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June 22, 2005

Goodbye Jack Kilby

Jack S. Kilby, modern inventor extraordinary, died Monday. Just by reading this post, I know that you are using a whole collection of products based on one of Kilby's inventions. When you use your computer, your cell phone or talk on the landline, when you play your favorite electronic music or electronic game, when you drive any modern car or fly in any passenger plane now in service, when you have an x-ray or a blood workup as part of a physical exam and even when you camp in the woods (provided you take along a GPS navigator or a radio) you are using Kilby's most famous invention. In case you don't know, Jack S. Kilby invented the integrated circuit. Although he always saw himself as an engineer, he received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000.

I never met Kilby, but I have made a comfortable living off his one invention. And so have millions of other people.

The New York Times Obituary tells only the controversy between Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor, and ultimately Kilby and Noyce, over a follow-on invention,

In 1959 Mr. Kilby and Dr. Noyce, then with Fairchild Semiconductor, were named as inventors in their companies' applications for patents for the integrated circuit. After years of legal battles, Fairchild and Texas Instruments decided to cross-license their technologies, ultimately creating a world information industries market now worth more than $1 trillion annually. Dr. Noyce died in 1990.

The Times reports the following from Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of the Intel Corporation,

Dr. Moore remembered Mr. Kilby as a tall - he was 6-foot-6 - and gentle man with whom he would occasionally socialize while attending technical meetings.

"He was mild mannered," Dr. Moore recalled in a telephone interview yesterday, "but I would never worry when I was walking down the street with him in New York City."

Oh, in case you think Kilby was a one-act pony, he also held basic patents on the hand-held calculator and the thermal printer as well as about 60 other patents.

Posted by DuaneSmith at June 22, 2005 04:43 PM | Read more on Odds and Ends |

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