Rocking Team

We would not have any kind of devices we have today,without the integrated circuit or the microchip.Wired has come up with a gallery devoted to the little devices, in honor of the circuit’s 50th birthday.With the opening Friday of Kilby Labs, honoring Jack Kilby, the Nobel-prize-winning inventor of the seminal electronic device,Texas Instruments commemorated the 50th anniversary of the integrated circuit.

As a new TI employee in 1958, Kilby was forced to work during the traditional company summer vacation. During that time, he built the first integrated circuit, now the basic building block of everything from 3G cell phones to supercomputers.

At TI’s headquarters, the original lab where Kilby worked and made his discovery of the first integrated circuit has been re-created on-site. TI has also made a donation toward Jack Kilby’s memorial statue in his hometown of Great Bend, Kan.

On September 12, 2008, Jack Kilby demonstrated the very first integrated circuit at Texas Instruments. And though it might not look like much, the integrated circuit paved the way for all the technology we love today from computers to Blu-ray players.

 Because of the integrated circuit, what once filled up entire rooms with vacuum tubes could be condensed down into a small area. And it wasn’t long after that the microchip followed. To be trite, the rest was history. But really, it’s only been 50 years since this roughly put together circuit was created. Just look at how far we’ve come.