Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby are both co-inventors of the integrated circuit. Noyce and Kilby had been working with the integrated circuit in their own companies. In 1959, they both applied for a patent around the same time and after a ten year dispute, their companies agreed to license each other and other companies to make integrated circuits. They are considered independent co-inventors because, they never worked together, but they discovered it around the same time.
The integrated circuit (microchip or also known as a “chip”) is a miniaturized circuit that replaced the vacuum tube. This is important because, vacuum tubes would often heat up and burn out; while integrated chips hardly ever go bad. The integrated circuit had two main advantages over the vacuum tube, cost and performance. It is found in almost every kind of electronic devices, including cell phones, watches, and computers.
Even though it revolutionized the world beginning in the 1950s, it is still being researched to solve all kinds of problems. Since the 1980s, engineers have been trying to develop a way of inserting a computer chip into the human brain to repair different types of brain damage, blindness, and even memory loss. It might be somebody sitting in our classroom that makes that achievement in the future.
August 27, 2008 at 1:13 pm |
I agree with Rafael. I believe this is one of the more important engineering achievements of the last two centuries since it made integrated circuits a whole lot smaller and workable with.
One thing that I don’t quite understand is how the vacuum tubes worked. I didn’t have trouble following any part of the assignment and I thought you covered the history part of it very well.
I don’t believe that there is anything that I would add.
August 27, 2008 at 1:24 pm |
thanks, I will try to make changes to give more details on what vacuum tubes were for.