Look Who it Was Random video

Oral History of Yasoji Suzuki

516 views · Published 9 August 2018 · 1:22:30 · Indexed 10 November 2026

Channel: Computer History Museum · 2018 · Science & Technology

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Interviewed by Doug Fairbiran on 2016-06-23 in Tokyo, Japan X7653.2016 
© Computer History Museum

Suzuki was born in 1944 and grew up in post-war Japan.  He notes that his nickname was “MacArthur”, presumably because of his aggressive character. He became interested in electronics technology at an early age, partially as a result of receiving a crystal radio kit in the mid-1950’s. He attended Tokai University and majored in communication engineering. 

Upon graduation, he went to work for Toshiba where he worked in the Central Research Laboratory.  He focused on battery-operated calculators and found through research that CMOS would be an ideal technology for this application. 

He later was asked to develop a 1K bit CMOS RAM, which was one of the first such devices in the world. Being a leader in the design of CMOS devices, in 1978 he published a book to teach other engineers how to design CMOS devices. He later developed the first 4K CMOS RAM. He followed this with the development of a CMOS microprocessor. He is most proud of his development of clocked CMOS circuitry. 

Besides his pioneering work in the design of CMOS devices, he also did work with LCD displays.


* Note:  Transcripts represent what was said in the interview. However, to enhance meaning or add clarification, interviewees have the opportunity to modify this text afterward. This may result in discrepancies between the transcript and the video. Please refer to the transcript for further information - http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102738183

Visit computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/ for more information about the Computer History Museum's Oral History Collection.

Lot number: X7653.2016
Catalog number: 102738182

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