Kilby was vital to the invention of the
integrated circuit. In mid-1958, as a newly employed engineer at
Texas Instruments (TI), he did not yet have the right to a summer vacation. Kilby spent the summer working on the problem in circuit design that was commonly called the "
tyranny of numbers," and he finally came to the conclusion that the manufacturing of circuit components
en masse in a single piece of
semiconductor material could provide a solution. On September 12, he presented his findings to company's management, which included
Mark Shepherd. He showed them a piece of
germanium with an
oscilloscope attached, pressed a switch, and the
oscilloscope showed a continuous
sine wave, proving that his integrated circuit worked, and thus that he had solved the problem. U.S. Patent 3,138,743 for "Miniaturized electronic circuits," the first integrated circuit, was filed on February 6, 1959. It was notable for having different components (transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.) on one single substrate. Along with
Robert Noyce (who independently made a similar circuit a few months later), Kilby is generally credited as co-inventor of the integrated circuit. == Later career ==