Happy Birthday Robert Noyce

Robert Noyce and his collegue Jack Kilby were credited as the inventors of the modern Integrated Circuit (IC), that is the backbone of todays electronics design.  Noyce, once known as the Mayor of Silicon Valley, would have been 84 years old today, but became the Mayor of Silicon Heaven, when he died in 1990.

A snap shot of Robert's journey to inventing one of the most revolutionary pieces of technology in our time, starts at the ultimate Geeks Mecca.... MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  After graduating MIT in 1953, Robert joined the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1956, but the following year, he and 7 of his colleagues broke away to set up Fairchild Semiconductor, and in 1958, the Modern Integrated Circuit was born.

Since then Semiconductor Technology has evolved at an incredible rate.  However, this is where Moores Law comes into the equation. Moores law is basically the theory that there is a point where Semiconducter technology will reach it’s limit with the number of transistors that can be placed in the circuit.  It’s currently thought that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively into an IC doubles approximately every two years, and by 2014, this could be 3 times!, meaning that one day soon, we will reach a point where we will reach the maximum processing speed and memory capacity and will then have to look for the next evolution in technology….. but that’s another story entirely!.....

Below is a video of Robert Noyce talking about Technology in the work place back in 1981.

Happy Birthday Robert Noyce…