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Integrated Circuit Is 50 Years Old Today
arcticstoat writes "Today marks fifty years since the first integrated circuit, or microchip, was demonstrated by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments on 12 September 1958. The original chip might not be much to look at, but then Texas Instruments admits that Kilby often remarked that if he'd known he'd be showing the first working integrated circuit for the next 40-plus years, he would've 'prettied it up a little.' The integrated circuit itself was housed in a germanium strip on a glass slide, and it measured 7/16in by 1/16in. With protruding wires, and just containing a single transistor, some resistors and a capacitor, it's a primitive chip by today's standards, but it worked and successfully produced a sine wave on an oscilloscope screen at the demo. Technology hasn't been the same since."
IC your 50 years old...
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
Naw, ya think?
Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Integrated Circuit. Happy birthday to you.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
At first I thought "so what," but now IC that this is momentous.
"4 bits should be enough for anybody"
According to this, the IC is a phase shift oscillator which cranked out a 1.3 MHz signal upon application of power.
From TFA:
To commemorate Kilby's accomplishment and stimulate ingenuity, Texas Instruments will be canceling vacations for all of their employees.
...a Beowulf cluster of these!
I, for one, welcome our new^H^H^H^H 50 year old integrated circuit overlords.
See that "Preview" button?
With the hurricane coming to town, their facility seems like a fairly safe space compared to the vacation spots on the beaches in South Texas.
The word "Microchip" is one of those non-technical words that always make my inner geek cringe. If that's a microchip, a regular full sized chip must be about 8 foot long? Right? Why not just call it a chip?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
The same guy who did the Silver Surfer? Coool!
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Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
Wow, we have come so far since the discovery in Roswell!!!!!!
Thanks Jack.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
For a laugh and some historical perspective, dig out the datasheet for a 555 timer. It's an ancient chip by any standards, but still extant. The designers were obviously rather proud of how many transistors this chip could replace (something like 25), and the datasheet is clearly bragging about this. In a modern context, this is pretty funny. Of course, designing a chip with that kind of lifespan is braggable.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Don't transistor me bro!
I was debating a coworker about the greatest invention of the 20th century, we both agreed that the miniskirt ranks higher than the transistor. It's interesting that they both came out around the same time.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: It's a boyhood fantasy... I must have seen this ship hundreds of times in the Smithsonian but I was never able to touch it.
Lieutenant Commander Data: Sir, does tactile contact alter your perception of the Phoenix?
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Oh, yes! For humans, touch can connect you to an object in a very personal way, make it seem more real.
[Data also puts his hand on The Phoenix]
Lieutenant Commander Data: I am detecting imperfections in the titanium casing... temperature variations in the fuel manifold... it is no more "real" to me now than it was a moment ago.
Cmdr. Deanna Troi: [observing from a catwalk] Would you three like to be alone?
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Real Electronics you can see. I want my transistors right out in the open, not hiding like some yellow bellied worm. Get them right out there, where I can twittle and twaddle them. Who knows what voltages are insides some of those chips.... I want my radios big 'n heavy. Real techs use 100 watt soldering irons.
You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
Quote: "it measured 7/16in by 1/16in" and that folks is why we use the metric system in the rest of the world
"Neo, follow the white rabbit"
"Can i eat the white rabbit?"
"No, there is no spoon to eat it with"
Get off my lawn!
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
Has anyone done an analysis demonstrating the size and power consumption of a machine equivalent to a modern CPU but composed of discrete components? Or even valves/tubes?
The TI invention was not what we would consider an "IC". It had components, but it wasnt practical to mass produce. Not even TI followed up on its development.
The real practical IC, with photoetched traces on a planar silicon substrate was developed by Fairchild.
Here's an interview with Hans Camenzind, the said desinger of the 555. I thought this part was interesting:
There are no patents on the 555. Signetics did not want to apply for a patent. You see, the situation with patents in Silicon Valley in 1970 was entirely different than it is now. Everybody was stealing from everybody else. I designed the 555 Signetics produced it, and six months, or before a year later, National had it, Fairchild had it, and nobody paid any attention to patents. The people at Signetics told me they didn't want to apply for a patent, because what would happen if they tried to enforce that patent, is the people from Fairchild would come back with a Manhattan-sized telephone book and say "These are our patents, now let's see what you're violating". It was a house of cards - if you blew on it, the whole thing collapsed.
But in a parallel universe where Japanese won the WWII - that might be true.
Only, the comic is caller Sirver Surfer there.
Incredible Hurk on the other hand... I don't think he ever made past issue #1.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
TI's also starting up a new R&D lab in honor of the occasion. The sent out an email inviting employees to apply for positions, but I'm just a product engineer so I don't get to do research. :-(
Visit the
Okay, if you don't like 20 years, how 'bout this...
Transistor: 1948
Bikini: 1946
Velcro: 1948
Is that close enough? ;^)
But does it run Linux?.....okay, Minux? .... Nanix?
Table-ized A.I.
I say teh same about my posts that git modded way up
Table-ized A.I.
Hmmm, it's etched with a tiny "Kilby Was Here".
Table-ized A.I.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But the real question is, how long had they been holding on to this alien technology before they unleashed it upon an unsuspecting world? Inquiring minds want to know.
My peace of mind does not depend on
I think it would be fair to mention another guy's brilliant work, namely, Robert Nouyce's. He was the one who made integrated circuits practical.
Would you imagine a modern microprocessor made the same way as Kilby's first IC? More connection wires than transistors - and it has plenty of transistors.
The technology used to mass-produce IC-s was developed by Robert Noyce. He found a way for semiconductor fabs to produce not only transistors, but a whole planar circuit of transistors in one go.