On November 8, 1923, in an ordinary household in Jefferson City, Missouri, USA, a baby boy was born.
The boy’s father, Hubert Kilby, was an electrical engineer who graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His mother, Vina Kilby, was also a graduate of the same university.
The young couple probably never imagined that the little life they welcomed would grow up to become a great engineer, inventor, and even a Nobel Prize winner. His inventions would launch a vast industry and change the entire world.
That baby boy was Jack St. Clair Kilby, one of the principal inventors of the integrated circuit and known as the “Father of the Chip.”
01
█ The Growth of an Engineer
In 1927, when Kilby was four years old, the family moved to Salina, Kansas.
His father, Hubert Kilby, was the manager of the Kansas Power Company. At that time, Kilby often accompanied his father on inspections of power plants, observing power generation and transmission equipment. Over time, he developed a strong interest in electrical devices and was determined to become an electrical engineer.
In 1937, the Kilby family moved again, this time to Great Bend, over 100 kilometers from Salina. Kilby completed his high school years there.
After graduating from high school, Kilby pursued his dream of becoming an engineer by taking the entrance exam for MIT. Unfortunately, he missed the cutoff score by just three points (the passing mark was 500, and he scored 497).
With no other choice, he enrolled at his parents’ alma mater—the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (It’s worth noting that this university is one of the best public universities in the U.S., not a second-rate school.)
Shortly after he enrolled, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred, and the United States formally entered World War II. Jack Kilby joined the U.S. Army.
At the time, he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a radio communication equipment technician, stationed at a military base in northeastern India, where he repaired walkie-talkies. Reportedly, he also spent a few months in China on missions under the command of General Stilwell.
This experience in the war greatly benefited Kilby’s growth. He later recalled, “Things outside of school make you mature quickly. When problems arise, you must face them, think of solutions, solve them, and then you improve.”
After the war, Kilby returned to the University of Illinois to continue his studies (tuition covered by the military).
In 1947, Kilby earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and joined Centralab, a research division of Globe Union, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
While working, Kilby attended night school and earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Around the same time, he married Barbara Annegers, and they had two daughters.
In 1947, William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen at Bell Labs invented the world’s first transistor, a milestone that rocked the scientific community.
Kilby took note of the event. He even attended a talk by Bardeen (a fellow University of Wisconsin graduate), which sparked his strong interest in transistors. He remarked, “(The arrival of the transistor) meant that everything I had learned about vacuum tubes was now obsolete.”
In 1952, pressured by U.S. antitrust laws, Bell Labs began licensing transistor production to 38 companies across the country at a low fee of just $25,000. Globe Union, Kilby’s employer, was among the licensees.
After receiving the license, Kilby was sent to Bell Labs to attend a two-week seminar on transistor technology, during which he gained substantial knowledge.
Back at Globe Union, Kilby formed a three-person R&D team. They succeeded in producing transistors and bringing them to market, but the venture yielded little profit.
Despite its impressive name, Globe Union was just a medium-sized company and was unwilling to invest further in transistor development due to the low returns. Kilby began looking for better opportunities.
Eventually, he joined a newcomer in the electronics industry—a company that would become the semiconductor giant Texas Instruments (TI).
That same year, another major figure joined TI: Morris Chang, the future founder of TSMC.
02
█ From Oil to Electronics: The Rise of a Giant
Texas Instruments has a long history. Its predecessor, Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI), was founded in 1930 by J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott. The company’s main business was geological exploration—in simpler terms, finding oil (Texas has abundant oil resources).
After a difficult start during the Great Depression, GSI shifted focus during World War II to producing defense electronics for the U.S. Army and Navy. Their submarine detection devices were especially favored by the Navy, resulting in numerous orders.
By 1951, the lab and manufacturing divisions of GSI—focused on electronics—had outperformed the geophysics side. The company was effectively an electronics company and thus renamed itself “General Instrument,” and then again that same year to “Texas Instruments,” a name it still uses today.
