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Y
YKhan
Microchip Pioneer Jack Kilby Dies at 81
06.21.2005, 05:22 PM
Nobel laureate Jack Kilby, whose invention of the integrated circuit
ushered in the electronics age and made possible the microprocessor,
has died after a battle with cancer. He was 81.
Kilby died Monday, according to Texas Instruments Inc., where he worked
for many years.
Before the integrated circuit, electronic devices relied on bulky and
fragile circuitry, including glass vacuum tubes. In the late 1950s,
there was considerable interest - especially in the military - in
making devices smaller.
Kilby's fingernail-size integrated circuit, a forerunner of the
microchip used in today's computers, replaced the bulky and unreliable
switches and tubes.
It was during his first year working at TI in Dallas in the summer of
1958 that Kilby set out on a course that would forever change how
electricity is used to efficiently and reliably power everything from
vacuum cleaners to supercomputers. Using borrowed equipment, he built
the first integrated circuit in which all the components were
fabricated in a single piece of semiconductor material half the size of
a paper clip.
"TI was the only company that agreed to let me work on electronic
component miniaturization more or less full time, and it turned out to
be a great fit," Kilby wrote in an autobiography for the Nobel
Committee in 2000, the year he won the prize for physics.
Today, integrated circuits can be found in all manner of digital
devices, from TVs to microwave ovens. Sales of integrated circuits
totaled $179 billion in 2004, supporting a global electronics market of
more than $1.1 trillion, according to TI.
The contributions of Kilby - who also co-invented the handheld
calculator - are hard to overstate, according to technology experts.
"Today's trillion-dollar market for integrated circuit-based
electronics is just the tip of the iceberg," inventor and futurist Ray
Kurzweil said. "The exponentially expanding powers of information
technology are transforming every industry and facet of life from the
making of music, the enhancement of human communication through the
Internet, to our growing mastery of our own biology through
computer-based simulation."
According to his 2000 Nobel citation, Kilby "laid the foundation of
modern information technology."
"In my opinion, there are only a handful of people whose works have
truly transformed the world and the way we live in it - Henry Ford,
Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and Jack Kilby," TI chairman Tom
Engibous said in a statement Tuesday. "If there was ever a seminal
invention that transformed not only our industry but our world, it was
Jack's invention of the first integrated circuit."
Kilby's more than 60 U.S. patents included one filed in 1959 for an
integrated circuit made of the element germanium.
"It was kind of a string-and-chewing-gum gadget that just showed you
could use semiconductors to make all the bits and pieces. But it was
far from something that you could do on a practical basis," said Gordon
Moore, who co-founded Intel Corp. in 1968 with Robert Noyce, an
inventor who a few years earlier had received a patent for a similar
but more complex circuit made of silicon while at Fairchild
Semiconductor.
"Kilby may have built the first one," Moore said. "Noyce's approach was
how to do it on a practical basis. They really complemented one
another."
Moore, who worked with Kilby over the years, said he admired Kilby's
creativity, inventiveness and modesty.
"He was always coming up with creative ideas. I remember way back
before people considered it important, he was inventing a gadget that
used silicon to turn solar energy into hydrogen. It was kind of ahead
of the problems we are looking at now," Moore said.
After winning the Nobel, Kilby said of his invention, "I thought it
would be important for electronics as we knew it then, but I didn't
understand how much it would permit the field to expand."
In 1970, in a White House ceremony, he received the National Medal of
Science. In 1982, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of
Fame.
Kilby spent his later years as a consultant to TI, working on industry
and government assignments throughout the world. A few years ago,
Dallas-based TI named a $154 million research and development complex
in his honor.
Known by colleagues as a humble man of few words, the 6-foot-6 Kilby
said he never craved fame or wealth.
"I think it just happened," Kilby said in a 2000 interview with The
Associated Press. "It wasn't deliberate. I didn't say, `Inventors are
nice and I want to be one.' I just think if you work on interesting
projects, invention is kind of a natural consequence."
