On September 12th 2011 the integrated circuit or IC became 53 years old.

In the 53 years since its’ inception, the integrated circuit has undergone a formidable amount of development in a relatively short period of time.

The first IC, measuring about 3 X 21 mm odd, consisted of only a single transistor and a few other components, combined to make a Hartley oscillator which produced a sine-wave trace on an oscilloscope. Compare that with the processor in your computer which combines possibly more than one core, each consisting of millions of transistors; all built on a small piece of silicon and surrounded by a metal envelope. – ‘See what I’m getting at here? – Things have come a long way in just over half a century.

The first integrated circuit was demonstrated by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments on 12 September 1958.

The integrated circuit itself consists of a germanium strip, which you can see in the middle of the glass slide. It measured 7/16in by 1/16in.

in 1958 Texas Instruments was researching a new idea called the ‘micromodule,’ in which the components of a circuit all had the same size and shape. Despite this, they still didn’t address the problems arising concerning utilising high numbers of transistors; such as cooling and electrical stability.

In July 1958, Kilby confined himself to his lab alone where he came up with the idea of fabricating all of a circuit’s components with a single block of the same material.

For his endeavours; Kilby went on to develop the first handheld electronic calculator at Texas Instruments in 1967, and collected a prestigious set of awards, including the Nobel Prize in physics, the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology.

Had the integrated circuit not been invented; our computers today could be absolutely massive boxes containing complex hand-soldered circuit-boards covered with complex transistor circuitry, pouring out heat, using more natural resources, and costing a fortune.

Kilby’s work over 53 years ago helped to bring us out of the electronic dark-ages and greatly assisted technological evolution to an immense extent.