In 1952, TI also obtained Bell Labs’ transistor licensing.
That year, Gordon K. Teal, a former Bell Labs scientist, joined TI as director of research. Under his leadership, TI produced the first commercial silicon transistor and the first transistor radio within two years, cementing its place in the industry.
03
█ The Birth of the Integrated Circuit
As mentioned, Kilby joined TI in 1958.
At that time, TI was collaborating with the U.S. Army Signal Corps on a project called the “Micro-Module Program,” aimed at standardizing the size and shape of electronic components to reduce circuit space and lower soldering errors.
Kilby thought this approach was flawed and began exploring better solutions.
He initially designed an alternative, but cost analysis showed it was too expensive for mass production, leaving him stuck.
In August 1958, a turning point came.
Dallas, where TI is based, gets extremely hot in the summer. The company gave employees two weeks off to escape the heat.
As a new hire, Kilby wasn’t eligible for the vacation, so he stayed behind and continued his work. Perhaps the quiet atmosphere helped—he soon made a breakthrough.
He recalled the words of Geoffrey Dummer, a British radar scientist, who said at a 1952 conference: “With the advent of the transistor and thorough understanding of semiconductors, it now seems possible to imagine future electronic equipment as a solid block without connecting wires.”
Inspired by this, Kilby realized that miniature circuits consisting of various components could be made on a single chip. That is, different components (resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors) could be built on a silicon wafer and connected with fine wires.
Excited, he documented his idea in detail, outlining a full circuit fabrication process over five notebook pages.
When vacation ended, Kilby reported his idea to his supervisor, Willis Adcock (then TI’s development director). Adcock initially found the idea troublesome and unlikely to work but reluctantly approved a prototype.
Kilby originally wanted to use silicon, but TI lacked suitable wafers, so he used germanium instead.
On August 28, 1958, he built a functioning trigger circuit.
On September 12, 1958, TI executives gathered in the lab as Kilby confidently presented a circuit built on a piece of germanium just 7/16 inches long and 1/16 inches wide.
The circuit—a single-transistor oscillator with RC feedback—was glued to a glass slide and connected with fine wires, appearing quite rudimentary.
Kilby applied 10 volts to the input and connected an oscilloscope to the output. Instantly, the oscilloscope displayed a 1.2 MHz, 0.2-volt oscillating waveform.
There was a moment of silence, then loud applause. Kilby had succeeded. He had created the world’s first integrated circuit using a single material. It was a historic milestone that marked a new era in electronics.
On February 6, 1959, TI and Kilby filed for a patent, describing the device as “a body of semiconductor material…in which all components of the electronic circuit are completely integrated.”
On March 6, 1959, at the IEEE annual meeting in New York, TI held a high-profile press conference at the Waldorf Astoria, unveiling Kilby’s invention to the world.
Mark Shepherd, then head of TI’s semiconductor division (later TI president), said at the press conference, “This is the most significant invention since we announced our entry into the transistor market.”
04
█ Kilby vs. Noyce: Who Is the True Father of the Integrated Circuit?
At the same time Kilby made his invention, Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor also made significant progress.
Noyce, one of the “traitorous eight” who left Shockley’s company to form Fairchild, was a co-founder of both Fairchild and Intel.
Jean Hoerni, another “traitor,” had invented the planar process—adding an insulating silicon dioxide layer to the chip, then etching holes and connecting components using aluminum film.
This process allowed Fairchild to build small, high-performance silicon transistors and enabled the creation of interconnected circuits on a single chip.
On January 23, 1959, Noyce wrote in his lab notebook: “By fabricating all components on a single silicon chip and connecting them with the planar process, we can build multi-functional electronic circuits that are smaller, lighter, and cheaper.”
When TI announced Kilby’s invention, Noyce was both impressed and frustrated. He realized Kilby’s design used fragile wire connections, unsuitable for mass production.
