Google Doodle pays homage to the co-inventor of the integrated circuit
Today’s “Google Doodle” pays tribute to Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel co-founder Robert Noyce, who is largely credited with co-inventing the integrated circuit.
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Robert Noyce’s 84th birthday, co-inventor of the integrated circuit.
The Doodle — an etching of the Google logo atop a microchip — is in honor of what would have been Noyce’s 84th birthday.
Noyce and the integrated circuit
Noyce shares the achievement with Jack St. Clair Kilby, who worked at Texas Instruments in the late 1950’s. Kilby created a working demonstration of a tiny monolithic integrated circuit using germanium in 1958 (an invention for which he received the Nobel Prize in 2000.)
A few months later, Noyce introduced the idea of building an IC with components connected by aluminum lines deposited on a silicon-oxide surface layer bonded to a plane of silicon instead. This very basic metal-oxide-silicon (MOS) structure opened the doors to mass production of the integrated circuit, and set the foundation for today’s electronics industry.
Noyce: A brief history
Often referred to as the “mayor of Silicon Valley,” Noyce attended Grinnell College, where he majored in physics and mathematics, and MIT, where he got his doctorate in physics. He started his career out at Shockley Semiconductor and was part of the “traitorous eight” who, in 1957, left the company to start Fairchild Semiconductor after being disappointed with the company’s approach to research. A year later, Kilby invented the integrated circuit and just a few months after that, Noyce made his mark.
About 10 years later, a riff between Noyce and Fairchild led Noyce and fellow co-workers Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove to go off and start their own company — Intel Corporation – in 1968. The company was founded upon a more holistic approach to management, with scientific endeavor being its primary goal. Noyce served as its first CEO. Today, Intel is widely recognized as the first successful major microprocessor company.
Noyce holds more than a dozen patents and according to Intel, ”helped found the Semiconductor Industry Association, was a Regent of the University of California, served on the President’s Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, and was the first Chief Executive Officer of SEMATECH.” He passed away in 1990 at the age of 62. ■
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