illustration
from Jack Kilby's inventor's journal
Inventors
of the Modern Computer Series |
•
Table
of Contents
• Next
Chapter
Steve Russell and
Spacewar - the First Computer Game
ENTER |
|
|
|
More on
Intergrated Circuit - Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce |
• Further
Reading:
The history of integrated circuits,
patent drawings, photos, biographies of Jack Kilby
and Robert Noyce. |
|
|
|
By
Mary
Bellis
"What we didn't realize then was
that the integrated circuit would reduce the cost of electronic functions
by a factor of a million to one, nothing had ever done that for anything
before" - Jack Kilby
It seems that the integrated circuit
was destined to be invented. Two separate inventors, unaware of each other's
activities, invented almost identical integrated circuits or ICs at nearly
the same time.
Jack
Kilby, an engineer with a background in ceramic-based silk screen circuit
boards and transistor-based hearing aids, started working for Texas Instruments
in 1958. A year earlier, research engineer Robert
Noyce had co-founded the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. From
1958 to 1959, both electrical engineers were working on an answer to the
same dilemma: how to make more of less.
In designing a complex electronic
machine like a computer it was always necessary to increase the number
of components involved in order to make technical advances. The monolithic
(formed from a single crystal) integrated circuit placed the previously
separated transistors,
resistors, capacitors and all the connecting wiring onto a single crystal
(or 'chip') made of semiconductor material. Kilby used germanium and Noyce
used silicon for the semiconductor material.
In 1959 both parties applied for
patents. Jack Kilby and Texas Instruments received U.S. patent #3,138,743
for miniaturized electronic circuits. Robert Noyce and the Fairchild Semiconductor
Corporation received U.S. patent #2,981,877 for a silicon based integrated
circuit. The two companies wisely decided to cross license their technologies
after several years of legal battles, creating a global market now worth
about $1 trillion a year.
In 1961 the first commercially available
integrated circuits came from the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation.
All computers then started to be made using chips instead of the individual
transistors and their accompanying parts. Texas Instruments first used
the chips in Air Force computers and the Minuteman Missile in 1962. They
later used the chips to produce the first electronic portable calculators.
The original IC had only one transistor, three resistors and one capacitor
and was the size of an adult's pinkie finger. Today an IC smaller than
a penny can hold 125 million transistors.
Jack Kilby now holds patents on over
sixty inventions and is also well known as the inventor of the portable
calculator (1967). In 1970 he was awarded the National Medal of Science.
Robert Noyce, with sixteen patents to his name, founded Intel, the company
responsible for the invention of the microprocessor,
in 1968. But for both men the invention of the integrated circuit stands
historically as one of the most important innovations of mankind. Almost
all modern products use chip technology.
Next
Chapter > The
First Computer Game
artwork©marybellis
|