Engineering Hall of Fame Inducts Baliga

Dr. B. Jayant Baliga has been inducted into the 2010 class of the Electronic Design Engineering Hall of Fame.

Baliga, a Distinguished University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding director of the Power Semiconductor Research Center, was honored for inventing the Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT). The energy-saving semiconductor switch controls the flow of power from an energy source to the application that needs energy.

The device, which Baliga developed while working at General Electric in the 1970s, is used in everything from light bulbs to washing machines to automobiles to compact heart defibrillators.

Baliga’s power device innovations, including the IGBT, have reduced carbon emissions by more than 30 trillion pounds over the past 20 years—equivalent to two years’ worth of worldwide human emissions—and saved consumers $3 trillion in energy costs. Baliga is a leader within the FREEDM Systems Center, a National Science Foundation-sponsored Engineering Research Center led by NC State that seeks to improve the nation’s distribution and management of power.