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and unnecessary to manufacture each of the components of an electronic cir-
cuit in separate pieces. If all these devices could be contained in the same piece
of semiconductor, the circuit would be much smaller and more reliable. In May
1952, Dummer wrote:
With the advent of the transistor and the work in semiconductors generally, it
seems now possible to envisage electronic equipment in a solid block with no
connecting wires. The block may consist of layers of insulating, conducting,
rectifying and amplifying materials, the electrical functions being connected
directly by cutting out areas of the various layers.
3
Fig. 7.7. Jack Kilby's first IC. Instead
of making the components of the
electronic circuit separately, Kilby
incorporated a junction transistor, a
capacitor, and resistances in the same
piece of germanium. The device is 1/16
by 7/16 inches or 1.6 × 11.1 mm.
Dummer's description was an amazingly accurate vision of a modern
integrated
circuit
, or IC, a circuit etched or imprinted on a slice of semiconductor. But there
was a long way to go to make such an IC an engineering reality.
The vital breakthrough was made in the summer of 1958 by an American
electrical engineer named Jack Kilby. In the early 1950s, Kilby had worked on
printed circuits, transistors, and the miniaturization of electronics, which were
of great interest to the U.S. military. He then joined Texas Instruments, a semi-
conductor manufacturing company, to work “in the general area of micromin-
iaturization.”
4
Kilby arrived in the summer, just before most of the employees
took their summer vacations:
Since I had just started and had no vacation time, I was left pretty much in a
deserted plant; so I began to think . . . I began to cast around for alternatives
[to making circuits out of individual components] - and the monolithic [or
solid circuit] concept really occurred to me during that two-week vacation
period. I had it all written up by the time Willis [engineer Willis Adcock, who
helped develop the silicon transistor] got back, and I was able to show him
the sketches that pretty well outlined the idea - and the process sequence
showing how to go about building it.
5
B.7.3. Geoffrey Dummer (1909-2002)
was a researcher at the Royal Radar
Research Establishment in Malvern,
England. In the IC manufacturing
world he was known as the “The
Prophet of the Integrated Circuit.”
His vision for an IC was motivated by
a desire to make electronic compo-
nents more reliable.
By September 1958, Kilby had built the first working IC, all from a single piece
of germanium (
Fig. 7.7
). The device was an
oscillator
(a circuit that generates a
regular signal), containing a single junction transistor; a
capacitor
to store elec-
trical energy; and several
resistors
to limit the electrical current - all made from
a single piece of semiconductor. Kilby wired together the different components
of the circuit by soldering tiny wires to his device. His version of the IC was lim-
ited by the difficulty of physically wiring up many components, but it was still
a major breakthrough. Kilby was rapidly converted from electrical engineer to
B.7.4. Jack Kilby (1923-2005) and Robert Noyce (1927-90) display their medals at the first Draper
Prize award in 1989. The citation for their award was “for their independent development of the
monolithic integrated circuit.” Kilby went on to gain a share of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Physics.
In his Nobel Lecture he made an explicit acknowledgment of Noyce's contribution: “I would like
to mention another right person at the right time, namely Robert Noyce, a contemporary of mine
who worked at Fairchild Semiconductor. While Robert and I followed our own paths, we worked
hard together to achieve commercial acceptance for integrated circuits. If he were still living, I
have no doubt we would have shared this prize.”
B1
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