Robert Drost

Robert Drost, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Engineer and Director (as of 2005) at Sun Laboratories, a research and development division of Sun Microsystems. In 2004 he was named one of the 100 Top Young Innovators by "Technology Review", MIT's magazine. Robert was included in the TR100 for his developments in wireless chip-to-chip communications, known as proximity communication, proposed by Ivan Sutherland.

Proximity communication, replacing wires by capacitive coupling, promises significant increase in communications speed between chips in an electronic system, among other benefits.

Robert joined Sun Microsystems in 1993 after obtaining a M.S. in electronic engineering from Stanford University. In 2001 he earned a Ph.D. in electronic engineering and computer science from Stanford. As of 2007 he is a holder of over 63 patents in microelectronics.

External links

* [http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/wonews/nov03/1103sunc.html "Look Ma, No Wires", IEEE Spectrum, Nov. 2003]