In 1991, only a few folks had Web entry. Those that did publish in on-line boards or electronic mail pals from residence usually accessed the Web through phone line, their messages touring at a prime pace of 14.4 kilobits per second. In the meantime, cable TV was rocketing in reputation. By 1991, sixty % of U.S. households subscribed to a cable service; cable rollouts in the remainder of the world had been additionally choosing up pace.
Hypothetically, utilizing that rising cable community as a substitute of cellphone strains for Web entry would dramatically increase the pace of communications. And making cable TV itself digital as a substitute of analog would permit cable suppliers to hold many extra channels. The speculation of how to do this—utilizing analog-to-digital converters and digital sign processing to translate the analog waveforms that journey on coaxial cable into digital kind—was effectively established. However the cable modems required to implement such a digital broadband community weren’t on the mass market.
Enter Henry Samueli. In 1985, he had established a multidisciplinary analysis program on the College of California, Los Angeles, to develop chips for digital broadband. Over the subsequent a number of years, he and his staff created all kinds of proof-of-concept chips demonstrating the important thing constructing blocks of high-performance digital modems. And in 1991, Samueli, alongside along with his UCLA grad pupil Henry Nicholas, based Broadcom Corp. to commercialize the expertise.
Right this moment, the improvements in digital sign processing architectures pioneered at UCLA and Broadcom persist within the digital modems that allow each wired and wi-fi communications in our gadgets. For these advances, together with contributions to increasing science, expertise, engineering, and math (STEM) training, Samueli is the recipient of
the 2025 IEEE Medal of Honor.
Henry Samueli
Present jobs
Philanthropist, Chairman of Broadcom Inc.
Date of start
20 September 1954
Birthplace
Buffalo, N.Y.
Household
Spouse, Susan; three kids; three grandchildren
Training
BSEE 1975, MSEE 1976, Ph.D. 1980, all in electrical engineering from the College of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
First job
Cashier and inventory boy in household’s liquor retailer
Largest shock in profession
The overwhelming success of Broadcom and the explosive development of the Web
Patents
75
Favourite form of music
Basic rock, together with Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Metallica, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones
Most up-to-date TV collection watched
“Lioness”
Favourite meals
Chocolate
Favourite film
The Godfather
Favourite nation
Italy, for the folks, the tradition, the meals, the surroundings
Favourite cities
Paris, London, New York, Tokyo
Leisure actions
E-biking, snowboarding, mountain climbing, basketball
Pet peeves
Disorganization and messes
Key organizational memberships
IEEE, Marconi Society
Main awards
IEEE Medal of Honor: “For pioneering analysis and commercialization of broadband communication and networking applied sciences, and promotion of STEM training,” IEEE Fellow, Marconi Fellow, member of the Nationwide Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Ellis Island Medal of Honor, Broadcom’s 2024 Emmy for “Pioneering Applied sciences Enabling Excessive-Efficiency Communications over Cable TV Methods”
Earlier than the Cable Modem—Approach Earlier than
Samueli began down the trail that will result in cable modems when he was in center faculty. However he wasn’t eager about a future profession when he enrolled in an electrical store class. It was simply that, he says, “electrical energy appeared form of mysterious, in contrast with steel or wooden.”
The instructor assigned a crystal radio challenge, he recollects, “however wrapping a wire round a tube from rest room paper and connecting the wire to a crystal wasn’t that thrilling to me.” So he thumbed by means of an electronics catalog in search of an alternate. A
Graymark five-tube radio caught his eye. It took some convincing earlier than the instructor agreed to let him deal with the challenge, which got here with sophisticated directions and concerned studying the best way to solder.
“I labored each evening,” Samueli says. “There have been a whole bunch of connections that I needed to solder up. It took a full semester to construct it, and, on the finish, I introduced it into class, plugged it in, and sound got here out of it. I used to be completely blown away. And I actually made it my mission in life to determine how radios work.”
