Giovanni Cherubini

Award Received:

IEEE CSS Transition to Practice Award

Date Awarded:

2021

IBM Research, Zürich

Switzerland

Giovanni Cherubini

Biography

I joined the Communication Systems research staff at IBM Research – Zurich in 1987, after receiving a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at San Diego. My research initially focused on high-speed data transmission systems. I participated and contributed to the work of several standards bodies, including IEEE 802, ATM Forum, Committee T1, and ITU-T. During my involvement in standardization efforts, I was co-editor of the 100BASE-T2 IEEE Standard for Fast Ethernet transmission over voice-grade cables, and proposed a new filter-bank modulation scheme for very high-speed digital subscriber lines, known as filtered multitone modulation.

More recently, I focused on advanced servo control for data storage systems, contributing to the realization of the first fully-functional atomic force microscope-based data-storage prototype system, internally dubbed "millipede". The tremendous potential of techniques for fast scanner positioning with nanometer-scale accuracy in scanning-probe storage devices and other applications, e.g., molecular biology, has been widely recognized. Further, our innovative servo control technologies for future generations of tape drive systems routinely achieve nanometer-scale accuracy in the head positioning of tape drives. This accuracy has contributed to several world-record storage areal density demonstrations, the most recent one of which in 2017 achieved a density of 201 Gb/in², a breakthrough that represents the equivalent of a 330-terabyte tape cartridge that could fit in the palm of one's hand. My current research focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning based on non-von-Neumann computing architectures.

I served as Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Communications in the area of CDMA Systems, Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, and Technical Editor of the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. Currently, I am Senior Editor of the IEEE Control Systems Letters and Associate Editor of IFAC Mechatronics. I was Guest Editor of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications for the special issues on Copper Wire Access Technologies for High Performance Networks, and Multiuser Detection Techniques with Application to Wired and Wireless Communications Systems, as well as Guest Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology for the special issue on Advanced Servo Control for Emerging Data Storage Systems.

Since 2008, I have been a member of the invention disclosure evaluation team at IBM Research – Zurich. Currently, I serve as Chairperson of the Review Committee for invention disclosures in the area of Cloud and Computing Infrastructure. I am an IBM Master Inventor and an IEEE Fellow, have over 120 refereed publications, and hold over 200 patents in the areas of signal processing, big data, control, and communication systems.

Affiliation(s)

IBM Research, Zürich

Switzerland

Citation:

For inventing and developing advanced control technologies for magnetic tape data storage products