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 silkscreen 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. Although the first integrated circuit was pretty crude and had some problems, the idea was groundbreaking. By making all the parts out of the same block of material and adding the metal needed to connect
them as a layer on top of it, there was no more need for individual discrete components. No more wires and components had to be assembled manually. The circuits could be made smaller and the manufacturing process could be automated. Jack Kilby (Texas Instruments) is probably most famous for his invention of the integrated circuit, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in the year 2000. After his success with the integrated circuit Kilby stayed
with Texas Instruments and, among other things, he led the team that invented the handheld calculator. 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. -- Reference Wikipedia.org back to 222)
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