Jack Kilby
Jack Kilby
Jack St. Clair Kilbywas an American electrical engineer who took partin the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instrumentsin 1958. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics on December 10, 2000. To congratulate him, US President Bill Clinton wrote, "You can take pride in the knowledge that your work will help to improve lives for generations to come."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth8 November 1923
CityJefferson City, MO
CountryUnited States of America
I'm doing a little consulting. I'm somewhat retired, still a director of a company or two.
I think the varied backgrounds in the beginning were a plus. It took a while for people to understand what they were trying to do and get started, but it did provide for a lot of new ideas.
I'm sure there will continue to be exciting new products and major changes, but it looks as if the existing technology has a great deal of room to grow and prosper.
It's true that the original idea was mine, but what you see today is the work of probably tens of thousands of the world's best engineers, all concentrating on improving the product, reducing the cost, things of that sort.
They were the largest semiconductor maker in the world up until about 1980. I'm not sure that that can be re-gained again, but their progress in the last few years has been very impressive.
It's also somewhat in the center of a number of things that will be useful to the company.
The first calculators tended to sell for $400 or $500. Today, you can get a pretty good one for 4 or $5.
The groups that have awarded them are all a little different. It's a little hard to single out any one for that, but I think the dedication of this building would have to go toward the top of the list.
I think it's doing very well. I'm pleased to see the concentration on semiconductors. I think this will help.
I think they now have a very good position. Their digital signal processing is right in the mainstream of the future development.
The number of parts that were required were just prohibitive.
It was really a very small company when I started and it changed very rapidly during those first periods.
I feel my story has been exercised very thoroughly and very frequently.