Donald Linder 2009

Donald Linder

BS '65, Electrical Engineering
Kildeer, Ill.

The cell phone technology that all of us take for granted was developed in part through the efforts of Donald Linder (’65 electrical engineering). Linder was the lead engineer of the group at Motorola, Inc., that built the first hand-held wireless portable telephone in 1973.

Prior to Linder’s design, mobile telephones were large, heavy, and ran on car batteries. His original portable phone was possible because the team was able to make huge reductions in the weight and size of the electronics through new chip designs and other advances. He continued to make size and weight reductions in the years that followed, and it is that continuous development which helped bring about the cell phone as we know it today.

Linder’s research group is also credited with design of the analog portion of the first practical wireless phone. When the original analog cellular system was supplanted by a digital system, his group developed specifications and prototypes for digital cell phones. Later yet, when CDMA (code division multiple access) offered a different kind of digital communication, Linder’s team developed several generations of processor chips for this system. His team also pioneered the use of GPS in cell phones, established the world standard test facility for cell phone antennas and developed speech recognition for hands-free dialing in vehicles.

Linder made other technical contributions throughout his career at Motorola, including chip designs and system designs for radio communication. He holds 13 patents, many of which are incorporated into Motorola’s products.

After graduating from Iowa State, the Osceola and Centerville, Iowa, native joined the Applied Research Department of the Communications Division of Motorola in Chicago. While at Motorola, he earned the M.S.E.E. from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He spent his entire career at Motorola, rising to director of corporate applied research and vice president of technical staff. In 1994, he joined the cellular subscriber sector of Motorola to found a research lab.

For his work on the cell phone project, Linder shared the 2007 Great Moments in Engineering Award from GlobalSpec in honor of the 35th anniversary of the creation of the first portable, hand-held telephone. He was inducted into the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame in 2008. He was the recipient of Motorola’s Distinguished Innovator Award (1992) and the Dan Noble Fellow Award (1976).

Linder and his wife, Sharen I. Linder, live in Kildeer, Ill. The couple has two sons: Don and Andrew.