Oral history interview with Jack S. Kilby

Abstract

The interview covers Kilby's entire career, including his education, work experiences at Centralab and Texas Instruments (TI), and his independent work after leaving TI in 1970. Kilby graduated from the University of Illinois in 1948. He then worked at Centralab under Alfred Khouri and Bob Wolff, initially on resistor-capacitor couplings for television sets. In 1952 Kilby attended the Bell conference on transistors, which led him to work on transistor technology at Centralab until he joined TI in 1958. At TI he worked under Willis Adcock on development of germanium and silicon transistors. Kilby discusses the organizational structure of TI in the late 1950s and details its development and manufacturing of integrated circuits. He discusses his involvement in the development of the first hand-held calculator at TI. He also mentions semiconductor developments at Fairchild Corporation and his own career after leaving TI.