William E. Engeler, independent co-inventor of the Charge Coupled Device and an analog correlator integrated circuit, died at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, NY, on May 13, 2010. He was 81 years old.
In a career in General Electric's Research and Development Center that spanned 40 years, Dr. Engeler helped invent, develop, or apply technologies that led to the creation of or significant improvements in fax machines, digital cameras, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasonic imaging, and other products now common in households around the world.
Dr. Engeler made major advances in the understanding of surface charge transfer phenomena, later used in the Charge Coupled Device (CCD). Working with Marvin Garfinkel, in 1967, Dr. Engeler filed for a patent for producing a silicon chip, later known as the charge-coupled device (CCD), which eventually operated like a real eye, taking in light rays and moving and interpreting them. In January 1969, he applied for two more patents – one for a means to store and retrieve information on the chip, and another for moving information across the device. Although awarded a patent for the storage process, a patent for moving data was awarded to Bell Labs scientists Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, who had developed similar technology at the same time. The inventions for which Dr. Engeler received patents led to the development of fax machines and digital cameras, as well as applications in numerous medical procedures, including microsurgery.
(Dr. Boyle and Dr. Smith in 2009 received a Nobel Prize for their invention. "We used to say, ‘Bell Labs got all the publicity, but we got all the patents,'" Dr. Engeler said. "These things happen in science. Progress is not made in isolation. Science is sometimes a race and each participant contributes.")
Dr. Engeler was a member of the team that invented the Epicon® silicon diode array television camera tube and developed a three terminal capacitor that could be the basis for a digital channel selector for television sets. He and his co-workers also advanced new technology for the fabrication of high-speed integrated circuits. Early in his career, he contributed to the construction of the first high-power gallium arsenide laser, pioneering techniques that were subsequently adopted by researchers around the country.
In addition, Dr. Engeler made contributions to an advanced ultrasonic imager for medical diagnostics, improving the resolution of GE systems.
Dr. Engeler published over 40 technical papers and was awarded 118 patents.
Dr. Engeler was born on November 13, 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. The grandson of a shoemaker and inventor who held the patent for patent leather and the son of a shoe salesman, Dr. Engeler attended Brooklyn Technical High School and received his bachelor's degree in physics from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He joined General Electric in 1951 as a design engineer in the Semiconductor Products Department. He served in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1956, when he enrolled in Syracuse University, where he earned a master's and Ph.D. degrees in physics. In 1961, Dr. Engeler returned to GE, where he joined the Research and Development Center as a physicist.
In 1979, Dr. Engeler was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and became a Coolidge Fellow in 1979, GE's highest Research and Development honor. He was also a member of the American Physical Society.
An inveterate tinkerer, Dr. Engeler also was a gardener, artist, and woodworker who fashioned grandfather clocks, tables, and moose-shaped Christmas tree ornaments. Perhaps the only thing he never fully fixed was his golf swing.
Dr. Engeler is survived by his wife, Marilyn; children William, Amy, Beth Engeler Jackowski, and Mary Lockshin; and grandchildren Georgia, James, Elana, Linus, and Joseph.
Amy Engeler
William Engeler, creative force at General Electric for decades, dies at 81
Times Union
