Chip pioneer Jack Kilby dies

Microchip pioneer Jack Kilby, who won the 2000 Nobel Prize for co-inventing the integrated circuits that ushered in the digital age of personal computers, mobile phones and the internet, has died after a brief battle with cancer. He was 81.

In 1958, during his first year working with Texas Instruments Inc. in Dallas, Kilby used borrowed equipment to build the first integrated circuit. All the components were fabricated in a single piece of semi-conductor material half the size of a paper clip.

“In my opinion, there are only a handful of people whose works have truly transformed the world and the way we live in it – Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and Jack Kilby,” TI Chairman Tom Engibous said.

Microprocessors and memory chips are among the integrated circuits found in all manner of digital devices.

Kilby held more than 60 US patents, including one filed in 1959 for a solid circuit made of germanium. A few years later, Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor received a patent for a similar but more complex circuit made of silicon. Noyce later co-founded Intel Corp.

Kilby spent his later years as a consultant to TI, working on industry and government assignments throughout the world.

Kilby died yesterday, according to TI. He is survived by two daughters, five granddaughters, and a son-in-law.