http://www.dallasnews.com/technology/233884_webkilby_09bus.html

"It's like the beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam," Mr. Kilby said, quoting a previous Nobel recipient, Charles Townes. "No, I didn't build it myself. But it's based on an idea of mine." Digital pioneer looks back on technology development with satisfaction

12/08/2000

By Alan Goldstein / The Dallas Morning News

STOCKHOLM, Sweden – In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the original integrated circuit, which formed the essential blueprint for today's super-fast computer chips, faced "tremendous criticism" in the engineering community.

Production yields would remain too low to be profitable, critics said. And they called the design awkward and inefficient, recalled Jack Kilby, the former Texas Instruments Inc. engineer, whose 1958 invention is credited with spurring a digital age.

Along with other early proponents of the chip, Mr. Kilby said today, he "provided the entertainment at professional meetings ... as we described and debated the merit of the various miniaturization systems."

In a lecture at Stockholm University, part of a week of events highlighted by his receipt of the Nobel Prize in physics on Sunday, Mr. Kilby said he struggled to debunk conventional wisdom both before and after demonstrating the first chip.

Now, Mr. Kilby, 77, said he can look back at the time – and all of the developments in information technology since then – with considerable satisfaction.

"It's like the beaver told the rabbit as they stared at the Hoover Dam," Mr. Kilby said, quoting a previous Nobel recipient, Charles Townes. "No, I didn't build it myself. But it's based on an idea of mine."

In his remarks, delivered at the Aula Magna, an elegant, contemporary-design lecture hall at the school, Mr. Kilby described a time after World War II when the military saw the need to provide computing capabilities to its ships and aircraft.

The prevailing technology of the time was vacuum tubes, and a naval destroyer in the early 1950s typically had about 3,200 of them. The problem was vacuum tubes were big and heavy. They consumed too much power and gave off too much heat.

Although many believed the solution was in transistors, the obstacle was in efficiently linking the vast number of required components necessary for a complex computer system.

Mr. Kilby's idea was to make all the parts out of a single block of semiconductor material. That way, they would all be connected – or integrated – eliminating any need for soldered wiring.

The turning point for Mr. Kilby's credibility, he said, came in the 1960s through two U.S. government-backed projects, the Apollo space mission and the Minuteman missile program.

"Military applications played a major role in the development of electronics. I think the Nobel Peace Prize is important, because it honors people who work to bring peace. And peace means we can use electronics to benefit mankind rather than wage war."

Mr. Kilby also had to fight for credit for his invention. A few months after he demonstrated the integrated circuit, the same idea occurred to Robert Noyce, who went on to have a high-profile career as a co-founder of Intel Corp.

Both men filed for patents, resulting in a protracted legal fight. It eventually ended up in a draw, when the companies agreed to share rights. Engineers generally regard both Mr. Kilby and Mr. Noyce, who died in 1990, as inventors of the chip.

With continual advances in chip design, today's $1,000 computers are more powerful than their $10 million counterparts in the 1960s. But the original design will face physical limitations within a decade or so if the pace continues.

"I don't really know how all that will play out," Mr. Kilby said. "I do know that engineers in all corners of the world continue to refine integrated circuits while others are working on what might come next. I know how they feel."

-- Anonymous, December 08, 2000