Kilby's Chip: The Birth of Modern Computing
Jack Kilby demonstrated the first working integrated circuit to his colleagues at Texas Instruments on September 12, 1958, showing them a piece of germanium roughly half an inch long with protruding wires. When he applied current, an oscilloscope displayed a sine wave, proving that a transistor, capacitor, and resistor could all be fabricated on a single semiconductor chip. Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor independently developed a superior silicon version using planar processing months later. Kilby received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000; Noyce, who had died in 1990, did not share it. The integrated circuit is the foundation of every modern electronic device, from smartphones to spacecraft, and its invention launched the digital revolution.
September 12, 1958
68 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on September 12
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