Presented by: Francois Delattre, Consul General of France in New York.

Claude Berrou was born in Penmarc’h, France, in 1951. In 1978, he joined the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications (ENST) de Bretagne (now named Telecom Bretagne), where he is currently a Professor in the Electronics Department. In the early 80’s, he initiated the training and research activities in VLSI technology and design to meet the growing demand from industry for microelectronics engineers.

Some years later, Prof. Berrou took an active interest in the field of algorithm/silicon interaction for digital communications. In collaboration with Prof. Alain Glavieux, he introduced the concept of probabilistic feedback into error correcting decoders and developed a new family of quasi-optimal error correction codes that he nicknamed turbo codes. He also pioneered the extension of the turbo principle to joint detection and decoding processing, known today as turbo-detection and turbo-equalization. In addition to algorithm/silicon interaction, he currently conducts research in electronics and digital communications at large, error correction codes, turbo codes and iterative processing, soft-in/soft-out (probabilistic) decoders, etc.

He is the author or co-author of 8 registered patents and some 80 publications in the field of digital communications and electronics. He has received several distinctions with Prof. Glavieux, amongst which the 1997 SEE Medaille Ampere, the 1998 IEEE (Information Theory) Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation, the 2003 IEEE Richard W. Hamming medal, the 2003 French Grand Prix France Telecom and the 2005 Marconi Prize. Prof. Berrou is a member of the French Academy of sciences and an IEEE Fellow.