Integrated circuit pioneer Jack Kilby has died, aged 81.
While working at Texas Instruments in 1958, Kilby built the first electronic circuit in which all the components were fabricated onto a single piece of material.
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This was promoted as the world’s first integrated circuit. The microchip was demonstrated later that year.
Before integrated circuits came along electronics engineers soldered the various parts of a circuit together. Intel co-founder Bob Noyce developed a similar version of the integrated circuit just after Kilby.
Kilby’s work eventually won him a Nobel Prize for physics in 2000.
Kilby retired from Texas Instruments in 1970 but continued to serve the firm as a consultant. He was also a professor at Texas A&M University.