50th Birthday of microchip
Fifty years ago to the day on September 12, 1958, the microchip was born – now we’re celebrating its 50th Birthday and you’re all invited.
Now found almost everywhere, in every home and workplace from devices as big as supercomputers right down to something as small as a credit card – you’d have a hard time trying to find a device without one.
http://gallery.techarena.in/data/513/Microchip1.jpg
When the microchip was born, it looked a little different, delivered by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments the chip consisted of a strip of germanium with just one transistor and other components all glued onto the glass side.
This small inspiration revolutionised electronics, the world even – at seven 16ths of an inch by one 16th of an inch who’d have thought it? The microchip is of vast importance to where we are at now with technology, it basically gave birth to the modern computer industry and as for the internet – well it simply wouldn’t be.
Other areas which have benefited incredibly from this little chip include modern communications, medicine, transport, commerce and manufacturing – it really has impacted the modern world. “Integrated circuits are so woven into our lives that it would be hard to imagine a world without them. The integrated circuit is the engine of the information age,” explains Jim Tully, chief of research at Gartner.
The microchip has had such incredible success due to the low cost in manufacturing alongside its efficient performance and low power consumption. ยต
Source
When The IC Is Just A Teenager Sony Make This 19Kg TV Camera
Just a few days ago, I dissassembled a vintage 1974 Sony DXC 1200P Trinicon TV camera. This camera weights in at 19Kg, has about 12 circuits boards loaded mostly with discrete electronics. Some small scale integrated circuits ( SSI ) were use. At the time the IC is just in its late teens.
Compare this camera with a Sony Handycam today and you appreciate the ingenuity and determination of the people who created the ics from Kilbay to current day technologists working in the semincon labs.
Gawk at the internals of the Sony DXC1200P here ==>