Samueli’s instructor was blown away as effectively. And what he mentioned crystallized Samueli’s future. “He advised me, ‘Henry, actually, I by no means ever thought you might do that. However clearly, you’ve acquired some particular presents. I believe you must pursue electrical engineering as a profession. You’re going to do one thing huge sometime.’ ”
UCLA Takes Maintain—and By no means Lets Go
Samueli ultimately utilized to UCLA—a college with electrical engineering program and reasonably priced tuition that was near residence. He went straight by means of to a Ph.D. however, he says, didn’t actually perceive how radios labored till a number of years past that.
After amassing his Ph.D. in 1980, Samueli joined TRW to work on protection communications initiatives. He says he beloved each minute. “It’s an amazing alternative to study since you’re coping with superhigh tech, the best expertise on the time. And with an enormous price range, you possibly can construct very subtle issues,” he says.
Samueli didn’t fully go away the world of upper training. In his spare time, he taught a circuit-design class at
California State College, Northridge, after which a number of circuits and sign processing lessons at UCLA. In 1985, UCLA provided him an assistant professorship, and he left TRW, taking coworker Henry Nicholas with him as his first Ph.D. pupil.
The 2 shaped the core of what would change into the multidisciplinary communications analysis program in UCLA’s Built-in Circuits and Methods Laboratory. They collaborated with a number of school members within the electrical engineering and laptop science division to develop digital modem chips.
Broadcom cofounders Henry Samueli (left) and Henry Nicholas pose in entrance of the corporate’s headquarters in Irvine, Calif., in 1999. Ted Soqui/Corbis/Getty Photos
“Chip design is a really advanced and broad self-discipline,” Samueli factors out. “There are analog designs, digital designs, a number of methods, varied architectures. Whereas such a multidisciplinary method is commonplace immediately, it was pretty uncommon on the time.”
AT&T Bell Labs was main the world in digital-communications analysis, Samueli recollects, utilizing low-speed modems that communicated in the identical bandwidths because the human voice. The labs constructed these modems utilizing programmable digital sign processing chips from
Texas Devices and others.
“It was a software-driven method to constructing digital sign processing,” Samueli says. “And it solely ran at knowledge charges of tens of kilobits per second. Our problem was the best way to take these algorithms and make them run at tens of
megabits per second—one thousand instances sooner.”
Samueli and his colleagues concluded {that a} programmable structure utilizing software program was simply too gradual. So that they started investigating parallel architectures that would implement subtle algorithms on a single chip with no software program, simply devoted {hardware}. “That was our innovation. Again then, it was very novel,” he notes. “Right this moment, it’s what makes AI processors work.”
UCLA researchers who specialised in analog sign processing collaborated with the group to combine high-speed analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters into the core features of the chip—“actually breakthrough work,” Samueli says.
“I used to be completely blown away. And I actually made it my mission in life to determine how radios work.”—Henry Samueli
Samueli and his staff weren’t pondering patents whereas they had been doing this analysis. As teachers, their focus was on publishing their outcomes—some 100-plus papers over 10 years. However many others noticed industrial potential of their work.
“After we’d publish a paper, we’d go to a convention and make a presentation,” Samueli says. “Individuals would come as much as us after the discuss and say, ‘That is actually neat stuff. Have you ever ever thought of commercializing it and beginning an organization?’”
Samueli and Nicholas took the leap in August of 1991, incorporating Broadcom Corp. and chipping in US $5,000 every to lease an workplace and purchase computer systems and workplace provides.
Samueli saved working full-time at UCLA whereas Broadcom started bringing in small protection contracts: growing a digital frequency synthesizer for TRW, a digital filter for a Rockwell microwave radio, and, for the U.S. Air Pressure, a digital filter to guard GPS indicators from jamming.
“These initiatives funded our R&D, and we gained increasingly data,” says Samueli. (For extra on Samueli’s early profession, see
this 1999 profile.)