Jack St. Clair Kilby was born in 1923 in Great Bend, Kan. His father
was the owner of a small electric company, and Kilby became interested
in radio tubes while listening to big band radio in the 1940s. He
earned degrees in electrical engineering from the universities of
Illinois and Wisconsin, and began his career in 1947 with the Centralab
Division of Globe Union Inc. in Milwaukee, developing ceramic-based,
silk-screened circuits for electronic products.
Kilby is survived by two daughters, five granddaughters, and a
son-in-law.
06.21.2005, 05:22 PM
Nobel laureate Jack Kilby, whose invention of the integrated circuit
ushered in the electronics age and made possible the microprocessor,
has died after a battle with cancer. He was 81.
Kilby died Monday, according to Texas Instruments Inc., where he worked
for many years.
Before the integrated circuit, electronic devices relied on bulky and
fragile circuitry, including glass vacuum tubes. In the late 1950s,
there was considerable interest - especially in the military - in
making devices smaller.
Kilby's fingernail-size integrated circuit, a forerunner of the
microchip used in today's computers, replaced the bulky and unreliable
switches and tubes.
It was during his first year working at TI in Dallas in the summer of
1958 that Kilby set out on a course that would forever change how
electricity is used to efficiently and reliably power everything from
vacuum cleaners to supercomputers. Using borrowed equipment, he built
the first integrated circuit in which all the components were
fabricated in a single piece of semiconductor material half the size of
a paper clip.
"TI was the only company that agreed to let me work on electronic
component miniaturization more or less full time, and it turned out to
be a great fit," Kilby wrote in an autobiography for the Nobel
Committee in 2000, the year he won the prize for physics.
Today, integrated circuits can be found in all manner of digital
devices, from TVs to microwave ovens. Sales of integrated circuits
totaled $179 billion in 2004, supporting a global electronics market of
more than $1.1 trillion, according to TI.
The contributions of Kilby - who also co-invented the handheld
calculator - are hard to overstate, according to technology experts.
"Today's trillion-dollar market for integrated circuit-based
electronics is just the tip of the iceberg," inventor and futurist Ray
Kurzweil said. "The exponentially expanding powers of information
technology are transforming every industry and facet of life from the
making of music, the enhancement of human communication through the
Internet, to our growing mastery of our own biology through
computer-based simulation."
According to his 2000 Nobel citation, Kilby "laid the foundation of
modern information technology."
"In my opinion, there are only a handful of people whose works have
truly transformed the world and the way we live in it - Henry Ford,
Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and Jack Kilby," TI chairman Tom
Engibous said in a statement Tuesday. "If there was ever a seminal
invention that transformed not only our industry but our world, it was
Jack's invention of the first integrated circuit."
Kilby's more than 60 U.S. patents included one filed in 1959 for an
integrated circuit made of the element germanium.
"It was kind of a string-and-chewing-gum gadget that just showed you
could use semiconductors to make all the bits and pieces. But it was
far from something that you could do on a practical basis," said Gordon
Moore, who co-founded Intel Corp. in 1968 with Robert Noyce, an
inventor who a few years earlier had received a patent for a similar
but more complex circuit made of silicon while at Fairchild
Semiconductor.
"Kilby may have built the first one," Moore said. "Noyce's approach was
how to do it on a practical basis. They really complemented one
another."
Moore, who worked with Kilby over the years, said he admired Kilby's
creativity, inventiveness and modesty.
"He was always coming up with creative ideas. I remember way back
before people considered it important, he was inventing a gadget that
used silicon to turn solar energy into hydrogen. It was kind of ahead
of the problems we are looking at now," Moore said.
After winning the Nobel, Kilby said of his invention, "I thought it
would be important for electronics as we knew it then, but I didn't
understand how much it would permit the field to expand."
In 1970, in a White House ceremony, he received the National Medal of
Science. In 1982, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of
Fame.
Kilby spent his later years as a consultant to TI, working on industry
and government assignments throughout the world. A few years ago,
Dallas-based TI named a $154 million research and development complex
in his honor.
Known by colleagues as a humble man of few words, the 6-foot-6 Kilby
said he never craved fame or wealth.
"I think it just happened," Kilby said in a 2000 interview with The
Associated Press. "It wasn't deliberate. I didn't say, `Inventors are
nice and I want to be one.' I just think if you work on interesting
projects, invention is kind of a natural consequence."
