Jack St. Clair Kilby
1923–2005, Jefferson City, Missouri, United States, Dallas, Texas, United States
American electrical engineer who co-invented the integrated circuit (chip) at Texas Instruments in 1958 — the foundation of the computing revolution.
Kilby studied electrical engineering at the Universities of Illinois and Wisconsin, worked at Centralab, and joined Texas Instruments in 1958. Only months later, during the summer break when most colleagues were away, he built the first integrated circuit: all components on a single piece of germanium.
The integrated circuit — invented in parallel by Robert Noyce at Fairchild — compressed whole electronic circuits onto one chip, launching the microelectronics era. He received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics, one of the very few engineers so honored; he also co-invented the handheld calculator.
Nobel-winning work
In September 1958, Kilby demonstrated at Texas Instruments a complete oscillator — transistor, resistor, capacitor — made monolithically on a single sliver of germanium the size of a paper clip. This proof of concept showed that entire electronic circuits could be 'miniaturized into semiconductor material' instead of being soldered from discrete parts.
The invention (Robert Noyce independently devised a mass-producible silicon version) is the root of every microprocessor, memory chip, and the modern information industry. The 2000 Physics Nobel — awarded when Kilby was 76 — recognized 'his part in the invention of the integrated circuit', the other half going to Alferov and Kroemer.
Workplaces: Texas Instruments
United States