Scientific Atlanta Connects with Broadcom
In December 1992, a pupil of Samueli’s
gave a presentation at Globecom (the IEEE World Telecommunications Convention, that’s) a few prototype 10-plus megabit-per-second digital modem chip the group had developed.
“What was totally different of their chip is that it built-in digital and analog,” recollects Leo Montreuil, then an engineer at
Scientific Atlanta and now an IC design engineer at Broadcom. On the time, Scientific Atlanta shared the U.S. cable TV set-top field market with just one competitor, Basic Instrument. “We had many firms making chips for Scientific Atlanta, however not that form of chip.”
After the presentation, Montreuil approached the scholar, who referred him to Samueli. Montreuil met with Samueli and Nicholas three months later.
Henry Samueli is that this 12 months’s recipient of the IEEE Medal of Honor for his contributions to digital broadband expertise and his help of STEM training.Peter Adams
Scientific Atlanta wasn’t simply casually curious in regards to the work. The corporate had signed a significant contract with Time Warner to construct 4,000 set-top containers for the world’s first digital cable system, referred to as the
Full Service Community. It wanted a digital modem for that field, however the needed chips weren’t commercially accessible.
“What they had been attempting to do in a single chip appeared so significantly better than multichip methods being developed by others,” says Montreuil. “Whenever you go from analog to a digital implementation, you need to fear about drift, temperature sensitivity, and different points. The extra you possibly can implement within the digital area, the extra predictable is the system.”
Scientific Atlanta awarded a $1 million growth contract to Broadcom in June of 1993. Though Broadcom’s design ended up utilizing three chips, the corporate did mix analog and digital circuitry on the identical silicon.
“The challenge was simple,” Samueli says, “as a result of it was primarily based on the prototype designs we had already accomplished. And it labored the primary time, flawlessly.”
Time Warner’s digital cable community—activated in Orlando, Fla., in early 1995—was a technical success, however Time Warner didn’t take it any additional. The community wasn’t supposed to be financially viable, Montreuil says, mentioning that the core of every residence system was a prohibitively costly Solar SPARC workstation. “The purpose was to accumulate data and to get our foot within the door for the subsequent technology.”
Broadcom’s modem design impressed each Scientific Atlanta and Basic Instrument. The 2 opponents invested $1 million every, for a ten % whole stake within the startup. That funding allowed Broadcom to maintain engaged on digital modems, to cut back the fee by placing all of the features on a single chip.
Sherman Chen was a senior engineer at Basic Instrument on the time. “We knew then that the Broadcom gadget would dramatically prolong the boundaries of communications,” recollects Chen, who’s now vp of engineering in Broadcom’s broadband video group. “Concepts like superior error correction and digital compression had been round, however they had been all simply elegant theories till Broadcom constructed the primary mixed-signal silicon for broadband communications. Broadcom created an trade.”
Broadcom wasn’t the one firm chasing the low-cost digital modem grail. One key competitor was LANcity, which had a $500 digital modem. The market was evolving shortly, and it was changing into clear to cable operators that this new expertise would require standardization. Broadcom, CableLabs, Basic Instrument, LANcity, 3Com, and others
started collaborating in 1995 to create a global commonplace referred to as the Information-Over-Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS).
“Individuals would come as much as us after the discuss and say, ‘That is actually neat stuff. Have you ever ever thought of commercializing it and beginning an organization?’ ”—Henry Samueli
Round that point, Samueli left UCLA to give attention to Broadcom, which had lately moved from Los Angeles to Irvine, in Orange County. Reluctant to chop his educational ties, he requested that his departure be thought of a short lived go away of absence. He formally stays on go away from UCLA even now.
In 1995, Broadcom launched its first mainstream industrial product—that’s, a tool constructed to promote on the open market, not developed beneath contract. The BCM3100 was an under-$20, single-chip, DOCSIS-compatible digital modem. In 1996, Broadcom added one other sort of product: digital Ethernet chips, what Samueli says was the world’s first all-digital implementation of Ethernet expertise. With these two profitable product strains, Broadcom went public in 1998 at a valuation of $1 billion, making Samueli, Nicholas, and lots of of Broadcom’s 320 or so staff rich. By mid-2000, that valuation had jumped to greater than $60 billion, with Samueli’s stake price about $10 billion, and, in response to the
Orange County Register, the typical worker price almost $6 million.
