A seemingly small chip – A Revolutionary Innovation
Microprocessors or integrated circuits have been a part of technology and society since their arrival in the late 1950s. This little thing – silicon – has been instrumental in bringing about the computing and Information Technology age that forms the backbone of the present day world. But who created it? This question deserves an answer – and the answer is that this device was invented by the most creative people – people who can change the world! The origins of the microchip can be traced back primarily to the work and innovations of three pioneers in the field of semiconductor technology: Jack Kilby, Robert Noyce and Kurt Lehovec are the pioneers of integrated circuits.
“The First Integrated Circuit: A Biography of Jack Kilby”
Jack Kilby was a Texas Instruments electrical engineer born in April 1923 and died in June 2005. In 1958, Kilby adopted a new approach known as the ‘method of making an entire circuit of a semiconductor unit such as a transistor, resistor and capacitor on a single piece of silicon material’. He made the first integrated circuit known to the world on September 12, 1958 while heading a team at TI. It was crude and had some problems but Kilby had been able to fit all the essentials including capacitors, resistors, transistors et. c into a size that was just a little bigger than a thumb from a piece of semiconductor by using fine gold wires. This particular prototype later earned Kilby the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Kilby filed for a patent on his integrated circuit idea in February 1959. Most historians recognise Kilby as being the main inventor of the integrated circuit and as having laid the foundations for the development of the microchip concept. However, there was also another engineer who was working on an integrated circuit idea at the same time and in parallel to him – Robert Noyce.
That’s how Bob Noyce brought about the improved integrated circuit design, which can be considered as one of the most influential inventions of the 20 th century.
However, in July 1959, which is almost a year after Kilby’s invention of an integrated circuit, another man, Robert Noyce, invented the first-ever integrated circuit prototype while at Fairchild Semiconductor. Noyce was also a physicist and an inventor prominent in the development of an integrated circuit which led to the formation of Intel.
Noyce used integrated circuit design akin to Kilby’s method but did not include the tedious method of SIA or wiring by hand. However, in order to avoid the need for external connections between the various components, Noyce developed a new strategy of interconnecting the different components on the silicon chip, thus developing a Monolithic integrated circuit chip. The entire wafer was first coated entirely with metal and then the unwanted areas were etched off with the use of chemical solutions so as to retain the wiring that was desired. This enabled its to etch an entire circuit in the single step onto the silicon surface of a wafer.
As for the actual design, Noyce’s design was far superior to Kilby’s model, in terms of stability, functionality, and aesthetics. While Noyce’s integrated circuit prototype could be deemed as a prototype for what is manufactured en-masse today – silicon microchips. Noyce was awarded the integrated circuit patent in 1961 which served as a beginning of semiconductor electronics and silicon valley.
Lehovec PNPN Patents & Trademarks
Another person whose early input in the early development of the theory of the integrated circuit was another relatively unknown personality which was the Czech inventor known as Kurt Lehovec. That was when he applied to be granted a patent on the idea of the integrated circuit in 1952 while still a postgraduate student at the prestigious Princeton University.
Lehovec, in 1962, made a patent for the idea of using a structure of PNPN junction that separates successive semiconductor components electrically on a single silicon wafer. This insulating layering also meant that several transistors could be placed on a single piece of semiconductor without the problem of electrical cross talk compromising the functioning of each implanted transistor opening the way for true integration of circuits.
These theoretical work of Lehovec in electrical isolation using PNPN junctions turned out to be highly influential in the first practical integrated circuits that were pioneered Kilby and Noyce just a few years later. However, most of the patent specialists explain that the role of Lehovec is much bigger and he should be credited more for being the pioneer of the basic idea.
Conclusion
To sum up, there is controversy as to who should be given the primary credit In most historians’ opinions, together with the credit for microelectronics, Jack Kilby created the first integrated circuit model at the end of 1958 at Texas Instruments. A few months later, another man named Robert Noyce reinvented the idea at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959, with a much improved design for mass production. Noyce is equally credited with Kilby for the creation of the integrated circuit and bringing the concept into the practical implementation stage that formed the basis of microchips in modern electronics. Early Kurt Lehovec patents in PNPN isolating structure and its theoretical perspective were also contributive to the formation. It was thus through these gradual pathfinding developments of these three electrical engineering pioneers that the microchip was unequivocally invented within the emerging silicon valley environment of the late 1950s.
