In his post-retirement years, Dr. Kahn continues to work under the Kahn International name with participation in display seminars and international conferences.
PALO ALTO, CA, August 05, 2024 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Frederic J. Kahn, PhD, has been selected for inclusion in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Dr. Kahn is a revolutionary figure in the field of applied physics within the electronics industry. He dedicated his over 53-year career to leading his companies in pioneering advancements in LCD technology, making electronic information more accessible, affordable and useful worldwide.
Distinguished for his groundbreaking work in developing and commercializing liquid crystal display (LCD) technology, he has been highly-regarded internationally as the president and founder of Kahn International in Palo Alto, California, where he served from 1992 until fully retiring in 2021. Kahn International provided technology and market insights as well as intellectual property services to emerging companies and industry leaders in the electronic display and related industries.
He wrote, edited, and published (1992-2007) a 20-page monthly, in-depth, multiclient report, the Kahn International Private Line Report on Display Technology and Markets, widely distributed internally by his clients, including translation into Japanese by the Hitachi Mobara Division, a leading Japanese LCD developer and manufacturer who stimulated Dr. Kahn to create and provide this report. Dr. Kahn's track record of being early and successful in pioneering new LCD technologies motivated the engineering manager of Hitachi Mobara to commission this monthly report revealing Dr. Kahn's inner thoughts, opinions, and analysis.
Dr. Kahn agreed to a contract to provide Hitachi with a monthly report "on any subject" and of "any length." By sharing this non-proprietary report with additional subscribers, Hitachi and his other clients received a better, more comprehensive report. This continued a 51-year, multifaceted, mutually beneficial relationship with Hitachi that began with a letter Dr. Kahn wrote to Dr. Komatsubara, a senior scientist in the Hitachi Kokubunji R&D Lab, in 1967.
Dr. Kahn's highly successful SID Seminars and one-day to one-week short courses for engineers, scientists and marketing managers, "The New Displays – Flat Panels and Projection" offered through the SID, SPIE and the Oregon Graduate Institute for Science and Technology, and at corporate sites including 3M, Allied Chemical, IBM Research, Polaroid and Texas Instruments provided timely and detailed guidance on emerging new technologies.
Dr. Kahn's various Seminars were featured at numerous International Meetings in the U.S., Japan, Taiwan and as the leadoff Seminar in the first international display conference ever held in mainland China, ASID 2000 Xian China. In recent years Dr. Kahn has been a highly sought-after expert witness, emerging through his efforts on the winning side of every case, from projection to flat panel displays, including LED backlights and one-drop-fill ultra-large area LCD fabrication. In his post-retirement years, Dr. Kahn continues to work under the Kahn International name with participation in display seminars and international conferences.
Previously, Dr. Kahn was a co-founder and the vice president of physical technology at Greyhawk Systems Inc. in Milpitas and Mountain View, California, from 1984 to 1992. Notably, his efforts advanced Greyhawk Systems to the forefront of its industry as a leader in the development, manufacturing, and marketing of prize-winning, full-color, ultra-high-definition, projection-based LC displays. Greyhawk 40" diagonal and 144" diagonal displays were used by the U.S. Air Force to schedule communications with U.S. spy satellites, by the French Sûreté to monitor all security personnel in Paris at International Summit Meetings, and by France Telecom to monitor all long-distance communication lines in France. Greyhawk LCD projection-imaging and printing systems were developed and introduced in various partnerships with Ilford, International Paper, Sharp, and Dupont.
Starting in 1973 as a project manager for liquid crystal displays in Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA, Dr. Kahn conceived and managed the development of the electronic multiplexed LCD technology that enabled HP's highly successful and profitable LCD business and scientific calculators including the legendary HP11 and HP12, the latter said by HP to be the longest product lived consumer electronic product ever introduced in the US. He earned promotion to department manager for optical materials and polymers research and development, managing successful optical and electron beam lithographic resist development for micron feature integrated circuits used in HP desktop computers, leading-edge resolution at that time, and later as department manager for storage physics research and development.
He managed development of the world's first 40-character dot matrix LCD to make, together with the Electronics Research Department at HP Labs, what was probably world's first ultra-portable LCD computer (1978). However, when this historic computer was shown to top engineering and marketing management at the HP Corvallis Division, manufacturer of HP calculators, they were not impressed. They responded "Something that small will never do anything worthwhile." Moreover, "There is no market for portable computers." Furthermore, "If there ever is, we will enter it." This was one of three major developments by Dr. Kahn that HP chose not to commercialize, thereby stimulating him to cofound a U.S. company (Greyhawk Systems) that would commercialize his innovative technologies.
As a technical staff member at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, from 1970 to 1973, Dr. Kahn pioneered flat panel LCDs and large area LCD projection and printing. After four years, the priorities of Bell Labs had changed and Dr. Kahn came to realize that there was little chance that prestigious Bell Labs would be timely in commercializing any of his inventions.