“We had been a really beneficiant firm to our staff,” Samueli says. “We gave inventory to just about all people within the firm. We had it to offer as a result of we didn’t dilute our shares by taking up enterprise capital traders.”
The SEC Goes After Broadcom’s Inventory Choice Grants
This sharing of the wealth, sarcastically, led to one of many darkest chapters in Samueli’s story. Within the mid-2000s, the U.S. Securities and Change Fee started investigating the usage of inventory choices at a variety of tech firms, together with Broadcom. The SEC opened a proper inquiry into Broadcom’s practices in late 2006 and in 2008 charged a number of Broadcom executives, together with Samueli and Nicholas, of backdating inventory choices.
“It was a nightmare,” Samueli says. “We went by means of 5 years of hell. It’s scary. They threaten you. They are saying, ‘We’re going to place you in jail for 300 years.’ ”
In late 2009, the case got here earlier than U.S. District Courtroom Decide
Cormac Carney. After listening to a few of the proof, together with testimony from Samueli and others, the choose “threw every part out,” Samueli says.
Carney appeared significantly outraged by the prosecution’s remedy of Samueli.
His ruling acknowledged: “The uncontroverted proof at trial established that Dr. Samueli was an excellent engineer and a person of unbelievable integrity. There was no proof at trial to counsel that Dr. Samueli did something mistaken, not to mention felony. But, the federal government launched into a marketing campaign of intimidation and different misconduct to embarrass him and convey him down.”
Says Samueli: “This complete choices backdating scandal was distress, however I wouldn’t change what we did. I believe being overly beneficiant to staff is an efficient factor.”
In the meantime, Broadcom cofounder Nicholas was struggling. He had resigned from the corporate in 2003, and across the identical time because the inventory choices investigation, he was indicted for distribution of unlawful medicine. Nicholas entered rehab in 2008, and
the costs had been ultimately dropped. A decade later, although, Nicholas was arrested in Las Vegas for drug trafficking and took a plea deal with out admitting guilt.
“I haven’t spoken to him in a few years,” says Samueli. “It’s actually unhappy. However what he did for the corporate can’t be underestimated. I want him all one of the best.”
Samueli’s Philanthropy and the Giving Pledge
Samueli remained a gentle presence as Broadcom’s chief expertise officer till 2018, persevering with by means of its acquisition by Avago in 2016. (The ensuing entity is now referred to as
Broadcom Inc.) Since 2018, he’s served as chairman. He nonetheless has an enormous affect on the corporate’s engineers. Charlie Kawwas, president of Broadcom’s semiconductor options group, says that Samueli continues to attend all the division’s technical evaluations—about 72 a 12 months, every lasting 2 to three hours.
“He engages with the engineers, asking questions and giving suggestions, they usually love that,” Kawwas says.
On a cruise to Antarctica in 2023, Henry Samueli “went to each lecture…he went on each tour,” a colleague recollects. Lindsey Spindle
Together with his present private wealth
estimated by Forbes at about $20 billion, Samueli spends a lot of his time giving cash away by means of the Samueli Basis. He additionally chairs the board of the Broadcom Basis. He and his spouse, Susan, have dedicated to the Giving Pledge, promising to offer away most of their wealth both throughout their lifetimes or of their wills.
“After Broadcom went public, and the inventory was flying, Susan and I made a decision we would have liked to begin giving this away. It was straightforward to consider what I needed to offer again to. What created this wealth? My engineering training. And UCLA was that total training—my bachelor’s, grasp’s, Ph.D., school member. So there was no query in my thoughts that the primary main reward could be to
UCLA and the engineering faculty, and that was $30 million in 1999.” (See “Henry Samueli’s Profession Recommendation for Aspiring Engineers.”)
