Jack Kilby's Integrated Circuit

Description (Brief):

Jack Kilby’s demonstration of the first working integrated circuit (IC) in 1958 revolutionized the field of microelectronics. Instead of using discrete transistors, resistors, and capacitors to form a circuit, Kilby’s IC design integrated a transistor, a capacitor, and the equivalent of three resistors all on the same chip. Kilby fabricated three types of circuits to test his idea: a flip flop, a multi vibrator and a phase shift oscillator. This chip is the phase-shift oscillator.

Description (Brief)

The first IC was made out of a thin slice of germanium (the light blue rectangle) as a bulk resistor and contained a single bipolar transistor (under the large aluminum bar in the center). It had four input/output terminals (the small vertical aluminum bars), a ground (the large bar on the far right), and wires of gold. The microchips of today have been improved by hundreds of innovations, but Kilby’s prototype was an important early step.

Date Made: 1958

Maker: Texas InstrumentsKilby, Jack S.

See more items in: Work and Industry: Electricity, Computers & Business Machines, American Stories exhibit

Exhibition: Inventing In America

Exhibition Location: National Museum of American History

Credit Line: from Texas Instruments

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Id Number: 1987.0487.320Accession Number: 1987.0487Collector/Donor Number: G00012Catalog Number: 1987.0487.320

Object Name: integrated circuitOther Terms: integrated circuit; Solid State; Microelectronics

Physical Description: germanium (substrate material)aluminum (terminals material)gold (wire material)Measurements: overall: .5 cm x 1.8 cm x 2.5 cm; 3/16 in x 23/32 in x 31/32 in

Guid: http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a4-f256-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa

Record Id: nmah_689592

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