Free Republic

Ray Blanco, The Daily Reckoning June 29, 2015Do you like your iPhone? Today, you are walking with the equivalent of what was supercomputer not too long ago — in your pocket. The foundation for the modern semiconductor industry got its start in the late 1940s and 1950s. Electronics up until then were dependent on vacuum tubes. These weren’t, to say the least, very easy to miniaturize. But we did try to use them. In 1946, the U.S. government built the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) and contained over 17,000 vacuum tubes, along...

Historic Integrated Circuit Expected To Fetch Up To $2M At Auction An integrated circuit that Texas Instruments engineer Jack Kilby used in 1958 to demonstrate his invention of the new technology is expected to sell for up to $2 million at auction. (snip)

DALLAS, June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Jack St. Clair Kilby, retired TI engineer and inventor of the integrated circuit, died yesterday in Dallas following a brief battle with cancer. He was 81. Mr. Kilby invented the first monolithic integrated circuit, which laid the foundation for the field of modern microelectronics, moving the industry into a world of miniaturization and integration that continues today. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for his role in the invention of the integrated circuit. "In my opinion, there are only a handful of people whose works have truly transformed the world and...