Eli harari biography

Biography

Chairman and founder of SanDisk, one of the world’s leading semiconductor nonvolatile memory companies, Dr. Eli Harari is a recognized leader in flash memory. Dr. Harari’s vision for SanDisk has been to create a revolutionary flash memory technology that would enable low-cost solid-state storage to replace chemical film or rotating magnetic disk drives.

In 1988, embryonic flash memory technology was slow, unreliable and expensive. SanDisk pioneered numerous technological breakthroughs, captured in more than 1500 patents, which systematically overcame these limitations, drove costs down and opened new large-scale markets. The flash chip was re-architected and mated with sophisticated controllers that provided reliable high-speed multiple writes, while multi-level cell (MLC) technology and Moore’s Law lowered costs drastically. SanDisk worked with major competitors to create new industry-standard formats such as the PC Card, CompactFlash, Secure Digital (SD) card, Memory Stick, miniSD and microSD.

Over the past 20 years, flash products brought about the demise of 35mm film due to digital film cards, eliminated tape and CDs in favor of flash-based MP3 players, replaced floppy disks with USB flash drives and will soon gradually supplant DVDs and hard disk drives with flash solid-state disks. Flash has become pervasive and ubiquitous, enabling content on-the-go any time, anywhere—in consumer electronics, mobile phones and industrial/automotive/medical and military devices.

An IEEE member with over 100 patents, Dr. Harari’s contributions have earned him widespread recognition, including the 2006 IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Data Storage Device Technology Award and the 2009 IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal. He has served as Chairman and CEO since SanDisk’s inception in 1988, growing the company to over $3 billion in annual revenues.

See also

IEEE Milestones: The Floating Gate EEPROM, 1976 - 1978

As an Army commander and a professional athlete in a leading role, Eli Harari knows what it means to lead from the front by example, as well as build a cohesive team that performs at an optimal level.

This practical leadership background is combined with over 25 years of international experience in speaking, coaching, training, and guiding private entrepreneurs, business executives, and CEOs and help them grow & achieve great success.

Eli’s aim is to guide professionals to achieve holistic development in the vast territory of soft skills, which determines the health of the organization upon which it rests its long term success.

He firmly believes and has demonstrated that personal growth, spirituality & professionalism are inexorably connected.

From Government Agencies, International Banks, Start-Ups to private practices, Eli has covered all ranges of industries.

The bottom line is we are in a people’s business and it is the human aspect that matters here, not the industry. This is where Eli comes in and gives you that Human perspective – the one that is often forgotten and pushed aside because of so many cultural business demands.

The three main territories that Eli covers are:

1. How to become a charismatic leader that only ever leads by example.
2. How to become a cohesive team builder
3. How to become an effective communicator

To achieve a high level of competence in these 3 dynamics requires a variety of soft skills such as:

• Strategic thinking
• Strategic Planning
• Emotional Intelligence
• Creative Thinking
• Change Management etc.

Among the many companies, Eli has worked with are:

Mass Mutual Financial Group,
Philips Health Care,
USA Health Care,
AFLAC,
IFMA,
TEC,
GE Financial Services,
NBAA – National Business Aviation Association,
USA
Pernod-Ricard USA,
Arkal LTD, (Israel)
Paine Webber,
DHL (Europe),
Westinghouse USA,
Westinghouse (Europe)
Walmart,
Veterans Administration,
U.S Enviro

Eli Harari invented the Floating Gate EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory). After earning his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1973, Harari joined Hughes Aircraft where his research on electronic tunneling in ultrathin dielectric films led to the invention of the first practical EEPROM, which paved the way for today's flash memory industry.

Harari co-founded SunDisk (later re-named SanDisk Corporation) in 1988 to pursue his vision to develop a system-level architecture ("System Flash") that successfully overcame fundamental physical limitations found in flash EEPROM transistors. System Flash revolutionized storage of data in portable, battery operated devices such as digital cameras, hand held computers and cell phones, markets that were still in their infancy in 1988. SanDisk's first SSD (Solid State Drive) incorporating the System Flash inventions was introduced in 1991 but was prohibitively expensive, initially limiting its broad acceptance. But SanDisk's engineers persevered; over two decades they relentlessly drove down the cost of flash EEPROM by more than 100,000 times through Moore's Law scaling coupled with MLC (Multi-Level Cell), a SanDisk invention that allowed two or three bits of data to be stored on each flash EEPROM transistor. Consumers can now enjoy 128 gigabytes of affordable System Flash storage in a stamp-sized package in their smartphone to faithfully store thousands of photos, tunes or e-books for many years with power removed.

Harari retired in 2010 as chairman and CEO of SanDisk. He is recipient of the 2009 IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal and his work on the Floating Gate EEPROM was recognized as a 2012 IEEE Milestone. In 2014, he received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation "for invention and commercialization of flash storage technology to enable ubiquitous data in consumer electronics, mobile computing, and enterprise storage." Harari is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and

American business executive and founder of SanDisk

Eliyahou Harari is an Israeli-American business executive best known for being the co-founder of SanDisk along with Sanjay Mehrotra.

Early life and education

Harari was born in 1945 in Tel Aviv, Israel. His parents were Polish Jews who at 1933 had immigrated to Palestine before Israel's formation.

He was born and raised in Israel. He completed his Bachelor's Degree at Manchester University in England. He completed his Master's degree in Physics at Princeton University and his subject of study was semiconductors.

Career

Hughes Aircraft

As an engineering intern at Hughes Aircraft, he played a major role in the development of the world's first EEPROM.

Intel

His first job after graduating university was at Intel. He later went to work for a number of startups, including Synertek, Wafer Scale Integration and San Disk.

SanDisk

He and Sanjay Mehrotra co-founded SanDisk in 1988.

Awards and recognition

He has more than 180 patents. He has received numerous awards including:

References