This is my user page.
I use it to test different things.
The heading of this new page will be History of IBM Research in Israel.
Established back in 1972 as the IBM Israel Scientific Center, the IBM Haifa Research Lab has grown from three researchers to over five hundred employees, including regular staff members and many students. The IBM Haifa Research Lab is located in a custom-built complex on the Haifa University[1] campus, with branches in Haifa and Tel Aviv. Current projects include healthcare, cloud computing, formal and simulation-based verification technologies, programming environments, chip design, storage systems, information retrieval, collaboration, and much more.
At the IBM Haifa Research Lab, twenty-five percent of the technical staff have doctoral degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, or related fields. Employees are actively involved in teaching at Israeli higher education institutions such as the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology)[2] and supervising post-graduate theses. Many employees have received IBM awards for achievements and excellence.
Over the years, the IBM Haifa Research Lab in Israel has managed to strike a delicate balance between applied and long-term industrial research. While contributing to product development on many levels, the Lab also maintains close ties to the academic world. This combination enables the Lab to simultaneously meet the needs of the present day while helping shape the future of information technology.
Since its establishment in 1972, the IBM Haifa Research Lab has always been responsive to both the research goals of IBM and the specific needs of Israeli industry – from medical non-invasive diagnosis projects, to computer-controlled irrigation, scheduling El Al flight crews, and Hebrew voice recognition. Today, its contributions play an important role in emerging technologies such as IBM’s eLiza project for self-managing computer systems, iSCSI for the IBM TotalStorage™ IP Storage 200i, the InfiniBand high bandwidth network protocol, Enterprise Storage Systems, and information retrieval engines. In addition, verification tools developed in Haifa are used throughout IBM labs to verify and test software and hardware.
How It All Began
editThe concept of establishing a research center for IBM in Israel was the brainchild of the late David Cohen, then general manager of IBM Israel, and the late Prof. Josef Raviv, a world renowned Israeli computer scientist who headed a research group at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York. Raviv, who was killed in a tragic automobile accident in 1999, was the driving force behind the IBM Haifa Research Lab in Israel and continued to be instrumental throughout its growth.
In 1971, Raviv spent a year on sabbatical in Israel, where he met with Cohen. They convinced IBM management to open a center in Israel, modeled after the Scientific Centers in the United States, England, Germany, France and Italy. The goals of these non-profit centers were to promote the development of computer science and utilize advanced technology to solve problems critical to the local community. They saw that with its international reputation for high-level scientific research, a pool of talented researchers, and the support of advanced research institutions, Israel offered an ideal environment for successful research and development operations. This was a groundbreaking step. At the time, beyond the military industry, the field of hi-tech was almost non-existent in Israel, and computing was just starting to gain momentum in academic institutions.
In 1972, the IBM Israel Scientific Center opened its doors in the Computer Science Building of the Technion, with a handful of employees: Raviv as manager, three researchers, and one programmer.
Early Collaborative Projects
editUsing the Technion’s computing facilities, the Center embarked on projects in the fields of medicine, agriculture, economics, computer sciences, and applied mathematics in computer applications.
At first, all of the Center’s work was done in cooperation with Israeli public and academic research groups. Teams composed of Scientific Center personnel and research partners worked on joint projects, and their results were published in the public domain, as per IBM guidelines for all Scientific Centers. This turned out to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the focus on projects had the potential to make a difference for the country without having to make direct return-on-investment considerations. On the other hand, many researchers were frustrated by the inability to see their work mature into practical implementation and use.
Joint Ventures across the Oceans
editIn the late 1970s, Raviv began searching for ways to expand the Scientific Center’s activities. He approached other Scientific Centers in Europe about conducting joint research projects. One of these was a project in farm management, in collaboration with the Madrid Scientific Center. This allowed the Haifa team to buy their first computer. It was a 5110—a portable computer roughly the size of a suitcase. The research team implemented algorithms on this machine and carried it from one kibbutz (collective farm) to another, to solve their individual irrigation problems.
thumb|350px|Early computer-aided ultrasonic processing in medicine
Another important project was the development of an ultrasound system for the early detection of liver cancer, in conjunction with IBM Austria and Israel’s Sheba Hospital. Although today ultrasound equipment is routinely used in a wide range of medical applications, at the time it was a relatively new technology. Haifa’s expertise in signal processing was key to the development of this project.
