COURTESY OF TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
JACK S. KILBY
8 november 1923 . 20 june 2005
PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
VOL. 151, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2007
biographical memoirs
M
Y CLOSE BUSINESS ASSOCIATION with Jack began
when he joined Texas Instruments in May 1958, and for
the next twelve years we worked together on the development of the integrated circuit program. After our careers took us down
different paths for a while, we again shared offices and resumed our
business association in 1986, continuing a personal relationship that
lasted for a span of forty-seven years.
Prior to joining Texas Instruments, Jack had developed miniature
ceramic-based silk screen circuits at Centralab and was their representative at the Western Electric transistor licensing conference in 1952.
During his first few months at TI, he explored various concepts for
ease of electronic circuit assembly, but the economics were marginal or
poor, and they were quickly set aside. As summer began, he explored
the use of semiconductor material for each of the circuit functions, and
during the employee vacation period in July he sketched an oscillator
circuit formed in situ in a semiconductor substrate. Upon the employees’ return, Jack reviewed his concept with Willis Adcock, the director
of development, and a working model was fabricated, followed by several logic circuits in early fall.
The immediate disclosure of those working circuits to senior management began a long period of dialogues between Jack and Pat Haggerty, president of Texas Instruments, exploring potential impact, modifications and applications, and strategic alternatives for an eventual
business. Jack’s skills in defining development programs and their business impact were nourished and advanced by these frequent interchanges
with Pat. As a consequence, Jack’s development projects became increasingly strategic in their approach
Throughout the period from 1959 to 1961, the integrated circuit
program had to overcome major credibility barriers raised by peers in
the technical community and by customers, as the development advanced from laboratory units to simple demonstration equipment, to a
compatible set of logic products, and, eventually, to equipment assemblies of some complexity. Jack’s presence and one-on-one dialogues with
senior technical staff at Air Force laboratories and major defense system companies were usually decisive in TI’s selection for major development programs; in 1962 TI was awarded the development program
for application of integrated circuits to the Minuteman II guidance
system.
Jack’s leadership skills were tested within TI as he continually
sought the resources he thought essential for integrated circuit development. The program’s demands were far different from current practices
for transistor development and production, and the transition from these
discrete devices proved more difficult than anticipated at the time.
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An integrated circuit project team consisted of ten or more engineers
as compared with the usual two to four persons involved in a transistor
development. A logic set took longer to develop, and customers had
to incorporate integrated circuits at the beginning of an equipment
design cycle rather than modifying a production run as they could with
transistors. It could take several years before a new integrated circuit
produced a revenue stream, versus four to six months for a new transistor’s revenues. Manufacturing technology shifted to wafer-centric
processing versus mainly assembly and test processing for transistors
and diodes. Equally strong differences occurred in sales and support,
requiring new and dedicated approaches to these problems.
Jack was an intensely competitive person and keenly focused on
realizing the full potential of his innovations. His involvement was
hands-on at each phase seeking competitive differentiation: designing
more complex logic functions; devising the flat package form factor
that practically all integrated circuits still use today; adapting critical
process tools for IC manufacturing; and designing handling carriers for
testing. These efforts created a technology direction and momentum
that contributed to the large success of the subsequent integrated circuit product lines long after Jack returned to the Development Department in 1964. For the next five years he pursued concepts for the new
generation of integrated circuits and solid state devices, managing some
four to six projects with highly creative people at TI.
The 1960s were the era of bipolar devices for integrated circuits.
Jack pursued this technology for extensions of complexity and performance until 1970, when MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) structures
became the basis for LSI (large-scale integration) complexities, and
they have remained dominant ever since.
Jack’s advice and assistance to young engineers in their day-to-day
tasks have often been recalled by them. He was easily accessible, and
spent most of the day in the lab overseeing bench work and making
suggestions or answering questions. He understood their frustrations
and the barriers that they had to overcome, and he had a sincere interest in helping them.
Jack exemplified the entrepreneurial role in technology development
long before the term became widely used. He was resourceful in execution. Adaptations were made as necessary, the problem to be solved was
well understood, and the effort was intensely focused.
In 1970, Jack took a leave of absence from Texas Instruments to
pursue a career as an independent inventor, focusing on novel applications of integrated circuits for mainly consumer-related applications.