He learned that Hewlett-Packard had an immediate need for his LCD technology. Thus he decided to leave Bell and move to Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto's Mediterranean climate next to Stanford University.
He had previously excelled as a researcher at the NEC Central Research Laboratory in Kawasaki, Japan, between 1968 and 1969, where he invented and published on a new color change LCD, resulting in an international reputation as an LCD expert. He was one of the first to pursue LCD R&D in Japan. Offered permanent employment, on an international marketing track, by NEC, Dr. Kahn wanted to pursue the opportunities resulting from his research-oriented education and decided to return to the U.S. which had more of the required infrastructure than available in Japan at that time.
Impressively, he was cited as the first Caucasian scientist or engineer to work in Japan as a regular employee of any Japanese company. His employment was enabled by precedent setting approval by the Japanese government and the NEC company union.
Dr. Kahn's professional journey has been marked by innovation and progress in the spheres of science, electronic systems and scholastic activities. Holding 18 U.S. patents that have meaningfully advanced the industry, he disseminated his knowledge to literature such as Physical Review Letters, Applied Physics Letters, Proceedings IEEE and Physical Review as well as serving as the general chair or program chair at six major display conferences across the world.
Moreover, he invented the tilted vertically-aligned nematic (VAN) LCD in 1971 while employed by Bell Laboratories, which is still utilized in most large area flat panel LCDs worldwide, boasts the highest performance among liquid crystal projectors, and is expected by industry leaders to continue to dominate large screen LCD TV sales through 2030. The tilt in the VAN LCD enables uniform spatial switching of the LC layer.
In addition, Dr. Kahn conducted in-depth research at Bell Labs on the alignment of liquid crystal molecules, for which he has been highly cited in scholarly circles and awarded several major patents. Precise, uniform alignment, often treated as a trade secret, is required in the manufacture of LCDs of all sizes from watch displays to large area TVs and wall-size flat panels.
In recognition of his contributions, Dr. Kahn received the Karl Ferdinand Braun Prize for "outstanding innovative contributions to the development and commercialization of flat panel LCDs and projection systems" in 2010, the highest honor of the Society for Information Display. In September 2024, he will be inducted into the prestigious Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Hall of Fame, in which there are fewer than 100 members in the institution's 200-year history. Other accolades to Dr. Kahn's credit have included the AFIPS Merit Award for Outstanding Hardware from Fortune magazine in 1987 and the Product of the Year award from Electronic Products Magazine in 1986.
Highly educated, Dr. Kahn earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1962. Subsequently, he received a Master of Arts in applied physics and a Doctor of Philosophy in applied physics, with a specialization in optical properties of materials, from Harvard University in 1963 and 1969, respectively. At Harvard, he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow and received support from the Office of Naval Research. He has also been a Rhodes Scholar Finalist.
In addition to being elected as a fellow of the Society for Information Display, where he was an international officer, he has been active with the American Physical Society, IEEE, SPIE, and the Optical Society of America. As an undergraduate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he was President of the Interfraternity Council, News Editor of the POLY (newspaper), Resident Advisor in the Freshman Dorms, holder of a New York State Scholarship and a member of multiple honor societies including Eta Kappa Nu (electrical engineering), Tau Beta Pi (engineering), Pi Delta Epsilon (journalism), Phalanx (leadership) and White Key (leadership).
Dr. Kahn's October 1969 Physical Review paper on his thesis research "Ultraviolet Magneto-Optical Properties of Single-Crystal Orthoferrites, Garnets, and Other Ferric Oxide Compounds" coauthored with his research advisor Professor Peter S. Pershan of Harvard University and the renowned Bell Telephone Laboratories crystal grower J. P. Remeika, has 373 literature citations to date. His August 1973 Proceedings of the IEEE paper "Surface-produced alignment of liquid crystals" coauthored with Dr. Gary N. Taylor, Bell Labs chemist, and Dr. Harold Schonhorn, Bell Labs surface scientist, has 189 citations to date. Dr. Kahn was first author on both publications.
In accounting for his success, Dr. Kahn credits his pursuit of the road less traveled, his innovative spirit, perseverance, networking, good luck, years of playing piano, which he believes have stimulated both hemispheres of his brain to combine conceptual and quantitative skills, and the devoted support of his family including his wife of 55 years who passed away in 2022 and his two children born in the early 1970's.
Looking toward the future, he aims to continue enriching his life through involvement with the Avenidas Village group near Stanford University, a 360-member community focused on aging-in-place, mutual assistance and hosting social and intellectual events. He has been an avid water sports enthusiast and licensed American Red Cross water safety instructor and still swims several times per week. Ultimately, he endeavors to leave a resounding legacy, evident by being a relatively small, but appreciated, funder, through the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), of the spectacular, new, Tunitas Creek County Beach, north of Pescadero, CA, that will open to the public in the Fall of 2024. He is funding nonprofits helping the disadvantaged and advanced biomedical engineering research and graduate education at Cornell, Harvard and Rensselaer.
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