Jack the Giant Maker, the Man Who Made the Modern World possible
On this day in (engineering) history… February 6, 1959, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit. On the mild winters day of February 6, 1959, Jack Kilby, of Texas Instruments (TI) is granted a patent, one of more than 50 he would be awarded for his inventions. The invention protected by that patent would ultimately change the world and everything about human experience: the integrated circuit, popularly known as the microchip. The story properly begins during the previous summer when Kilby joined Texas Instruments . He had become interested in miniaturising electrical components and Texas Instruments was the only company that would let him work on it full time. At this point, electronics was dominated by the reality that producing electrical devices…