Erich Bloch (engineer)

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Erich Bloch (born January 9, 1925 in Sulzburg ; † November 25, 2016 in Washington ) was an American computer scientist and engineer. He led the development of the IBM Stretch supercomputer and was responsible for production and semiconductor logic in the IBM System / 360 . In the 1980s he was director of the National Science Foundation .

Life

Bloch, the son of a Jewish businessman and a housewife, lost his parents in the Holocaust , survived the war in a home for young refugees in Switzerland and was in the USA from 1948. He studied electrical engineering at the University at Buffalo with a bachelor's degree in 1952 and at the ETH Zurich . From 1952 he was with IBM, where he stayed until 1981. Most recently he was Vice President of Technical Personnel Development.

He was the chief engineer of IBM's stretch supercomputer, launched in 1961, costing $ 10 million at the time, and the most powerful computer of the time (used by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the National Security Agency ). In the 1960s, he was instrumental in the development and management of the standard-setting mainframe computer system System / 360 from IBM, including as head of Solid Logic Technology. The project turned out to be a high financial risk for IBM (the total development cost of $ 5 billion exceeded IBM's annual revenue by two times, so IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson, Jr. risked the company with the project) but then as one of the most successful computer systems of all time that dominated the mainframe market. He was vice president of IBM's Data Systems Division and general manager of IBM's East Fishkill microelectronics factory .

Erich Bloch was director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1984 to 1990 . He was the first NSF director to come out of industry rather than university, and the first without a PhD. He was responsible for a shift from promoting pure research to applied research. Bloch invested in the research infrastructure (such as the NSFNET and the establishment of technology centers) and relied on collaborations between the state, universities and industry. He saw his task as expanding the USA's competitiveness with other countries. When government research funding was in jeopardy during the reign of Ronald Reagan, he not only managed to keep it going, but even increased the budget. He later co-founded a consulting firm (Washington Advisory Group).

He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering , the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering , the Engineering Academy of Japan and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He received the US National Medal of Technology (with two other IBM engineers who were significantly involved in the IBM 360 project, Frederick P. Brooks and Bob Evans ) and was a Fellow of the Computer History Museum . He was on the board of directors of Motorola . The Colorado School of Mines , the University of Notre Dame , the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , the University of Massachusetts at Amherst , George Washington University , the State University of New York at Buffalo , the University of Rochester , Oberlin College , Washington College and Ohio State University awarded him an honorary doctorate. Bloch Peak in Antarctica has been named after him since 1990 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erich Bloch, IBM pioneer who later led National Science Foundation, dies at 91. On: washingtonpost.com , dump of December 2, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Bloch, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer engineer
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Sulzburg
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 2016
Place of death Washington, DC