Mr. Bishnu S. Atal

Bishnu Atal, Murray Hill (1933- ) AT&T, Florham Park

Bishnu S. Atal, one of AT&T's premier scientists and Technology Director at AT&T's Shannon Labs, Florham Park, is a leader in the creation of digital cellular technology, a foundation of the mobile communications industry. Atal's research work is documented in over 90 technical papers and he holds more than 16 U.S. and numerous international patents in speech processing.

His patented invention, a "Speech Coding Method for Reducing the Bit Rate Needed for Transmission of High-Quality Speech on Digital Networks," enabled digital speech coding, a key building block of digital communication.
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Atal was ahead of his time when he developed his ideas in the early 1980's, since semiconductor technologies of sufficient processing power simply were not available to implement his ideas. By the late 1980's, the technology caught up and Atal's patented technology began to be widely accepted as an elegant solution that was fundamental to digital cellular technology. Eventually, his ideas gained universal support and were adopted by a number of standards bodies. They had become essential to implement high-quality digital cellular systems.

Atal, who is engaged in research in speech coding and automatic speech recognition at AT&T Labs in Florham Park, joined the company in January, 1997. He had previously been Head of the Acoustics and Audio Communication, Research Department at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill. He was made a Bell Laboratories Fellow in 1994 and an AT&T Fellow in 1997.

Born in India, Atal received his BS degree in Physics from the University of Lucknow, India, in 1952 ; a Diploma in Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, in 1955, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York City in 1968. From 1957 to 1960, he was a lecturer in Acoustics at the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Atal is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Atal has won a number of professional awards, including the AT&T Strategic Patent Award, the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award of the R & D Council of New Jersey, and several IEEE awards for his pioneering work.

Bishnu S. Atal, Ph.D.
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Citation: Dr. Atal is awarded the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering in recognition of his important work on voice coding, including the concept of speech analysis-by-synthesis coding, leading to the CELP (Code-excited Linear Predictive) Coder.
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The next time you make a call on your cell phone, think of Bishnu Atal, who is internationally recognized for his pioneering work on Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) methods that analyze and synthesize speech signals, which provided not only higher quality digital speech, but also dramatically expanded the benefits of cellular phone technology to millions of users.

His invention reduced the bandwidth required to send high-quality speech signals on narrow-band channels.By reducing the size of the bandwidth, Atal dramatically expanded the carrying capacity of the limited area of the electromagnetic spectrum used by the cellular users.

Atal holds 16 U.S. and numerous international patents in speech processing.He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Signal Processing Society Award and the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award of the R&D Council of New Jersey.

Born in India, Atal earned his B. S. in physics from the University of Lucknow, India, in 1952; a diploma in electrical communication engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, in 1955; and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York in 1968.

Bishnu S. Atal (1933-)AT&T, Florham Park, NJ

Bishnu S. Atal ( 1933 - )AT&T , Florham Park , NJ

Invented a method to reduce the bandwidth required to send high-quality speech signals on narrow-band channels , effectively expanding by many times the carrying capacity of the limited area of the electromagnetic spectrum used by the growing number of cellular phone users.

Bishnu Atal

Mr. Atal is a world-recognized premier scientist and served as the Technology Director of AT&T's Shannon Labs. He invented digital cellular technology, which is the foundation of the mobile communications industry. Mr. Atal's patent, "Speech Coding Method for Reducing the Bit Rate Needed for Transmission of High-Quality Speech on Digital Networks," has enabled digital speech coding, a key building block of digital communication, and enhanced the quality of digital speech.

Mr. Atal's invention has permitted widespread use of quality digital systems for millions of users of cellular phone technology in the U.S. The impact of this technology on emerging nations has been greater because mobile digit cellular communications can be implemented without requiring the extensive capital investment in infrastructure in developing nations such as Brazil, China, India, and other developing countries in the world.

Mr. Atal holds more than sixteen U.S. patents and numerous international patents in speech processing technology and has published more than 90 technical papers. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (EEE). He has won a number of professional awards, including the AT&T Strategic Patent Award, the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award of the R & D Council of New Jersey, and several IEEE awards for his pioneering work.

Mr. Atal received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, New York, B.S. in Physics from the University of Lucknow, India, and a Diploma in Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.