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Mukta Farooq got her first US patent in her 20s
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Mukta Farooq got her first US patent in her 20s
Sujit John / Gadgets Now / Updated: May 6, 2021, 02:00PM IST
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She had just joined IBM, after a BTech in metallurgical engineering from IIT Bombay, a Masters in material science from Northwestern University, Illinois, and PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York.
She says she had the good fortune to be placed in a group working on groundbreaking semiconductor packaging technology. They were developing a new thin film process to enhance communication between multiple processor dies on a ceramic packaging substrate. She found it very exciting, being straight out of school. But she was also intimidated by the others in the team, since they were all seasoned researchers.
Since Mukta was the youngest, she was the one who would go into the development fab every day, run the hardware, evaluate it, inspect it. It gave her a real feel for the problem they were trying to solve.
Once when she was inspecting, she started noticing defects. “It struck me that there was a way of changing the process to make it simpler and less prone to defects. I documented what I thought was an improvement in structure and process. When this was reviewed by senior members of the team and the IP (intellectual property) legal team in IBM, they realised it was a very important idea. This eventually got into the final patent that IBM submitted in 1990,” Mukta says.
The patent was granted three years later. And it went on to become a landmark patent in advanced packaging technology.
“It shocked me to realise that it was possible for a 20 something, straight out of grad school, to add so much value to a key IBM patent. I also learnt at the time that it’s important to pay close attention to problems. And try to figure out unique solutions. When you do that, it could lead to some really good inventions,” says Mukta, who is today Distinguished Research Staff Member at IBM Research, US.
Start with the assumption that you are capable of inventing. I mentor a lot of young folk. Invention takes time and effort. May not happen the first time. Train to look at problems. Look at problems as opportunity.
Of her 222 patents, Mukta says about 30 have been considered extremely useful, having influenced technology significantly. “Some have been in the top 10% of patents awarded in a year,” she says. IBM has recognised the Mumbai girl as a lifetime master inventor, a title that’s not conferred easily.
Mukta says invention requires that you know the area well. “You need to immerse yourself in the area, figure out what the literature already has, ruminate on unsolved problems, look for new solutions, follow through,” she says.
She also notes that almost all her inventions have co-authors. “Small teams of people, particularly if they have different training, experience, talent, they can give rise to exceptional ideas. You can feed off each other – someone with a background in physical chemistry can explain to me, a metallurgist, some nuance that I may not have immediately grasped,” she says.
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