CBC News: Microchip inventor dies

Jack Kilby has died at age 81.

...He built the first integrated circuit using borrowed equipment in 1958. The "integration" consists of adding all of the components of a chip onto one paper clip-size piece of semiconductor.

Until integrated circuits miniaturized technology, computers were room-sized machines with bulky switches and vacuum
tubes.

Kilby held more than 60 U.S. patents, including one filed in 1959 for a circuit made of the element germanium. Bob Noyce, co-founder of chip maker Intel Corp., later mass produced the chips using silicon...