Where would we be without it?

Spare a thought for the late Jack Kilby.

Fifty years ago yesterday, on September 12th. 1958, he invented the integrated circuit. It's gone on to become the foundation of all modern electronic equipment. This year the semiconductor industry (which is nothing more than IC's on a chip) is forecast to do $265 billion worth of business. That's larger than the national economies of most of the countries in the world.

Kilby's first integrated circuit was a thumbnail-size device.




Today's transistors are vastly smaller and more efficient: about 30 million of them, graven at 45 nanometers, can fit onto the head of a pin! A modern transistor also costs about one millionth of the price of a transistor in 1968. Below is shown an array of Intel chips (semiconductors) made up of 45-nanometer transistors, with a US penny for scale.




Kilby's original circuit would have been about the same size as the penny!

The computers which make it possible for me to type this, and post these pictures, and publish this article on my blog, and for you to read it from anywhere in the world via the Internet, and all the electronic routers and switches and computers that bring us together, are all dependent upon the integrated circuit. So is every single item of modern consumer and other electronics.

An anniversary to remember!

Peter