Dr. Ian Munro Ross was an early pioneer in transistor

Transistor

A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...

s, and for 12 years President of Bell Labs

Bell Labs

Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...

.

Ross was born in Southport, England, and in 1948 received his Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering

Electrical engineering

Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...

 from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. In 1952 he received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Cambridge.

In 1952 William Shockley

William Shockley

William Bradford Shockley Jr. was an American physicist and inventor. Along with John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s...

 hired him to work in semiconductor

Semiconductor

A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...

s at Bell Labs, and he arrived in Murray Hill

Murray Hill, New Jersey

Murray Hill is an unincorporated area within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County in northern New Jersey, United States....

 just after John Bardeen

John Bardeen

John Bardeen was an American physicist and electrical engineer, the only person to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice: first in 1956 with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor; and again in 1972 with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for a...

 and Walter Houser Brattain

Walter Houser Brattain

Walter Houser Brattain was an American physicist at Bell Labs who, along with John Bardeen and William Shockley, invented the transistor. They shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention. He devoted much of his life to research on surface states.- Early life and education :He was...

  had left. Shockley's group focused exclusively on transistor improvements, and Ross and G. C. Dacey were instrumental in the early stages of development of the field-effect transistor

Field-effect transistor

The field-effect transistor is a transistor that relies on an electric field to control the shape and hence the conductivity of a channel of one type of charge carrier in a semiconductor material. FETs are sometimes called unipolar transistors to contrast their single-carrier-type operation with...

. In 1960 Ross and others invented epitaxy

Epitaxy

Epitaxy refers to the deposition of a crystalline overlayer on a crystalline substrate, where the overlayer is in registry with the substrate. In other words, there must be one or more preferred orientations of the overlayer with respect to the substrate for this to be termed epitaxial growth. The...

. He subsequently rose through managerial ranks, ultimately serving as the sixth President of Bell Labs 1979-1991 and overseeing its reorganization following the breakup of the Bell System.

Ross is a member of the National Academy of Engineering

National Academy of Engineering

The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...

, National Academy of Sciences

United States National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

, and Royal Academy of Engineering

Royal Academy of Engineering

-Overview: is the UK’s national academy of engineering. The Academy brings together the most successful and talented engineers from across the engineering sectors for a shared purpose: to advance and promote excellence in engineering....

, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...

 and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...

. He received the 1963 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award

IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award

The initially called Morris Liebmann Memorial Prize provided by the Institute of Radio Engineers , the IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award was created in 1919 in honor of Colonel Morris N. Liebmann. It was initially given to awardees who had "made public during the recent past an important...

 "for contributions to the development of the epitaxial transistor and other semiconductor devices", the 1988 IEEE Founders Medal

IEEE Founders Medal

The IEEE Founders Medal is an award is presented for outstanding contributions in the leadership, planning, and administration of affairs of great value to the electrical and electronics engineering profession. It may be presented to an individual or team up to three in number...

 "for distinguished leadership of AT&T Bell Laboratories guiding innovation in telecommunications and information processing", and the 2001 Bueche Award "for his contributions to semiconductor development, his leadership of engineering for communications networks and the Apollo program, and his role in shaping national policies affecting the semiconductor industry."

Selected works

• G. C. Dacey and I. M. Ross, "Unipolar field-effect transistor", Proc. IRE 41, Aug. 1953, pp. 970–979.
• J. L. Moll, I. M. Ross, "The Dependence of Transistor Parameters on the Distribution of Base Layer Resistivity", Proc. IRE., vol. 42, 1954, page 1761.
• G. C. Dacey and I. M. Ross, "Field Effect Transistor", Bell System Technical Journal, 34, page 1149, 1955.