Noyce, Robert (1927-1990), is one of the two inventors of the microchip, or integrated circuit. Such a chip contains all the components of an electronic circuit. Microchips are widely used in computers and other types of electronic equipment. Noyce made his chip in 1959 while working at Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, a company he helped found. Jack Kilby, an electrical engineer, developed a similar chip at about the same time, but working independently. Kilby’s patent was filed first. But Noyce’s design made the connections between components a part of the manufacturing process, while Kilby’s did not.
In 1968, Noyce left Fairchild. He and Gordon Moore, a research scientist from Fairchild, founded Intel Corporation, now a leading manufacturer of semiconductor chips.
Robert Norton Noyce was born on Dec. 12, 1927, in Burlington, Iowa. He graduated from Grinnell College in 1949 and earned a doctorate in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953. He died on June 3, 1990.
See also Computer chip; Microprocessor.
