Slashdot Mirror


1958 Integrated Circuit Prototypes From Jack Kilby's TI Lab Up For Sale

First time accepted submitter Dharma's Dad writes Christie's New York is auctioning off a 1958 prototype microchip, used by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments in his Nobel Prize-winning invention of putting an integrated circuit onto a single chip. Gifted to one of the lab employees by Kilby, the family has decided to sell it. Estimated at $1,000,000 - $2,000,000, this prototype integrated circuit was built between July 18 and September 12, 1958, of a doubly diffused germanium wafer with flying gold wire and four leads.

16 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Microchip by iggymanz · · Score: 3

    synonymous for me, with IC and monolithic integrated circuit....but then I'm old

  2. Re:Microchip by iggymanz · · Score: 2

    hybrid integrated circuits are still used in micro and millimeter wave systems

  3. Re:Kilby & Noyce by smaddox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And Newton didn't invent the modern notation for Calculus (the modern form is due to Leibniz). And Maxwell wrote his equations completely differently than we write them now (the modern form is due to Oliver Heaviside). And Einstein didn't discover the special relativity transformations (hence why they are called Lorentz transformations). And Edison wasn't the first to invent the light bulb, let alone the carbon filament light bulb, let alone the tungsten filament light bulb. I could go on...

  4. GIVEN to one of the lab employees. by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 4, Insightful

    given to one of the lab employees, not GIFTED.

    Please, let's not let this Farmville jargon take over the net, including Slashdot. Nothing was 'gifted' unless it had certain special qualities. Things are given, not gifted.

    Language changes. But not because fucking Zynga made a game.

    1. Re:GIVEN to one of the lab employees. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Informative

      gift, v.: "To bestow as a gift; to make a present of." It's actually a pretty old usage.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:GIVEN to one of the lab employees. by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 2

      Gifted is perfectly cromulent wordage.

  5. Re:Microchip by JazzHarper · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At Texas Instruments, an integrated circuit was called a "bar", not "chip" or "die", partly because that's what Jack called them. Wafers were called "slices", so your multiprobe yield was expressed in "good bars per slice". They finally dropped the Texas jargon in the mid-'80s when it became obvious that it was a silly affectation in the face of industry-standard terminology and an obstacle to communicating clearly with vendors and customers.

  6. Re:$1,000,000 - $2,000,000? wow by grouchomarxist · · Score: 2

    It's more than just a transistor. That it is multiple connected components is what gives it significance in the history of technology.

    It's a piece of history. The price tag is determined by those who value history.

  7. Re:Microchip by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    That's probably because you work near DC.

    The federal government must really hate microwaves, then.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  8. Re:But wait a minute by grouchomarxist · · Score: 2

    ICs weren't invented for the space industry, but it is from the space and military industries that the transistor and IC manufacturers received a lot of their initial funding. For both the space and military industries the high costs of transistors and ICs was justified by their space, weight and energy-use savings along with their heat resistance. For business and consumers the benefits didn't justify the costs.

    If is wasn't for the space and military industries the development of transistors and ICs would probably have been slower.

    Source: Revolution in Miniature: The History and Impact of Semiconductor Electronics

  9. Re:Does it still work? by confused+one · · Score: 2

    I'm sure by now all the magic smoke has leaked out.

  10. Re:Microchip by Richard+Dick+Head · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What's wrong with microchip?

    Two guesses...

    1. Microchip is a brand name. Calling an IC a Microchip is like calling a moving staircase an Escalator.

    2. "Microchip" sounds like a disagreeably small snack. Quite the contrary, they are quite filling.

  11. Re:Kilby & Noyce by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm not completely sure your analogies are 100 % apt. Newton, Maxwell etc. made breakthroughs in thinking that really didn't get hampered by their original notation to the extent as to be unrecognizable. Kilby's circuit, OTOH, had much more in common with the technologies preceding it, most obviously the fact that they were manually wired. At best, it was halfway between the preceding and following technologies. Maxwell's theory wasn't "half-electromagnetic". Kirby's circuits, however, were "half-monolithic", since the problem of, e.g., insulating the parts and only working with doping was only solved later in Noyce's invention.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  12. Learn to use a dictionary by langelgjm · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of "gift" as a verb:

    2. To bestow as a gift; to make a present of. Const. with to or dative. Also with away. Chiefly Sc.
    1619 J. Sempill Sacrilege Sacredly Handled 31 If they object, that tithes, being gifted to Levi, in official inheritance, can stand no longer than Levi [etc.].
    a1639 J. Spottiswood Hist. Church Scotl. (1677) v. 278 The recovery of a parcel of ground which the Queen had gifted to Mary Levinston.
    1711 in A. McKay Hist. Kilmarnock (1880) 98 This bell was gifted by the Earl of Kilmarnock to the town of Kilmarnock for their Council~house.
    1754 J. Erskine Princ. Law Scotl. (1809) i. 51 Where a fund is gifted for the establishment of a second minister, in a parish where the cure is thought too heavy for one [etc.].
    1801 A. Ranken Hist. France I. 301 Parents were prohibited from selling, gifting, or pledging their children.
    1829 J. Brown New Deeside Guide (1876) 19 College of Blairs..having been gifted to the Church of Rome by its proprietor.
    1836 A. Alison Hist. Europe V. xlii. 697 Thus did Napoleon and D'Oubril..gift away Sicily.
    1878 J. C. Lees Abbey of Paisley xix. 201 The Regent Murray gifted all the Church Property to Lord Sempill.

    I'm not sure when Zynga was founded, but I'm pretty sure it was after 1619.

    --
    "Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
  13. Re:Microchip by Camael · · Score: 2

    1. Microchip is a brand name. Calling an IC a Microchip is like calling a moving staircase an Escalator.

    Factually correct, but doesn't answer the question of "Why not?" We do it all the time. We xerox documents. We google for results. And besides, it is already too late .

  14. Re:Microchip by onkelonkel · · Score: 2

    "What's wrong with microchip?"

    How quickly memory fades. It was regarded as a dumb-ass conflation of micro-circuit and chip. An IC should be called a chip. Just chip, no micro- in front. Micro-chip implies that there are much larger full sized chips, which is nonsense. Also a "micro" was a microprocessor, so a micro chip might be an 8085 or Z80, but not all chips were micros.

    Then as now, nerds were sticklers for precision in language.

    --
    None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.