The Invention of the Integrated Circuit

2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the world's first silicon monolithic integrated circuit product. This was Fairchild's MicroLogic Type F flip-flop announced in March 1961. We take this opportunity to review the events leading to the integrated circuit invention with a special emphasis on the crucial work of the engineers and scientists that made it possible for the IC patent disclosures of Robert Noyce (Fairchild Semiconductor) and Jack Kilby (Texas Instruments). We describe the many important contributions, such as Jean Hoerni's planar process invention, that lead to the IC invention obviously one of the most important and enduring inventions in electronics. The specific contributions of Noyce and Kilby are examined along with the critical factors necessary for the realization of truly manufacturable integrated circuits.

Dr. Don Estreich the Department of Engineering Science at Sonoma State University. He worked at Teledyne Semiconductor before receiving his Ph.D. (EE '79) from Stanford University. He worked at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies for over thirty years before joining SSU with part of this work involving GaAs integrated circuits.