Jack Kilby telah meninggalkan sebuah benda yang
membuat hidup ini lebih baik: microchip. Kita dapat
ber-e-mail ria karena ada microchip di komputer kita.
Kehadiran microchips boleh dikata tak terhitung;
mereka hadir di CAT scan, di kamera, di ponsel, di
mesin mobil, pendeknya dimana-mana. Seperti banyak
penemuan lain (komputer dan kendaraan jeep), mulanya
digunakan sebagai alat perang; pertama kali microchip
digunakan di rudal Minuteman.
Jack Kilby meninggal pada umur 81 tahun di Dallas.
Salam,
RM
-----------
washingtonpost.com
Engineer's Tiny Chip Changed the World
By Patricia Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 22, 2005; A01
Jack St. Clair Kilby, 81, died of cancer Monday at his
home in Dallas, almost 50 years after his idea for
what is commonly known as the microchip revolutionized
the way that the world computes, calculates and
communicates, ushering in the Information Age.
Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in physics for his 1958
invention of the integrated electronic circuit, which
made personal computers, satellite navigation systems,
cell phones and the $200 billion field of
microelectronics possible. He invented the hand-held
calculator, which commercialized the microchip, and
held more than 60 other patents.
"In my opinion, there are only a handful of people
whose works have truly transformed the world and the
way we live in it -- Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the
Wright brothers and Jack Kilby," Tom Engibous,
chairman of Texas Instruments, where Kilby worked for
years, said in a statement. "If there was ever a
seminal invention that transformed not only our
industry but our world, it was Jack's invention of the
first integrated circuit."
Kilby, who failed the college entrance exam for MIT,
had not worked at Texas Instruments long enough to
merit vacation during the company's annual summer
shutdown. So he was alone in the labs, working on
borrowed equipment on July 24, 1958, when he struck
upon the idea that he jotted down in his notebook:
"The following circuit elements could be made on a
single slice: resistors, capacitor, distributed
capacitor, transistor."
Engineers call that the Monolithic Idea. It cracked a
nagging engineering problem. The transistor had been
invented 10 years earlier, replacing the vacuum tubes
used in the earliest computers. But transistors were
built of components strung together with wires. A
single bad connection would ruin the circuit, and
circuits could only get so small before it was
impossible for humans to solder them together. Kilby's
idea was to eliminate the wires and use a single block
of silicon, or germanium, containing an entire
electronic circuit.
When he built the first circuit, it was half the size
of a paper clip. In the same space, engineers can now
squeeze about 100 million transistors.
The chip first went to work in a computer for the Air
Force in 1961 and in the Minuteman missile in 1962. A
list of what it's used for today is almost endless:
CAT scans, vehicle emission controls, sports
broadcasting replays, iPods, military night-vision
goggles, microwave ovens and pet-locator devices,
among others.
Kilby's invention came just six months before Robert
Noyce, who later co-founded Intel Corp., came up with
the same idea. Noyce, who died in 1990, was usually
credited with making the idea practical, while Mr.
Kilby was acknowledged as the first to conceive of the
idea of putting components on a single piece of
material. After a 10-year patent battle, the men
called themselves co-inventors of the microchip, and
Kilby publicly credited Noyce in his Nobel Prize
speech.
A quiet, self-effacing man, the 6-foot-6 Kilby "seemed
almost embarrassed by the attention" of the Nobel
Prize, said Washington Post writer T.R. Reid, who
wrote a book about the invention. "I never imagined
how much human ingenuity could do to turn that one
idea into useful applications," Kilby told Reid.
The accolades that came with the Nobel reminded Kilby
of the story told by a previous Nobel recipient,
Charles Townes, of a beaver gnawing on a branch just
below the Hoover Dam.
"Somebody came along and looked at the massive
structure and said, 'Did you build that thing?' And
the beaver answered, 'Well, it's kind of based on an
idea of mine,' " Kilby said.
Kilby was born in Jefferson City, Mo., and grew up in
Great Bend, Kan. During World War II, he was in the
Army and was sent to India, where his job was to
repair radios, although there were no spare parts. The
resourcefulness that the assignment taught him proved
useful later in his life.
After the war, he took the MIT entrance exam but fell
three points short of the required grade. He enrolled
in the University of Illinois and graduated with a
degree in electrical engineering, then received a
master's degree in electrical engineering from the
University of Wisconsin in 1950.
He worked for Globe Union, a Milwaukee firm, for 10
years before taking a job at Texas Instruments in
Dallas. He became an independent consultant in 1970
and officially retired during the 1980s, but he
continued to drop in at Texas Instruments to inspire
younger engineers. He was a professor of electrical
engineering at Texas A&M University from 1978 to 1984.
Some controversy attended his Nobel Prize. Kilby was
not a physicist, and some research scientists felt
that his invention ventured perilously close to mere
applied science and away from fundamental science. The
Nobel committee decided, however, to honor inventions
related to the tech world; Kilby shared the prize with
Zhores I. Alferov and Herbert Kroemer, who developed
electronic components that turned solid-state lasers
into practical devices, such as bar-code scanners.
Kilby preferred the title of engineer to scientist,
saying that scientists get ideas but engineers make
them work. He invented a wide variety of electronic
gadgets. At his wife's suggestion, he created a
precursor to the telephone answering machine: a device
that screens telephone calls so the phone won't ring
unless the call is one you want to take. He spent
several years developing a household solar-energy
generator.
The awards piled up: He was given the National Medal
of Science in 1970 and named to the National Inventors
Hall of Fame in 1981. In 1989, the National Academy of
Engineering gave Kilby and Noyce its top award. In
1995, he received the Robert Noyce Award from the
Semiconductor Industry Association. The Institute of
Electrical and Electronic Engineers gave him its
fellow title and its medal of honor. Japan gave him
its Kyoto Prize for the betterment of mankind.
His wife of 34 years, Barbara Louise Annegars, died in
1981. His sister, who cared for him, died in December.
Survivors include two daughters and five
granddaughters.
Although Kilby's work inaugurated the Information Age,
he was slow to embrace the latest consumer
technologies and worked on outdated computers for
years. He didn't own a digital watch or a cell phone
as recently as a year ago. He preferred a slide rule
but would use his own hand-held calculator because of
its greater accuracy.
Kilby was once asked what the worst application of his
invention was. His response was immediate: the singing
greeting card.
The Washington Post
***************************************************************************
Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg
Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.org
***************************************************************************
__________________________________________________________________________
Mohon Perhatian:
1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik)
2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari.
3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru;
4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
