference, the IEDM, to be held in San Francisco in December 2004. Also, I would like to acknowledge all of you who dug through your old collections and donated them to us, so that we could complete this project. Finally, I would like to thank Parity Computing for working with us in controlling production costs and doing a professional job.

Sincerely,

Renuka P. Jindal
IEEE Electron Devices Society

Further Reading

Link to IEEE Electron Devices Society

PowerPoint History of EDS, Claeys. size:1.02Mb

Link to EDS 50th Anniversary Booklet.  size:2.00Mb