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Nokia Bell Labs receives the 2020 Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award for pioneering work on imaging sensors

by Kevin Fitchard
20 Oct 2020
CCD innovators Michael Thompsett (left) and Ed Zimany pictured in 1972 with the first all-solid state video camera developed at Bell Labs.

The charge-coupled device (CCD) was a groundbreaking innovation at Nokia Bell Labs. It advanced the field of computer memory and led directly to the invention of the digital image sensor, which is now embedded in nearly every smartphone and digital camera in the world. Without the CCD, the world would not have been able to share billions of photos on social media; nor would we have autonomous cars, computer vision in robots or medical imaging.

Nokia Bell Labs and its researchers have received numerous honors for the invention of the CCD, including the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 2017 Queen Elizabeth Prize. Today that pioneering work will be recognized once again, this time with the Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award. The CCD was crucial in the development of television, allowing images to be captured digitally for recording transmission.

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the 2020 technical award winners in January, but due to pandemic concerns the awards ceremony was postponed. The Academy held the ceremony virtually on Wednesday, Oct. 21, and Nokia corporate CTO and Bell Labs President Marcus Weldon was part of the event, delivering an acceptance speech on behalf of Nokia Bell Labs. You can watch the replay of his speech below.

Watch the Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards Live
4 PM ET, Wednesday, Oct. 21

This certainly isn’t Nokia Bell Labs’ first Emmy® Award. We received our first Technology & Engineering award in 2016 for the pioneering invention and deployment of fiber-optic cable, and in 1997, we were honored with the Primetime Engineering Emmy® Award for our work on digital television as part of the HDTV Grand Alliance.

Image: CCD innovators Michael Thompsett (left) and Ed Zimany pictured in 1972 with the first all-solid state video camera developed at Bell Labs.

Kevin Fitchard

About Kevin Fitchard

Kevin is an experienced technology writer and editor, having worked at multiple trade and consumer tech publications before coming to Nokia Bell Labs in 2019. He first became fascinated with Bell Labs and its applied research mission in 2008 while reporting a feature story for Telephony Magazine. After following the research institution for many years, he jumped at the opportunity to write about Bell Labs innovation from within its walls.