Integrated Circuit Is 50 Years Old Today 117
arcticstoat writes "Today marks fifty years since the first integrated circuit, or microchip, was demonstrated by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments on 12 September 1958. The original chip might not be much to look at, but then Texas Instruments admits that Kilby often remarked that if he'd known he'd be showing the first working integrated circuit for the next 40-plus years, he would've 'prettied it up a little.' The integrated circuit itself was housed in a germanium strip on a glass slide, and it measured 7/16in by 1/16in. With protruding wires, and just containing a single transistor, some resistors and a capacitor, it's a primitive chip by today's standards, but it worked and successfully produced a sine wave on an oscilloscope screen at the demo. Technology hasn't been the same since."
Re:One understatement, comming up!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a bad idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
For a laugh and some histoorical perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
For a laugh and some historical perspective, dig out the datasheet for a 555 timer. It's an ancient chip by any standards, but still extant. The designers were obviously rather proud of how many transistors this chip could replace (something like 25), and the datasheet is clearly bragging about this. In a modern context, this is pretty funny. Of course, designing a chip with that kind of lifespan is braggable.
The patentless 555 (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's an interview [semiconductormuseum.com] with Hans Camenzind, the said desinger of the 555. I thought this part was interesting:
There are no patents on the 555. Signetics did not want to apply for a patent. You see, the situation with patents in Silicon Valley in 1970 was entirely different than it is now. Everybody was stealing from everybody else. I designed the 555 Signetics produced it, and six months, or before a year later, National had it, Fairchild had it, and nobody paid any attention to patents. The people at Signetics told me they didn't want to apply for a patent, because what would happen if they tried to enforce that patent, is the people from Fairchild would come back with a Manhattan-sized telephone book and say "These are our patents, now let's see what you're violating". It was a house of cards - if you blew on it, the whole thing collapsed.
Re:For a laugh and some histoorical perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not just the 555 either, although I suppose that's the one still in production in its purest form (the bipolar 555 is still made in quantities of hundreds of millions per year). 74 series is still in wide production (although in CMOS rather than TTL, with versions now capable of handling signals >!GHz), so is 4000 series CMOS (a handy family, while slow, it has a very wide voltage range), and so are more complex things like the Z80 CPU and 6502 - the 'classic' Z80 is still produced in 40 pin DIL (although these days they are all CMOS).
And not forgetting the good 'ol 741 op amp.