Integrated Circuit
In designing an intricate electronic machine like a computer it was always necessary to increase the number of parts involved in order to create technical advances. The monolithic (made from a single crystal) integrated circuit stationed the previously separate transistors, resistors, capacitors and all the connecting wiring onto a single crystal (or 'chip') constructed from semiconductor material.
The idea of the integrated circuit was originally conceived by a radar scientist, Geoffrey W.A. Dummer (1909-2002), employed by the Royal Radar Establishment of the British Ministry of Defense, and published at the Symposium on Progress in Quality Electronic Components in Washington, D.C. on May 7, 1952. He held many symposia publicly to circulate his ideas. Dummer unsuccessfully tried to construct such a circuit in 1956.
With the small and competent transistor making strides for them, electrical engineers of the fifties saw the possibilities of building far more sophisticated circuits than before. However, as the complexity of the circuits developed, problems began arising. When making a circuit, it is essential that every connection is intact. If not, the electrical current will be blocked on its way through the circuit, causing the circuit to fail. An intricate circuit, like a computer, was dependent on speed. If the components of the computer were too bulky or the wires interlinking them too long, the electrical signals couldn't travel quick enough through the circuit, therefore making the computer too sluggish to be efficient. So there was a problem of numbers. Advanced circuits held so many components and connections that they were nearly impossible to build. This problem was best-known as the tyranny of numbers.
The integrated circuit was independently co-invented by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor at approximately the same time. Kilby registered his initial thoughts regarding the integrated circuit in July 1958 and successfully presented the first operating integrated circuit on September 12, 1958. Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his role in the invention of the integrated circuit. Robert Noyce also arrived at his own idea of the integrated circuit, half a year later than Kilby. Noyce's chip, made at Fairchild, was made of silicon, whereas Kilby's chip was constructed from germanium.
In the summer of 1958 Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments saw an opportunity to uncover a solution of his own to the miniaturization issue. Kilby's thought was to construct all the components and the chip from the same block (monolith) of semiconductor material. While the first integrated circuit was pretty unrefined and had some problems, the idea was groundbreaking. By creating all of the components out of the same block of material and adding the metal necessary to join them as a layer on top of it, there was no longer need for individual distinct components. No further wires and components had to be put together manually. The circuits could be produced smaller and the manufacturing procedure could be automated. After his achievements with the integrated circuit, Kilby remained with Texas Instruments and, among other things, headed the team that invented the hand-held calculator.
Noyce's chip had resolved many functional problems that the microchip produced by Kilby had not, mainly the problem of interconnecting all the components on the chip. This was answered by adding the metal as a final layer and then taking away some of it so that the wires required to connect the components were shaped. This made the integrated circuit more suited for mass production. This sped up the efforts at Fairchild Semiconductor, which were now centred on creating the connections between the tiny transistors and components an integral portion of the manufacturing process itself.
Jean Hoerni, one of Fairchild’s original founders, arrived at a viable method when he formed the "planar" process. This process, which utilizes oxidation and heat diffusion to make a smooth insulating level on the surface of a silicon chip, permitted the embedding of insulated layers of transistors and other components in silicon. By employing the insulation yielded by the planar process, each layer could now be separated electrically, which did away with the need to trim apart the layers and wire them back together as had been required in the past.
Fairchild Semiconductor filed a patent for a semiconductor integrated circuit based on the planar process on July 30, 1959, sparking a decade-long legal conflict between Fairchild and Texas Instruments, which previously had filed a similar patent based on Kilby’s technology. Finally, the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals preserved Noyce’s claims on interconnection techniques but afforded Kilby and Texas Instruments credit for building the first working integrated circuit. As well as being one of the early innovators of the integrated circuit, Robert Noyce also was one of the co-founders of Intel. Intel is among the largest manufacturers of integrated circuits in the world.
The affect of this tiny chip has been extensive -- from the High Speed Internet to all of our modern PCs -- many of the electronics products we use today could not have been produced without it. The chip virtually created the modern computer industry, transforming yesterday’s room-size machines into today’s regalia of mainframes, minicomputers and personal computers.