“Microchip pioneer Jack Kilby (http://www.ti.com/kilby), who won the 2000 Nobel Prize for co-inventing the integrated circuits that ushered in the digital age of personal computers, cell phones and the Internet, has died after a brief battle with cancer. He was 81,” The Associated Press reports.
“In 1958, during his first year working with Texas Instruments Inc. in Dallas, Kilby used borrowed equipment to build the first integrated circuit. All the components were fabricated in a single piece of semiconductor material half the size of a paper clip. ‘In my opinion, there are only a handful of people whose works have truly transformed the world and the way we live in it — Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and Jack Kilby,’ TI Chairman Tom Engibous said in a statement Tuesday… [Kilby also] headed teams that built the first military system and the first computer incorporating integrated circuits. He later co-invented the hand-held calculator and the thermal printer used in portable data terminals.”
Full article here.