Microchip
that Led to Computerized World
By A.R. Chan |
| Jack St. Clair Kilby owns 60 patents
for his inventions over the past 50 years, but it is Patent
No. 3,138,743 that changed the world. |
The 1958 invention
of a miniaturized integrated circuit -- the microchip
-- won Kilby the Nobel Prize and propelled the electronics
age to places even Kilby and his fellow engineers couldn't
imagine. Kilby will share war stories from his days at
Texas Instruments with high school students this weekend
during a robotics competition at Oklahoma Christian University.
While Kilby will tell students to stick with their scientific
interest, he won't boast or brag about his engineering
feat, even though many colleagues think he should.
For a man whose curious mind almost single-handedly launched
a computer generation, he is remarkably humble.
The engineer, 78, is retired from Texas Instruments after
30 years of work that included inventing the first hand-held
calculator. He doesn't travel much, he doesn't lecture
much and he doesn't work much despite still occupying
an office at the corporation's headquarters in Dallas.
Kilby is now content with sitting back and watching his
inventions revolutionize the world's multibillion-dollar
communication and electronics industries -- and talking
to students who he says understand computers better than
he does.
"It's been fascinating to watch. I've enjoyed it.
It's always good to see something like that succeed,"
Kilby said. Kilby's inventing days began with an amateur
radio as a teenager.
He was ascinated with how they worked and intrigued by
their ability to communicate with people around the world.
His father, an engineer, supported Kilby's interest in
science, but Kilby said fellow amateur radio enthusiasts
taught him the most about electronics.
The Missouri native studied electrical engineering at
universities in Illinois and Wisconsin before moving to
Texas Instruments at age 34. |
Jack St. Clair Kiby |
After several interviews, he was hired. He began working
in microminiturization.
Not long after he arrived at the company in May 1958,
the plant shut down for a mass vacation. He had no vacation
time built-up as a new employee, so he stuck around.
He figured when his bosses returned, he would be assigned
to the micro-module project, which he didn't want.
To avoid the assignment, he decided he would have to come
up with something more interesting.
In his "discouraged mood," Kilby said he began
to think of how to make a cost effective semi-conductor.
He realized since the company produced semi-conductors,
resistors, transistors and capacitors, why not make them
all out of the same material, interconnect them and put
them on a package smaller than a paper clip?
He said it seemed logical to him, but it wasn't logical
to anyone else.
When his boss returned from vacation, Kilby showed him
his idea. His boss was interested but skeptical. He wanted
proof Kilby's system of semi-conductors would work.
Kilby built the first silicon circuit as a demonstration
for his boss in August, 1958. A month later, he produced
the first integrated circuit. Kilby applied for the patent
on his invention, and the company announced its creation
the next spring. |
 |
the next spring.
Kilby's comments on his ground-breaking invention were
summed up with, "Someone had to, and I guess I
was in the position to do it."
He said while he and other engineers knew Kilby's invention
would have an impact, none of them knew the magnitude
of its effect.
"I thought it might be important for electronics
as we knew it. I never knew how much the lower cost
would expand the field," Kilby said.
"No one had heard of personal computers at that
time. There were very few computers in the world, and
they were very large and dedicated to major |
companies
or major problems."
The microchip not only made computers smaller, faster
and more affordable, the design lead to many other inventions
and is used in nearly every electronic device on the
planet from cars to televisions.
To prove its worth, Kilby applied the miniaturized concept
to calculators, which at the time were large adding
machines. The work resulted in the first hand-held calculator
-- another of Kilby's patents.
The first fully-integrated computer came in 1961.
Along the way, Texas Instruments assigned several engineers
to work with Kilby on his designs. He will meet again
with one of them Saturday.
Joe Watson worked at Texas Instruments from 1960 to
1989 with many of those years along side Kilby.
He's now enjoying his second career as a professor of
electrical engineering at Oklahoma Christian University.
He hasn't seen Kilby since a celebration dinner in honor
of Kilby's Nobel Prize in 2000.
"I'm sure it never occurred to me at the time the
significance of what he was doing, and it probably didn't
occur to him either," Watson said.
"It was a very rare opportunity, and I was obviously
in the right place at the right time." |
 |
Watson said Kilby has always understated
his role in American invention, which places him with
the likes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.
All three are members of the National Inventors' Hall
of Fame.
"There's no question about the significance of
his invention," Watson said.
"He certainly had the stick-to-itveness and the
perseverance to follow through and discard the bad ideas
like Edison did."
Kilby sees his place among such inventors a little differently.
"I don't think that is a very easy comparison to
make. It's very hard to judge those things, and I wouldn't
be inclined to try."
As humble as he is, Kilby can't deny he is one of only
a few people on the globe who can look around and say
to himself "I changed how the world functions."
As far as the constant attention he receives from people
who claim he changed the world, he said, "I'm getting
used to it." |
Watson said Kilby has always understated
his role in American invention, which places him with
the likes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.
All three are members of the National Inventors' Hall
of Fame.
"There's no question about the significance of
his invention," Watson said.
"He certainly had the stick-to-itveness and the
perseverance to follow through and discard the bad ideas
like Edison did."
Kilby sees his place among such inventors a little differently.
"I don't think that is a very easy comparison to
make. It's very hard to judge those things, and I wouldn't
be inclined to try."
As humble as he is, Kilby can't deny he is one of only
a few people on the globe who can look around and say
to himself "I changed how the world functions."
As far as the constant attention he receives from people
who claim he changed the world, he said, "I'm getting
used to it." |
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