Due to collaborative projects such as these, the Scientific Center quickly became recognized as a focal point for research and development in engineering and scientific computing for all of IBM’s European Scientific Centers. This facilitated the growth of the Center from fifteen to twenty-two employees. To accommodate its expansion, the Scientific Center moved to newer and larger premises in the Technion’s Andre and Bella Meyer Advanced Technology Center in 1982.
Research Group Opens in Haifa
editRaviv was still on the lookout for ways to expand the Center. As he searched for new avenues for cooperation, he hit on the idea of subcontracting to the IBM Research labs[3] in the United States. He thought that perhaps the labs in the US could use specific skills to solve specific problems, and might be interested in working on a per-project basis.
At the time, this was a radical idea, but as it took shape, Dr. Ralph Gomory, Director of IBM Research, decided to sponsor the concept and created the Haifa Research Group (HRG) in 1982. This new activity began with only two projects—vendor chip testing and DAIOS (DASD I/O simulations)—and grew at an unprecedented rate. These two projects formed a core of activity that eventually led to the creation of the Haifa Research Lab’s Verification Technologies and Storage System Technologies departments and to the Haifa Microelectronics Development Lab.
In 1983, the Scientific Center and HRG came together under the roof of the Science and Technology Division of IBM Israel. It became a legal subsidiary of IBM Israel in 1989, which, at the time, was managed by Joshua Maor. Its major research and development projects in the 1980s included Hebrew computational linguistics (including text-to-speech synthesis for the blind), optimization of water distribution systems, computer-based education technology, portrait compression, signal processing for the hearing impaired, document recognition and processing, hand-written and printed text recognition, data compression and parsing techniques, and VLSI design verification, and testing tools.
IBM, the Solutions Provider
editDuring the late 1980s, the emphasis of the Scientific Center’s work began to shift. IBM was phasing out its Scientific Centers as computing became more widely used. In Israel, a decision was made to change the focus of the Center’s work to benefit IBM Israel by finding solutions for its customers. In 1992, the Israel Scientific Center formally became known as the Advanced Solutions Center of IBM Israel.
In recognition of the value that the Center was bringing to IBM, in 1993, Dr. Jim McGroddy, director of IBM Research, renamed it the IBM Haifa Research Laboratory. At the time, it was one of only three laboratories affiliated with the IBM Research Division outside of the United States, the others being Zurich[4] and Tokyo[5]. At the time, the Center had more than 250 employees; to accommodate its growing staff, HRL moved into Building 8/1 in the MATAM Advanced Technology Center[6] at the southern tip of Haifa, not far from the Carmel Beach.
During the 1990s, HRL’s contributions to research and development were reflected in a variety of IBM products, such as the hardware and software for RS/6000 workstations, mathematical elementary functions for several IBM computers, consistent backup of data without interruption to active applications, and design verification of certain IBM products. HRL became the largest Research lab outside the United States.
In 1999, on his 65th birthday, Raviv retired as director of HRL and began to pursue another daring innovation—the establishment of an IBM development center in Israel. A few months later, he and his wife, Joanna, were killed in a tragic car accident while on vacation in New Zealand.
The development center planned by Raviv eventually became the Israel Systems and Technology Group (STG) Lab. The activities of the Israel STG Lab include storage technologies, high-speed networks, high-speed circuits, software/hardware integration, and physical design of key VLSI components.
Collaboration with Academia
editIn its 30th year, the IBM Haifa Research Lab in Israel moved to its new home on the Haifa University campus. From its vantage point on the Carmel mountain range, the building offers breathtaking views of the Mediterranean Sea and the city of Haifa below. The location’s proximity to the Haifa University and the Technion are a clear indication of the Labs’ strong ties with the academic world. With an emphasis on research, the Lab is positioned somewhere in the middle, between academia and the industrial world.
The researchers at the Lab teach at the Technion, Haifa University, and Tel Aviv University[7]. They supervise student theses and undergraduate projects. Several staff members are also involved in special projects with academic institutions in Israel, the United States, and Europe, including collaborations with Purdue University[8], Bar-Ilan University[9], the University of Maryland[10], and numerous academic institutions throughout Europe. Today, the IBM Haifa Research Lab boasts the highest number of employees in Israel’s hi-tech industry who hold doctorate degrees in science, electrical engineering, mathematics, or related fields. Researchers participate actively in international conferences and are frequently published in professional publications.
The IBM Haifa Research Lab is part of the IBM R&D Labs in Israel.