Charles Peter Sandbank, born 14.8.1931, was educated at Bromley Grammar School and London University.

He joined the Brimar Valve Co. of STC in 1953 as a Production Engineer and later worked on receiving valve development. In 1960 he moved to the STC Transistor Division where he developed some of the first semiconductor integrated circuits to be produced in Europe. Among his early papers were proposals for the techniques now commonly used in ASICs and the principle of surface mount.

In 1964 he was appointed head of the Electron Devices Laboratory at Standard Telecommunications Laboratories and in 1968 became Manger of the STL Communications Systems Division. While at STL he was personally active in the fields of compound semiconductors; microwave devices; integrated circuits; solid state bulk effects; electron-phonon interactions; radio communication systems; navaids and electro-optics. He was responsible for the team which pioneered the use of optical fibres for communications and in 1976 built the world's first wide band digital optical fibre communications system (140 Mbit/s between Hitchin and Stevenage) He edited one of the first books on the technology of optical fibre communications.

In 1978 he joined the BBC as head of its Research Department and became BBC Deputy Director of Engineering in 1984. There he had line responsibility for engineers engaged in research; design; prototype equipment production; transmitter capital projects; IT; as well as architects and civil engineers.

He made personal contributions to the BBC's work in electronic graphics; the 'BBC MICRO' project; HDTV and particularly digital broadcasting . NICAM stereo sound for TV was among the activities which he initiated while he was Head of Research. He has played a leading role in the establishment of the technology and world -wide standards for Digital Television (a subject on which he has also edited a book). The work he initiated at the BBC has contributed to the establishment of the world's first terrestrial digital radio service in 1997 and TV service in 1998.

He is a founder member of European Digital Video Broadcasting project which now encompasses 140 organisations and, as its first Chairman he set up the EBU/ETSI JTC - the body with formal responsibility for broadcast system standards in Europe. He has chaired the DTI Enhanced TV committee since 1990.

Since retiring from the BBC in 1993 he has been working for the DTI as Broadcasting Technology Adviser. He was also a non-executive Director of Snell and Wilcox Ltd from 1993 to 1997.

He has served as member or chairman of several SRC SERC and EPSRC panels; University Advisory Boards; and external MSc and PhD examiner. He is Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in the Principles of Information Systems Design at the University of Bradford.

In addition to the two books, he is author or co-author of over 100 papers and a similar number of patents.

He was elected FEng in 1983, is also FIEE and F Inst P. He has received Fellowships from the RTS, BKSTS and SMPTE for contributions to broadcast engineering and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Surrey.

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