During the mid-1970s he defined a concept for silicon photovoltaic
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(spheres) arrays that would generate hydrogen from a bromine solution; in turn, the hydrogen would be supplied to fuel cells to generate
electricity. The project’s development was done at the Central Research
Labs of Texas Instruments. The arrays of spherical solar cells were
demonstrated and hydrogen generated, but it was far ahead of its time
for practical fuel cells, and the project ended in the early 1980s. Over
his career, Jack received more than sixty patents.
Thereafter, his principal activity was as a consultant, an advisory
committee member for selected companies and government agencies,
and a board member for a few companies.
Jack had a good grasp of language and wrote in tightly organized
paragraphs with few embellishments, and with few adjectives or adverbs. When he had to prepare a business proposal, the collection of
data and charts was organized and prepared, but the discourse was delayed until the deadline was imminent. During the early sixties, we
spent a number of early morning hours writing proposals on the day
they were due, which required some creative scrambling to get them to
Dayton, Washington, or elsewhere on time.
He kept current with advances in solid state technology by reading
a wide variety of journals, and through conversations with his peers in
universities, industry, and government. Later in his career, he developed a strong interest in books on technology and engineering leadership that recounted the story of major inventors and their innovations
during the twentieth century and he enjoyed interacting with several of
the authors.
On any trip, Jack always had with him several paperbacks, which
he completed before the trip’s end. These were usually mystery or spy
stories. Interest in the latter may have been stimulated by his experience with an OSS unit late in World War II, when as its radio person he
had traveled with a jeep convoy across western China toward the
major encampment of Mao and his army. When they were within forty
or fifty miles of their objective, they were recalled.
Although he met people easily, Jack and his wife, Barbara, were
very private persons and preferred small social groups. Barbara was a
gifted artist, working in ceramics and silver, and displayed her work at
museum stores. She died in 1981, and Jack was devoted to her memory
until his death in 2005. Her studio in their home remained untouched
from the time of her death.
Jack resisted change for much of his personal life, and he did not
adopt many of the personal electronic products made possible by the
integrated circuit. He did not use a digital watch or a cell phone, and
used a personal computer sparingly, preferring to answer correspondence on his IBM Selectric typewriter.
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His conversational skills were impaired by a serious loss of hearing, particularly in his last ten to fifteen years, and he used the spoken
word sparingly but effectively. He would respond to comments or
questions with a few measured and well-thought-out sentences, often
injecting a droll sense of humor. He never answered with an impulsive
remark. If he was not prepared to comment, he might wait for a long
pause before responding, or answer with a question.
His desk and office reflected a comfort with stacks of mail, reports,
books, and other papers spread on any available surface. It might
require five to ten minutes to find a particular item, but that was better
than filing it. Once every four to six months, an attempt would be
made to clear some space on his desk, but this resulted mainly in transferring items from one stack to another.
Recognition and honors came gradually over a thirty-year period.
He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineers in
1967. He received the National Medals of Science and Technology in
1969 and 1990, respectively. He was the recipient of innumerable
awards from professional groups and received honorary degrees from
several universities. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall
of Fame in 1982. The Kyoto Prize was awarded in 1995, and he shared
the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000.
Although these prizes focused on his pioneering integrated circuit
innovations in the early 1960s, he preferred to talk about problems
that he thought technology might help solve, or focus on the possible
outcome of a new development effort. I really believe he begrudged the
time spent in answering questions about the events or experiences leading to the invention and subsequent development of the integrated circuit. For these occasions, he had prepared two short articles or talks,
which he could deliver in eight to fifteen minutes. From this perspective, the acceptance of the Kyoto and Nobel Prizes and their formal
presentations were uncomfortable experiences for him, as he had to
prepare and give talks of forty-five to fifty minutes for each.
Jack was born on 8 November 1923 and spent his boyhood in
Great Bend, Kansas. He went to the University of Illinois for his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering. He remembered those days
fondly and in the 1990s would go back for homecoming weekends.
While working at Centralab, he earned a master’s degree in engineering
from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Jack’s contributions went beyond an early invention of integrated
circuits. His relentless and intense pursuit of innovations during the
first decade of the integrated circuit program at TI and his leadership in
developing the underpinnings of this technology set a direction that
continued for many years. He was truly one of the pioneers in our
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industry and remained at his core an engineer, pursuing practical solutions to problems.
Elected 2001
Charles Phipps
Advisory Partner
Sevin Rosen Funds
Former Vice President
Market Development
Semiconductor Group
Texas Instruments