There are very few people who have changed the world with their intellect and achievements in their professional fields, and Jack Kilby is one of them. Texas Instruments once said of him.
He is the inventor of integrated circuits, as well as the promoter and witness of the wide application of integrated circuits. In 1958, he successfully developed the world's first integrated circuit. In 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
At this time, it has been 42 years since his invention, but it is precisely because of the interval that his achievements are more and more prominent. This small integrated circuit chip brings convenient electronic devices such as computers and mobile phones into our lives. It can be said that without his invention, there would be no information age today.
Today we will walk into the life of Jack Kilby, the "father of integrated circuits".
1. Early life, electronic enlightenment
Jack Kilby was born on November 8, 1923, in Big Bend, Kansas, USA, though some say Missouri, but he must have spent most of his childhood in Big Bend. Today, there is a memorial sign for him at the entrance to the town, and the common area of Big Bend High School is also named the Jack Kilby Public Ground.
His father was Hubert Kilby and his mother Vina Kilby, both of whom graduated from the University of Illinois, one of the most influential public university systems in the United States. His father was an electrical engineer who ran a small electric company with customers in rural western Kansas.
Like many people's childhood, Kilby grew up in school. Outside of Xi, he often went to power plants with his father, but his real interest in electronics began when he was in high school.
Young KilbyAt that time, a huge ice storm destroyed most of the power poles that carried ** and power lines. His father worked with amateur radio operators, communicating with customers in areas where power was lost and ** service was served. Watching his father work with a radio operator, he was instantly attracted and sparked his interest in electronics, and it was then that he decided to move in this direction.
Second, World War II, the first experience
After graduating from high school, he attended his parents' alma mater, the University of Illinois, where he Xi electrical engineering while also taking some courses in vacuum tube engineering physics.
However, shortly after entering college, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War of World War II broke out. Kilby was also called up to join the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He used his interest and early experience with amateur radio during his high school years to improve standard radios to make them more deployable, helping small units communicate with large units.
According to him, he also traveled to China to participate in a communications detachment that drove from China's Yunnan Province all the way to the vicinity of Xi'an in northwestern China to assist in communications work. The experience of participating in the war also gave Kilbi a wealth of experience.
After the war, Kilby continued to return to school. It was the year that Shockley, Bratton, and Bardeen at Bell Labs invented the transistor. In 1947, he graduated from university.
Kilby when he joined the army3. Early work
After graduating, Kilby joined Centralab, a small and medium-sized electronics manufacturing company in Milwaukee, Globe Union, which designs and develops parts for radios, televisions, and other audio equipment, while Kirby is responsible for small electronic circuits.
Outside of work, Kilby also attended evening classes at the University of Wisconsin. Of course, the double pressure of work and class is not small, but he said: "It can be done, and it is really worth the effort." ”
The hard work paid off, and in 1950 Kilby successfully obtained a master's degree in electrical engineering. At the same time, love also ushered in the result. He is married to Barbara Annegers and has two daughters: Ann Kilby and Janet Kilby.
In 1952, under pressure from U.S. antitrust laws, Bell Labs licensed the production of transistors to 38 companies in the United States at a low price. Among them is Kilby's company. In the same year, Kilby was sent to Bell Laboratories headquarters to learn about transistors, and Kilby benefited greatly from his Xi during this period.
Back in the central lab, Kilby began working on germanium-based transistors for hearing aids. But always constrained by the size of the company, Kirby realized that he needed the resources of a much larger company to achieve his goal of miniaturizing circuits.
4. Join Texas Instruments: The Birth of Integrated Circuits
After many interviews, only Texas Instruments agreed to let him work full-time on electronic component miniaturization, which proved to be a very good choice. In mid-1958, Kilby moved to Texas Instruments (TI), where he joined TSMC founder Chang Zhongmou.
Mild-mannered and quiet, Kilby is nearly 2 meters tall, so he is known as the "gentle giant" by his aides and friends. Perhaps it is precisely because of this calm and calm personality that he focuses more on research.
Kilby and Texas Instruments colleagues give their employees summer vacations because Texas can be very hot in the summer. But Kilby is a newly hired engineer, so he doesn't have the right to summer vacations yet.
