The device that made modern computing possible turned 50 this week. Texas Instruments celebrated the anniversary of the integrated circuit by opening Kilby Labs, named after inventor Jack Kilby.

When Kilby began work as an engineer at the firm, the biggest problem in the circuit industry was that all the components in a device had to be wired to one another and that it was becoming increasingly difficult to make more complex devices without being overwhelmed by wiring – a problem known as the ‘tyranny of numbers’.

Kilby came up with the idea of making all the components out of the same material and housing them on a single piece of material. While he presented the idea to management, it was a lucky break in company policy that turned the theory into reality.

As a junior employee, Kilby was one of the few workers who didn’t get a summer vacation. Left largely to his own devices during the break, he spent his time testing his theory by attaching wiring to a piece of germanium (a similar material to tin) and gluing it to a piece of glass. When management returned from their break he was able to demonstrate the first integrated circuit (pictured).

At the same time, and unbeknownst to both men, Robert Noyce was working on a similar project at rival firm Fairchild Semiconductor, though his creation (which used silicon rather than germanium) didn’t make a public appearance for another six months.

Pretty much every electronic device that has followed has been based around the chips developed by the two men, who are generally credited as co-inventors. A spokesman for Intel (the company Noyce later founded) said this week that the integrated circuit is at the heart of anything with an on-off switch.

The integrated circuit is also the basis of the microchip, the tiny processor that means we now have computing power in mobile telephones rather than computers the size of a room.

Kilby, who also invented the electronic calculator, later received the Nobel physics prize for his invention. He died in 2005.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 5:58 pm under Science and technology, Technology.

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