Integrated circuit inventor nabs Nobel Prize

[WeAreAs1 at aol.com]

Hello guys,

This just came in on the news.  I thought you might find it inspiring, or at 
least interesting.

 
Integrated circuit inventor nabs Nobel Prize 
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Associated Press

Oct. 10, 2000 |  DALLAS (AP) --  More than 40 years after Jack St. Clair 
Kilby developed the integrated circuit at Texas Instruments, the Dallas 
engineer was honored Tuesday with the Nobel Prize for his invention that 
revolutionized the electronics industry and propelled his company into a 
semiconductor powerhouse. 

Kilby, who was also co-inventor of the pocket calculator, shares the $915,000 
award with two other scientists who were named for additional work that 
helped create modern information technology. 

The microchip, now the electronic heart of products ranging from super 
computers to cellular phones, was Kilby's brainchild soon after he joined 
Texas Instruments in 1958. 

Kilby, 76, said Tuesday outside his North Texas home that he was surprised by 
the award and that he had no idea during the microchip's development that it 
would become a lynchpin of modern infotechnology. 
"I'm very pleased. I'm elated. It's a wonderful thing," Kilby said. "I 
thought it (the microchip) would be important for electronics as we knew it 
then, but I didn't understand how much it would permit the field to expand." 

Kilby, now retired, holds more than 60 patents and has honorary degrees from 
three universities. Dallas-based Texas Instruments named its $154 million, 
584,000-square-foot rsearch and development complex Kilby Center in his 
honor.   Kilby said he had not decided what to do with the prize money. 

Engineering journals and industry officials have recounted how Kilby's first 
integrated circuit, fabricated from a single piece of semiconductor material 
about half the size of a paper clip, has grown to a device packed with 
millions of transistors and forming the computer industry's backbone. 

The microchip was the basis for a series of innovations that helped Kilby's 
company grow from $230 million in revenue in 1960 to $9.5 billion last year. 

Worldwide, the semiconductor market has since grown into a $137 billion 
industry, fueling explosive growth of the communications, computer and 
consumer electronics industries. 

"Without Kilby, it wold not have been possible to build the personal 
computers we have today," said Hermann Grimmeiss, a member of the Royal 
Swedish Academy of Sciences. 

Kilby left TI in 1970 to become a freelance inventor. He was also a 
distinguished professor of electrical engineering at Texas A&M University 
from 1978 to 1985. 

On the anniversary of his microchip invention in 1998, Kilby said, "The 
integrated circuit is 40 years old now and that's an incredibly long time in 
the history of electronics. It's true that the original idea was mine, but 
what you see today is the work of probably tens of thousands of the world's 
best engineers." 

Known by colleagues as a humble giant and a man of few words, Kilby said he 
has never craved fame or wealth. 
"I think it just happened," Kilby has said earlier of his career as an 
inventor. "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." 

Associated Press | Oct. 10, 2000