CCD Inventors to Receive $500,000 Prize

In 1969, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, who will share the annual Charles Stark Draper Prize presented by the National Academy of Engineering, were trying to figure out a way for semiconductors to store data when they sketched out the design of the CCD. Developed at Bell Laboratories, this design would become the first practical solid-state imaging device. Little did they know that this sketch would revolutionize how people view themselves, the world and the universe. The prize will be presented Feb. 21 in Washington, D.C.