Milestone Coordinator: Antonio Savini (antonio.savini@unipv.it)
| Milestone | Citation | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Integrated Circuits for Satellite Digital Radio, 1996-1997 | In 1996-1997, STMicroelectronics developed three low-power integrated circuits (ICs) essential for satellite digital radio reception: a frequency demodulator, a baseband processor, and a compressed audio decoder. Their use in digital radio satellite receivers adopted by Worldspace and Sirius XM Radio provided inexpensive educational and entertainment services in Africa, India, and the United States, and addressed a United Nations humanitarian call for inexpensive radio service to less-developed countries. | June 24, 2025 |
| Giovanni Giorgi | Giovanni Giorgi's contribution to the rationalized System of Units, 1901-1902. Giovanni Giorgi proposed rationalizing the equation of electromagnetism. His proposal added an electrical unit to the three mechanical units of measurement (meter, kilogram, second). While he was a professor at the University of Rome, the International Electrotechnical Commission adopted a version of Giorgi's system. His ideas formed the basis of the universally adopted International System (SI) of units, currently used in all fields of science and engineering. | December 15, 2021 |
| STMicroelectronics | SGS (now STMicroelectronics) pioneered the super-integrated silicon-gate process combining Bipolar, CMOS, and DMOS (BCD) transistors in single chips for complex, power-demanding applications. The first BCD super-integrated circuit, named L6202, was capable of controlling up to 60V-5A at 300 kHz. Subsequent automotive, computer, and industrial applications extensively adopted this process technology, which enabled chip designers flexibly and reliably to combine power, analog, and digital signal processing. | May 18, 2021 |
| LIGO-Virgo | Initially developed from 1972 to 1989, the Gravitational-Wave Antenna enabled detection of ripples in spacetime propagating at the speed of light, as predicted by Albert Einstein’s 1916 Theory of General Relativity. Construction of Hanford’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) commenced in 1994. In 2015, LIGO antennas, located in [Washington and in Louisiana], first detected gravitational waves produced 1.3 billion years ago from two merging black holes. | February 3, 2021 |
| Galileo Ferraris | Galileo Ferraris, professor at the Italian Industrial Museum (now Polytechnic) of Turin, conceived and demonstrated the principle of the rotating magnetic field. Ferraris’ field, produced by two stationary coils with perpendicular axes, was driven by alternating currents phase-shifted by 90 degrees. Ferraris also constructed prototypes of two-phase AC motors. Rotating fields, polyphase currents, and their application to induction motors had a fundamental role in the electrification of the world. | January 21, 2021 |
| Antonio Pacinotti | A dynamo with a slotted ring armature, described and built at the University of Pisa by Antonio Pacinotti, was a significant step leading to practical electrical machines for direct current. Groups of turns of the closed winding were connected to the bars of a commutator. The machine worked as a motor also. | December 4, 2018 |
| Luigi Dadda | Luigi Dadda published the first description of the optimized scheme, subsequently called a Dadda Tree, for a digital circuit to compute the multiplication of unsigned fixed-point numbers in binary arithmetic. This circuit allowed the arithmetic units of microprocessor-based computers to execute complex arithmetic operations with a performance/cost ratio unequaled at that time. His research and teaching pioneered computer engineering in Italy. | September 29, 2016 |
| Enrico Fermi | Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi developed the quantum statistics that would be named after him while teaching at the School of Engineering of the University of Florence. The Fermi-Dirac statistics were a fundamental contribution to semiconductors physics and to the development of electronics. | December 4, 2015 |
| Guglielmo Marconi | On this hill, during the summer of 1885, the radiotelegraphic signals sent by Guglielmo Marconi from the garden of Villa Griffone were received. The reception was communicated to Marconi with a gunshot. This event marked the beginning of the new era of wireless communication. | April 29, 2011 |
| Alessandro Volta | In 1799, Alessandro Volta developed the first electrical battery. This battery, known as the Voltaic Cell, consisted of two plates of different metals immersed in a chemical solution. Volta's development of the first continuous and reproducible source of electrical current was an important step in the study of electromagnetism and in the development of electrical equipment. | September 15, 1999 |