Jack St. Clair Kilby was born in 1923 in Great Bend, Kan. His father
was the owner of a small electric company, and Kilby became interested
in radio tubes while listening to big band radio in the 1940s. He
earned degrees in electrical engineering from the universities of
Illinois and Wisconsin, and began his career in 1947 with the Centralab
Division of Globe Union Inc. in Milwaukee, developing ceramic-based,
silk-screened circuits for electronic products.
Kilby is survived by two daughters, five granddaughters, and a
son-in-law.
D
Del Cecchi
Uh, they sort of skipped the discrete transistor here, a whole era ofYKhan said:Microchip Pioneer Jack Kilby Dies at 81
06.21.2005, 05:22 PM
Nobel laureate Jack Kilby, whose invention of the integrated circuit
ushered in the electronics age and made possible the microprocessor,
has died after a battle with cancer. He was 81.
Kilby died Monday, according to Texas Instruments Inc., where he worked
for many years.
Before the integrated circuit, electronic devices relied on bulky and
fragile circuitry, including glass vacuum tubes. In the late 1950s,
there was considerable interest - especially in the military - in
making devices smaller.
Kilby's fingernail-size integrated circuit, a forerunner of the
microchip used in today's computers, replaced the bulky and unreliable
switches and tubes.
technology. Who did you plagerize this from? And didn't you know
better? Both about ethics and technology?
del cecchi
B
Bill Todd
Del Cecchi wrote:
....
Since his initial post provided the relevant URL, it really shouldn't
have been *that* difficult to figure it out.
And didn't you know
Any deficiencies in technological lore should most likely be attributed
to the Forbes author. Why the poster felt it necessary to replicate the
article here after having provided its URL is not clear (I know that
some newsgroups are frequented by people without ready access to such
original sources, but these probably aren't) - but while I'm not
familiar with Forbes' attitude about such replication I do know that
many publications to not object to it in non-commercial venues as long
as appropriate attribution is given.
- bill
....
Who did you plagerize this from?
Since his initial post provided the relevant URL, it really shouldn't
have been *that* difficult to figure it out.
And didn't you know
better? Both about ethics and technology?
Any deficiencies in technological lore should most likely be attributed
to the Forbes author. Why the poster felt it necessary to replicate the
article here after having provided its URL is not clear (I know that
some newsgroups are frequented by people without ready access to such
original sources, but these probably aren't) - but while I'm not
familiar with Forbes' attitude about such replication I do know that
many publications to not object to it in non-commercial venues as long
as appropriate attribution is given.
- bill
D
Del Cecchi
Bill Todd said:Del Cecchi wrote:
...
Since his initial post provided the relevant URL, it really shouldn't
have been *that* difficult to figure it out.
And didn't you know
Any deficiencies in technological lore should most likely be attributed
to the Forbes author. Why the poster felt it necessary to replicate
the article here after having provided its URL is not clear (I know
that some newsgroups are frequented by people without ready access to
such original sources, but these probably aren't) - but while I'm not
familiar with Forbes' attitude about such replication I do know that
many publications to not object to it in non-commercial venues as long
as appropriate attribution is given.
- bill
Forbes. That explains it. And I didn't make the connection with an
earlier post with the link and the later post with the text and no link.
del
Y
YKhan
Del said:Uh, they sort of skipped the discrete transistor here, a whole era of
technology. Who did you plagerize this from? And didn't you know
better? Both about ethics and technology?
Excuse me? If you follow the news article reply chain you'll know
exactly where it was copied from. Down boy!
Yousuf Khan
Y
YKhan
Bill said:Any deficiencies in technological lore should most likely be attributed
to the Forbes author. Why the poster felt it necessary to replicate the
article here after having provided its URL is not clear (I know that
some newsgroups are frequented by people without ready access to such
original sources, but these probably aren't) - but while I'm not
familiar with Forbes' attitude about such replication I do know that
many publications to not object to it in non-commercial venues as long
as appropriate attribution is given.
Actually, it was looking like nobody knew who Jack Kilby was, so to
make it more obvious, just decided to reprint the article itself.
Yousuf Khan