Hans R. Camenzin the inventor of the famous 555 timer IC died at the age of 78:
Hans R. Camenzind was an electronics engineer best known for inventing the 555 timer IC in 1970. He was an inventor on 20 US patents.
During his career he wrote three textbooks, designed the first integrated class D amplifier, introduced the phase-locked loop concept to ICs, invented the semicustom IC and created the 555 timer. He had designed 140 standard and custom ICs as of 2006.
Via createdigitalmusic.com, and matrixsynth.
The Commodore 64 uses PLL chips so I’m guessing he made a huge and unnoticed contribution to the Computer Revolution.
Just about everything is using PLL’s these days.
And here is the link to his Book which IMHO is a Tome in the subject of Analog Circuit Design.
*PDF Warning*
http://www.designinganalogchips.com/_count/designinganalogchips.pdf