Since then, the Samueli Basis has supported engineering and integrative well being packages at UCLA and the College of California, Irvine, for a complete, Samueli estimates, of greater than $500 million. (Integrative well being is well being care that embraces different therapies together with typical drugs and is a ardour of Samueli’s spouse.) The inspiration additionally targets initiatives aimed toward bringing college students into the STEM pipeline, together with making a constitution center and highschool—
the Samueli Academy—targeted on hands-on studying in engineering and design arts. It’s working with neighborhood schools to broaden coaching for nursing, development, maritime, and STEM careers. And the inspiration funds initiatives to fight antisemitism and to advertise collaborations with Israel and initiatives inside Israel, a rising focus in response to current occasions.
“He engages with the engineers, asking questions and giving suggestions, they usually love that.”—Charlie Kawwas, Broadcom
Altogether the inspiration has distributed greater than $1 billion to this point, and it’s on observe to offer away a few billion extra on this decade, studies
Lindsey Spindle, president of the Samueli Household Philanthropies, which oversees the inspiration and the household’s different, smaller philanthropic efforts.
“Henry’s engineering background provides him the appropriate structure for philanthropy,” Spindle says. “He is aware of about methods constructing. He appreciates interconnectivity. If you find yourself constructing {hardware}, you need to take into consideration the bigger system through which it can operate, be affected person, and be keen to iterate. Whenever you care about combating antisemitism, ending homelessness, and reorienting drugs in direction of well-being, you additionally should have a methods orientation and be keen to iterate.”
Henry Samueli and his spouse, Susan, rejoice the Stanley Cup victory for the Anaheim Geese hockey staff, which Samueli purchased in 2005. Harry How/Getty Photos
Samueli can also be the proprietor of the Nationwide Hockey League franchise the
Anaheim Geese. At a look, this may appear to be a typical wealthy man’s plaything—and there’s no doubt that he enjoys his involvement with the staff. However the acquisition got here from an impulse to do good. In 2003, the corporate managing the Geese’ residence, the Anaheim Area, went bankrupt. Anaheim officers knew Samueli was an lively businessman within the Ocean County neighborhood, they usually requested him to take over administration of the sector (now referred to as the Honda Middle). In the meantime, Geese proprietor Disney was desirous to promote the staff.
Says Samueli: “In concern of an outsider coming in and transferring the staff out of city, we determined that, for the neighborhood’s sake, we’d be certain they keep right here—and learn to run a sports activities staff.”
“It was an enormous studying curve,” he says. “However in any enterprise, it’s actually in regards to the administration. We put in administration staff—and received the Stanley Cup in our second 12 months of possession.”
His dive into studying about hockey is attribute of Samueli’s method to only about every part, individuals who’ve labored with him report.
“Henry has a seemingly limitless capability to entertain new concepts,” Spindle says. She described a visit to Antarctica, for which her household joined a few of the Samuelis. “Henry went to each lecture provided on the ship. He went on each tour,” she says. In his work with the inspiration, she continued, he’s equally curious and engaged. “He exhibits up at each assembly,” she says. “You may ship him a 120-page doc, and he’ll learn each phrase and are available ready to ask questions.”
The hockey staff is a part of Samueli’s funding in, and delight of, the Orange County neighborhood. Subsequent up is creating a real downtown Anaheim, within the type of an arts and leisure district tagged
OCVIBE. And in his free time, he takes lengthy e-bike rides simply to benefit from the neighborhoods.
“OCVIBE and the Geese are an essential a part of our lives,” Samueli says. “And as Broadcom inventory grows, we simply hold placing increasingly cash into the inspiration. That’s not going to cease. Then, after all, there’s being on the Broadcom board and deeply concerned with Broadcom—I can see that persevering with for a few years. Theoretically, I’m retired, however I’m as busy as ever.”
This text was up to date on 21 April 2025.
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