Henry Earle Vaughan, better known as H. Earle Vaughan, (February 3, 1912 – March 9, 1978) was an American

telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...

engineer, responsible for system and software design for

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

' Electronic Switching System No. 1 ESS, and for planning and development of No. 4 Electronic Switching System for long-distance telephony.

Biography

In 1928 Vaughan began work in Bell Laboratories, then attended Cooper Union College in New York City, where in 1933 he received a Bachelor of Science degree. Throughout the next decade he worked on a variety of transmission and signaling projects, and in 1944 received the Naval Ordnance Award for his computer work. In 1945 he began research on two experimental switching systems: first the Electronically Controlled Automatic Switching System (ECASS), an experimental system using cold cathode gas tubes, reed switches and a special telephone set, and subsequently the Drum Information Assembler and Dispatcher (DIAD), a

magnetic drum Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria. Drums were widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory. For many early computers, drum memory formed the main working memory of ...

system that used

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as ...

s and semiconductor diodes. DIAD was the first switch with memory. In 1952 Vaughan became a supervisor in Bell Labs' Switching Research Department, leading studies on

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...

ferroelectric Ferroelectricity is a characteristic of certain materials that have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. All ferroelectrics are also piezoelectric and pyroelectric, with the ad ...

, and magnetic core memories in logic systems. In 1955 he was named Head of the Switching Research Department and began work on the Experimental Solid State Exchange (ESSEX), a pioneering solid-state system using

pulse-code modulation Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM Stream (comp ...

and a central time-division switch. In 1958 Vaughan became Director of the Systems Research Center, and in 1962 moved to the Switching Systems Development Area. In 1968, Vaughan assumed overall responsibility for planning and developing No. 4 ESS. He died on March 9, 1978 in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Awards

Vaughan is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, holds 27 patents, and was awarded the

IEEE Medal of Honor The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contributio ...

in 1977 "for his vision, technical contributions and leadership in the development of the first high-capacity pulse-code-modulation time-division telephone switching system."

Biography

Awards

References

Further reading