The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc) awarded its 2006 Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal to Hirodai Professor Hideo Sunami of the Research Center for Nanodevices and Systems, and to Touhoku University Professor Mistumasa Koyanagi of the Department of Bioengineering and Robotics, as well as Kiyou Itoh, a Fellow at Hitachi Ltd.'s Central Research Laboratory "for pioneering contributions to dynamic random access memory (DRAM) cell structures and architecture." This is the first time the Nishizawa Medal has been presented to Japanese nationals.



The Jun-ichi Nishzawa Medal was created in 2002 to commemorate "outstanding contributions to material and device science technology" and can be awarded individually or to a team of up to three members. The award is given based on the following criteria: "quality of the technical achievement, enhancement of technology, impact on the relevant technical community, impact on the profession and benefit to the society, publications and patents and the quality of the nomination." The medal's namesake, Jun-ichi Nishizawa, considered "the Father of Japanese Microelectronics," received 28 national and international awards in his lifetime and was hailed as one of the Geniuses of the 20th Century by IEEE Spectrum.



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IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Award