On April 23, 2015, Hap Hughes of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) received the Peter Haas award for his contributions to the field of radiation survivability. He was recognized at the Hardened Electronics and Radiation Technology (HEART) conference in Chantilly, Virginia.
The purpose of the Peter Haas award is to recognize individuals who have demonstrated outstanding and innovative technical contributions or leadership in the successful development of U.S. hardened military and space systems.
Specifically, the citation for the award given to NRL's Hap Hughes reads: For superior achievement in radiation survivability research and technology by enabling systems hardening through contributions to radiation-hardening successive generations of CMOS [complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor] technologies.
At NRL, Hughes has focused on material and device aspects of radiation effects and hardening for over 50 years. His current focus is on hardening deep submicron (less than 100 nanometers) technology nodes for CMOS and CMOS/silicon on insulator integrated circuits, and on advancing neutron detection devices for defense applications.
He's collaborated with industry and academia to develop material and processing solutions for hardening successive generations of integrated circuit technologies. He's also made significant contributions to our understanding of radiation effects mechanisms. Hughes is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Life Fellow.