Kilby spent the whole summer in Texas researching, trying to solve the "tyranny of numbers" problem in circuit design, which was a problem faced by all computer engineers at the time, how to pack more and more circuits in a limited space. Perhaps because no one was bothered, Kilby soon made a breakthrough.
Kilby concluded that mass manufacturing of circuit components in a single piece of semiconductor material could provide a solution.
On September 12, 1958, he presented his findings to the company's management. He showed them a piece of germanium with an oscilloscope, pressed the switch, and the oscilloscope showed a continuous sine wave, proving that his integrated circuit could work.
In the presence of everyone, the world's first integrated circuit made of a single material was officially launched.
The first integrated circuitOn February 6, 1959, Kilby filed a patent for the first integrated circuit with the U.S. Patent Office under U.S. Patent No. 3138743, which was officially called "Miniaturized Electronic Circuits" (later known as microchips).
Its birth has turned computers into everyday tools that ordinary people can get close to. At the same time, it has given birth to more convenient and fast electronic products, allowing them to enter the lives of ordinary people, which is an invention that truly benefits everyone.
5. Patent disputes and applications of integrated circuits
A few months later, Fairchild Semiconductor's Robert Noyce (one of the founders of Intel) created a similar integrated circuit, which was based on silicon (the main raw material for modern integrated circuits), and because the material was cheaper and readily available, Fairchild quickly moved into the commercial sector.
Later, the two companies also started a patent battle for many years over the invention of integrated circuits.
It wasn't until 1966 that the Franklin Institution awarded both men the Balandin Prize, hailing Kirby as "the inventor of the first integrated circuit" and Noyce as "the man who came up with the theory of the integrated circuit suitable for industrial production."
Robert Noyce, one of the inventors of integrated circuits, reached a settlement between Texas Instruments and Fairchild in the same year, sharing patents for integrated circuits. In 1969, the court ruled that the integrated circuit patents applied for by the two were parallel independent inventions, which was equivalent to legally recognizing that both were the inventors of integrated circuits. As a result, both Kilby and Noyce were later popularly referred to as the inventors of integrated circuits.
After inventing the integrated circuit, Kilby continued to pioneer and apply it to the military, industrial and commercial fields. The team led by Kilby developed the first military system containing integrated circuits and the first integrated circuit computer.
In addition, along with Jerry Merryman and James Tassel, Kilby invented the first handheld calculator, called "PocketRonic", which used these new types of microchips to complete complex calculations. At the same time, it also contributed to the invention of the first thermal printer.
In 1970, he took a sabbatical from Texas Instruments to become an independent inventor. Starting his own project, he explored early concepts that included solar panels that used silicon technology to generate electricity. From 1978 to 1984, he was also a professor of electrical engineering at Texas A&M University. In 1983, Kilby officially retired from Texas Instruments.
6. Kilby's Awards and Achievements
In December 2000, Jack Kilby was officially awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, which was a complete surprise for him. "I knew that the integrated circuit I invented was very important to the electronics industry, but I never imagined that it would be as widely used as it is today," he said.
At the same time, Kilby also mentioned Royce, who was co-credited with him as the inventor of integrated circuits, who died in 1990.
"I wanted to mention the other right person at the right time, and that was Robert Noyce, who was my contemporary and worked at Fairchild Semiconductor," Kilby said. When Robert and I went down the same path, we worked together to achieve commercial applications of integrated circuits. If he were still alive, there is no doubt that we will share this award. ”
On December 10, 2000, Jack Kilby received the Nobel Prize from the King of Sweden in the Stockholm** HallIn addition to the Nobel Prize in Physics, Kilby has more than 60 patents and a large number of authoritative honors in his lifetime, including many awards and honors issued by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), as well as awards issued by various ** societies and institutions, such as the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology. In 1982, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
On June 20, 2005, Kilby died of cancer in Dallas, Texas, at the age of 81.
After Jack Kilby's death, his two daughters donated his personal manuscripts and personal ** collections to Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Texas. The collection is also cataloged and permanently stored in the SMU's Degolyer Library.