If you're a tech fan and you celebrate your birthday this week, you're in good company.

The integrated circuit, the forerunner to the microprocessor and the beginning of all sorts of electronic devices, turns 50 on Septmber 12.

While the idea for the integrated circuit, a device that has its circuit components built inside a chip rather than using discrete parts, first appeared in 1952, it wasn't until 12 September 1958 that the integrated circuit was first successfully demonstrated.

Credit for the invention has often been spread to a number of key engineers however, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments is generally regarded as its inventor.

When it was first demonstrated to Texas Instrument management on September 12, 1958, the Kilby integrated circuit, or "IC" as they became known, did nothing more than generate a sinewave tone on a CRO or "oscilliscope" but it would prove to revolutionise not only the electronics industry but go on to create the microprocessor industry from which, just about every gadget we play with has come.

What was interesting was that the electronics industry wasn't all that interested in it at first. It was the US Air Force that picked up the idea and saw it's potential initially. Used inside the first USAF computer in 1961 and in the "MinuteMan" missiles of 1962, it wasn't until 1965 when Jack Kilby was given the task to develop the pocket calculator by then Texas Instruments boss Pat Haggerty that the potential of what the IC could do was realised. You can read more about it at the TI website.

Back in the 1960s, calculators had to be plugged into the mains power and were typically the size of a desktop computer. So the development of a calculator you could slip into your pocket and that ran off batteries would certainly be revolutionary.

It took another two years before the first hand-held calculator became a reality and 1970 when it first went on sale in the US. It took another four years before Texas Instruments would be award the patent for its "Cal-Tech" handheld calculator.

However by 1970, the IC, as a potential new component in the market, had quickly grown in complexity and in 1971, Intel launched the first microprocessor available on the openmarket, the four-bit 4004.

It had a modest clock speed of 740KHz and could process an instruction every 11 microseconds but it began the microprocessor industry.

Today, the IC is found in every electronic gadget from mobile phones to computers to DVD players and so on.

Kilby was recognised for his work in 2000 when he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in that year. He died in 2005, aged 82.

So, while you're reading your way through the web this week, spare a thought for the fact that the technology you're using began its existence 50 years ago.

[from www.darrenyates.com.au ]

---