Jack Kilby
Jack Kilby
Jack St. Clair Kilbywas an American electrical engineer who took partin the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instrumentsin 1958. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics on December 10, 2000. To congratulate him, US President Bill Clinton wrote, "You can take pride in the knowledge that your work will help to improve lives for generations to come."...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth8 November 1923
CityJefferson City, MO
CountryUnited States of America
I think they now have a very good position. Their digital signal processing is right in the mainstream of the future development.
My own interest developed because I thought it was a fascinating subject and something I wanted to pursue.
I think it's doing very well. I'm pleased to see the concentration on semiconductors. I think this will help.
I feel my story has been exercised very thoroughly and very frequently.
I think I thought it would be important for electronics as we knew it then, but that was a much simpler business and electronics was mostly radio and television and the first computers.
Well, it's very dangerous to project, but it's clear that the existing technology has some more years to go.
Today, people tend to credit me with having the original idea and made the first circuits.
Well, the thought that everybody might have a personal computer at their desk or their home was certainly not on the mainstream of anybody's activity at that time.
Well, the big products in electronics in the '50s were radio and television. The first big computers were just beginning to come in and represented the most logical market for us to work in.
How are we doing in the electronics field as opposed to, you know, we hear how advanced the Japanese are? Do you think we're still pretty competitive? Oh, yes.
The first calculators tended to sell for $400 or $500. Today, you can get a pretty good one for 4 or $5.
I'm doing a little consulting. I'm somewhat retired, still a director of a company or two.
I think the varied backgrounds in the beginning were a plus. It took a while for people to understand what they were trying to do and get started, but it did provide for a lot of new ideas.
I'm sure there will continue to be exciting new products and major changes, but it looks as if the existing technology has a great deal of room to grow and prosper.