50 Years Ago Today TI Invents the First Micro-Chip
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-nutichip_12bus.ART.State.Edition1...
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Texas Instruments Inc. never meant for Jack Kilby to invent the integrated circuit and change the world. All of Mr. Kilby's bosses were away on vacation that summer, so Mr. Kilby was free to pursue his own interests.Now, as the Dallas-based company celebrates the 50th anniversary of Mr. Kilby's fortuitous stretch of free time, it's launching a lab designed to systematically provide the sort of opportunity that Mr. Kilby got by accident.
The new Kilby Labs will allow dozens of TI's best engineers to mingle with colleagues from academia and focus – for two entire years – on their interests.
In some ways, the concept behind the new lab represents a return to a past when individual inventors could make blockbuster breakthroughs. In other respects, it illustrates how much things have changed since Mr. Kilby's day.
"We've spent a lot of time studying what conditions allowed people like Jack to make big breakthroughs, and we've tried to consciously reproduce them," said Gregg Lowe, a senior vice president at the company.
"What will emerge from the labs? We have no idea. Other companies aren't doing this. We're in uncharted waters here."
The superstar engineers who earn two-year stints at Kilby Labs will be very different from the Jack Kilby who went to work for TI in 1958.
He was no superstar. He was a guy who failed MIT's entrance exam, earned middling grades at the University of Illinois and, in 1947, began his engineering career at a Milwaukee-based company called Centralab because it was the only place that offered him a job.
Story continued at link...
The new Kilby Labs will allow dozens of TI's best engineers to mingle with colleagues from academia and focus – for two entire years – on their interests.
In some ways, the concept behind the new lab represents a return to a past when individual inventors could make blockbuster breakthroughs. In other respects, it illustrates how much things have changed since Mr. Kilby's day.
"We've spent a lot of time studying what conditions allowed people like Jack to make big breakthroughs, and we've tried to consciously reproduce them," said Gregg Lowe, a senior vice president at the company.
"What will emerge from the labs? We have no idea. Other companies aren't doing this. We're in uncharted waters here."
The superstar engineers who earn two-year stints at Kilby Labs will be very different from the Jack Kilby who went to work for TI in 1958.
He was no superstar. He was a guy who failed MIT's entrance exam, earned middling grades at the University of Illinois and, in 1947, began his engineering career at a Milwaukee-based company called Centralab because it was the only place that offered him a job.
Story continued at link...
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huntre
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I'm going to the nearest Radio Shack, shake me some hands and say, "That's for Jack Kilby". They won't know what I'm on about, but I don't care.
- 4 years ago
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huntre
