The Integrated Circuit
The fifth and final computing paradigm.
Explore this event on the interactive timeline →Working independently, Jack Kilby (at Texas Instruments) and Robert Noyce (at Fairchild Semiconductor) invented the integrated circuit. By placing multiple transistors, resistors, and capacitors onto a single monolithic piece of semiconductor material, they created the modern microchip.
Verified Facts
- In Kurzweil's model, this marks the beginning of the Fifth Paradigm of computing—the paradigm that gave birth to Moore's Law and is still driving exponential growth today.
- Before the IC, engineers faced the "Tyranny of Numbers"—computers required so many individual components hand-soldered together that they became impossible to build without breaking.
- Robert Noyce would later leave Fairchild to co-found Intel.