The microchip turned 50 on Friday! The integrated circuit is currently being used in almost all electronic gadgets. The microchip was demonstrated by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments on 12 September 1958 after spending his first summer there developing a circuit on a single chip made of germanium. Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his part of the integrated circuit invention.

But actually it was first conceived by a radar scientist, Geoffrey W.A. Dummer, working for the Royal Radar Establishment of the British Ministry of Defense, and published on at the Symposium on Progress in Quality Electronic Components in Washington, D.C. on May 7, 1952. Dummer unsuccessfully attempted to build such a circuit in 1956. So the credit goes to Kilby who succeeded in fulfilling the whole project.

Robert Noyce also came up with his own idea of integrated circuit, half a year later than Kilby. However Noyce's chip had solved many practical problems that the microchip developed by Kilby had not. Noyce's chip, fabricated at Fairchild, was made of silicon, whereas Kilby's chip was made of germanium, with one transistor and other components all glued to a glass slide.

Kilby’s device measured seven 16ths of an inch by one 16th of an inch. But it stirred up an amazing and irreplaceable revolution: modern communications, transport, medicine, manufacturing and commerce are all based on the remarkable processing power of microchips.

"The integrated circuit provides the critical technology for countless electronic devices that enable people everywhere to lead more productive lives," said George Scalise, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association. "In the ensuing half century since Kilby's invention, the integrated circuit has proved to be the single most important driver of increased productivity and economic growth in history," Scalise continued.