= Kilby integrated circuit demonstration
{c}
In his 2000 lecture, <Jack St. Clair Kilby> describes an August 1958 comparison circuit made from separate <silicon> elements. <Resistors> were cut and etched; <capacitors> came from diffused, metallized <semiconductor wafers>. It tested whether <semiconductor> elements could perform all the required functions, but was still a <discrete circuit>. For the September prototype he used already diffused <germanium> material with contacts, cut into bars, and hand-applied wax masks to define a <transistor> and a distributed <resistor>-<capacitor> region. Applying supply <power> produced an oscillation.<Turning Potential into Realities: The Invention of the Integrated Circuit (Nobel Lecture) by Jack St. Clair Kilby>[Kilby's 2000 Nobel lecture, ChemPhysChem reprint (2001), pp. 486–487, separate-element comparison and oscillator preparation]{ref}
An inspected eyewitness interview describes the <germanium> on a microscope slide with protruding wires; changing its connections changed the <oscilloscope> display from a straight line to a <sinusoid>. This supplied a qualitative connected/disconnected comparison, not a calibrated record of <amplitude>, loading or repeatability.<Oral History of Jay W. Lathrop>[Oral History of Jay W. Lathrop, recorded 7 May 2009, p. 11, demonstration and oscilloscope comparison]{ref}
The inference was feasibility: integrated <semiconductor> elements could cooperate as an operating <electrical circuit>. The hand-wired <germanium> prototype did not yet supply the deposited <integrated circuit interconnects> of <Robert Noyce>'s <silicon> design. Nor does a working prototype establish manufacturing yield or long-term reliability.
Back to article page