Noyce envisioned etching all circuit components onto a silicon substrate, forming a complete circuit that could be used as-is. Using evaporated metal instead of soldered wires would eliminate the need for point-to-point wiring.
On July 30, 1959, Noyce filed a patent titled “Semiconductor Device–Wiring Structure.”
Strictly speaking, Noyce’s invention more closely resembles today’s integrated circuits. His silicon-based planar process surpassed Kilby’s germanium-based method.
However, Kilby’s hybrid circuit still met the definition of an integrated circuit and was filed earlier.
Thus began a fierce patent war between TI and Fairchild.
Kilby later commented: “No one doubts I was the first to make an integrated circuit. Dr. Noyce was the first to do what I had wanted to do—use evaporated metal to connect the devices. His approach was very different. He said he named me a co-inventor out of sympathy, but I don’t see it that way.”
In 1966, the court awarded Kilby the invention of the idea (hybrid integrated circuit) and Noyce the invention of the practical manufacturing process and true integrated circuit.
Kilby was deemed the inventor of the first integrated circuit, and Noyce the pioneer of mass-producible ICs.
That year, TI and Fairchild signed a cross-licensing agreement to share patents.
In 1969, a U.S. federal court ruled that the two patents were parallel and independently developed.
05
█ The Arrival of the Chip Era
In March 1960, TI released the world’s first commercial integrated circuit—the Type 502 silicon bistable multivibrator, priced at $450.
The earliest applications of ICs were in the military (then at the height of the Cold War).
In 1961, the U.S. Air Force launched the first IC-powered computer. In 1962, ICs were used in the guidance systems of Minuteman ballistic missiles.
Later, NASA’s Apollo project purchased millions of ICs, bringing huge profits to TI and Fairchild.
Military success drove civil adoption. In 1964, Zenith used ICs in hearing aids—the first consumer application. From there, costs fell, processes improved, and ICs gained widespread industry acceptance.
In 1961, TI chairman Patrick E. Haggerty asked Kilby to design a new, hand-held electronic calculator.
By 1967, Kilby’s team completed the world’s first handheld electronic calculator—Pocketronic.
The broader significance of ICs was that they paved the way for the microprocessor.
In 1970, Intel launched the first DRAM chip, the 1103. The following year, they released the Intel 4004—the first programmable microprocessor with both arithmetic and control units.
The Intel 4004 contained 2,300 transistors and marked the beginning of the microcomputer era.
06
█ A Belated Nobel Prize
In 1971, Kilby left TI to pursue consulting and further inventions, also teaching at Texas A&M University.
During this time, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, he developed solar energy systems. However, falling oil prices meant little commercial interest, and the projects went undeveloped.
In 1999, the Los Angeles Times listed the 50 most influential economic figures of the 20th century. Tied at the top were William Shockley, Robert Noyce, and Jack Kilby.
On October 10, 2000, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to Zhores Alferov, Herbert Kroemer, and Jack Kilby for their “pioneering work in information technology.”
Kilby received half of the 9 million SEK prize (about $1 million) for his role in inventing the integrated circuit.
It had been 42 years since his invention.
Better late than never. Noyce, sadly, passed away from a heart attack on June 3, 1990, at age 62, missing his chance at the Nobel.
On June 20, 2005, Jack Kilby died of cancer at his home in Dallas at the age of 81.
07
█ Conclusion
Throughout his life, Kilby held more than 60 patents. In addition to the integrated circuit, handheld calculator, and solar energy systems, he also invented the thermal printer.
Without a doubt, he was a great inventor whose contributions advanced society and deserve lasting remembrance.
Let us end with a quote from Tom Engibous, former chairman of TI’s board:
“I believe there are a few individuals whose work changed the entire world and the way we live—Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, and Jack Kilby. If one invention transformed our industry and the world we live in, it was Jack’s invention of the integrated circuit.”
Source: Internet/TI
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