George A. Philbrick

The father of both electronic analog computing and modern operational amplifiers, Philbrick began his distinguished career at the Foxboro Co. shortly after graduating in 1935 from Harvard's School of Engineering. He was teamed with Clesson E. Mason. In the course of their working out a complete mathematical analysis of process control, Philbrick developed what he called an "automatic control analyzer," an electronic analog computer hardwired to carry out a computation, or simulation, of a typical process-control loop. After World War II, he built a high-speed analog computer that spurred the formation of George A. Philbrick Researches. In 1952, the company introduced the first commercial full-differential, unstabilized op amp, the K2-W. Ten years later, G.A. Philbrick Researches and Burr-Brown Research Corp. introduced the first modular solid-state op amps.