Robert Noyce patents the integrated circuit

25th April 1961
Robert Noyce patents the integrated circuit

On the 25th April 1961, the U.S. Patent Office grants Robert Noyce a patent for his invention of the silicon integrated circuit.

At around the same time, Jack Kilby independently conceived of the same idea of the integrated circuit, building a protoype based on germanium.

Kilby, working with Texas Instruments, was the first to patent his device, but Noyce, working with Fairchild Semiconductor, created a device that was easier to mass-produce. After a long legal battle, TI and Fairchild agreed to cross-license their inventions.

The integrated circuit replaced bulky transistors in computers, allowing much smaller and cheaper electronic equipment to be manufactured.

In 1968, Noyce founded Intel with Gordon Moore, which became one of the world's largest manufacturers of microchips.

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