Vintage Computer Chip Collectibles, Memorabilia & Jewelry

 


The Integrated Circuit
(1961 - Present)


The Transistor is simply an on/off switch controlled by electricity.
The Integrated Circuit combined numerous transistors onto a single chip.



image of a Motorola microprocessor chip close-up
Motorola 68040 Microprocessor Close-up (1990)


The Integrated Circuit (also known as IC, chip or microchip) placed the previously separated Transistors, resistors, capacitors and wiring circuitry onto a single chip made of semiconductor material (either Silicon or Germanium). The Integrated Circuit greatly shrunk the size and cost of making electronics and impacted the future designs of all computers and other electronics.

Computers today are dominated by two major microprocessor companies namely Intel and AMD, the latest offerings of microprocessors available from Intel for example contains billions of  transistors and as a comparison the Intel 4004 chip from 1971 contained 2,300 transistors, the most common Pentium chip from Intel in 1993 contained 3,100,000 transistors.

Over the years the technology behind transistors has changed so that they could be made smaller and more could be fitted into microprocessors giving faster processors. The technology continues to make advances in miniaturization in manufacturing transistors and microprocessors.

In 1965 Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel, wrote a paper describing how the number of transistors in integrated circuits had doubled every year since the invention of the integrated circuit until 1965 and he predicted that the trend would continue for at least ten years. Forty Five years on and the prediction is still somewhat correct and is now commonly known as Moore's Law. In 2005 in an interview with Moore stated that the continuation of the trend cannot continue as transistors would eventually reach the limits of miniaturization at atomic levels. However experts still insist that Moore's Law will continue for at least another decade or two.


​





_


​The History of the Integrated Circuit

The first successful demonstration of the microchip was on September 12, 1958 by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments. The first commercially available integrated circuits were manufactured by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1961.

Better known to the layperson as a computer chip, IC or microchip, just about every electronic device you use today depends on the integrated circuit - from computers to smartphones, smart televisions, automobiles, household appliances, even traffic signals, the list is endless.

The development of the integrated circuit was a huge event in the history of computing. Without this technology, it's unlikely that personal computers and handheld computing devices would have been developed and produced as early as they were.



The Need for the Integrated Circuit

No doubt you are familiar with early computers, monstrosities whose CPU took up whole rooms and were largely owned by government labs and research universities. These early computers depended on vacuum tubes to amplify electrical signals throughout the machine. Vacuum tubes were large, made of glass, and required regular maintenance: not exactly something that could be put into a consumer device. To top it off, they made the electrical signal very slow, reducing these supercomputers to the equivalent of today's pocket calculator. The vacuum tube left much to be desired, and put inventors on a mission to find better ways to amplify electrical signals.

Transistors, which first came into use in the 1940's, had an obvious edge on vacuum tubes. They could make the current flow faster, thus promoting computing power, and they were also smaller. Their downside? Transistors had to be linked together in a circuit without any errors, or the computer would not function correctly. This still limited the complexity of computers that could be based on transistor circuits.

The invention of the integrated circuit goes to Jack Kilby, an and employee of Texas Instruments. In 1958, Kilby was tasked with developing an improved circuit for his employers products. However, the direction for the circuit that his boss wanted to follow was not that of the integrated circuit; Kilby waited until his co-workers were on vacation to pursue his idea of putting all elements of a circuit on one small chip. He finished his prototype, which he presented upon their return. The prototype was tested and it worked: Kilby's invention was deemed a success.

In 1959, Fairchild Semiconductor's Robert Noyce (who would later co-found Intel) was also credited as an initial inventor of the integrated circuit. Noyce made an important improvement upon Kilby's initial design. He made the alteration of adding a thin layer of metal to the chip, to better connect all the various components on the circuit.

Interestingly, an English inventor also described the initial idea for the integrated circuit, independent of Kilby and Noyce. The engineer, Geoffrey Drummer, envisaged a single circuit with all the components placed together on a layer of silicon material. In fact, Drummer is credited as the first to ever describe an integrated circuit, at a talk in Washington, D.C.; however, no British corporations or the military were interested in developing his idea.






The First IC Integrated Circuit Texas Instruments Jack Kilby 1958
The First Integrated Circuit invented by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments (1958)
image of Sylvania computer chip 1963
image of Sylvania computer chip Ad (1963)


 



Generations of Integrated Circuits


1st - Small scale integration (SSI):
had 3 to 30 transistors/chip. Early 1960s

2nd - Medium scale integration (MSI):

had 30 to 300 transistors/chip. Md to Late 1960s

3rd - Large scale integration (LSI):

had 300 to 3,000 transistors/chip. Mid 1970s

4th - Very large scale integration (VLSI):
had more than 3,000 transistors/chip. Early 1980s

5th - Ultra Large Scale integration (ULSI):
had more than one million transistors/chip. Mid 1980s





1st Generation Integrated Circuits in the 1960's were vital to early aerospace projects

The Minuteman missile and the Apollo program both needed lightweight digital computers for their inertial guidance systems. The Integrated Circuit technology development was led by the Apollo guidance computer, while the Minuteman missile bolstered it into mass-production.

The purchases of almost all of the available integrated circuits from 1960 through 1963 were from these aerospace programs, and basically provided the demand that funded the production improvements. In turn, this demand was responsible for lowering the production costs from $1000 per Integrated Circuit (in 1960 dollars) to a mere $25 per Integrated Circuit (in 1963 dollars).


Integrated Circuits began to be used in consumer products at the turn of the decade, for example in FM inter-carrier sound processing in television receivers.


The first commercial computers to use Integrated circuits were the Burroughs B2500 / B3500, introduced in 1968.

​



​





Some Computer Memorabilia with Integrated Circuits
​

automotive electronic technology product examples
intel flash memory chips
NEC satellite chip
military computer chip microprocessor
IBM PowerPC chip keychain
Arizona semiconductor chips
Texas Instruments Military IC's
AMD's first EEPROM chip paperweight
santa clara computer chip pin
Interdesign integrated circuit chip paperweight
Tandem Computer Microprocessor
Sony CCD camera chip
PIXIM Camera CCD chip
Intel 286 Microprocessor chip
RFID chip paperweight
SGS thompson sample computer chips
hitachi computer chip
Panasonic TV integrated Circuit
Intel chip sample
IBM 486 microprocessor chip die
computer chip keychain
Fujitsu computer chip keychain
apple intel computer chip
computer chip pin
motorola ford automotive computer chip
vintage IBM chips keychain
intel chip plaque award
Fairchild Integrated Circuit wafer
intel thin package processors
gold ceramic IC chip
western electric chip
tosbac computer chip
NCR integrated Circuit chip
Samsung computer chip watch
Gold Integrated Circuit
MIPS chip
AMD 286 CPU keychain
Ford automotive integrated circuit paperweight
VLSI integrated Circuit chip paperweight
Fairchild computer chip paperweight
bracelet Gold Integrated Circuits
RCA integrated circuit
freescale chip
Vintage Gold Integrated Circuit
Microsoft Xbox CPU GPU chips paperweight
Ampex
Intel Israel Chip keychain
Fastcomm communication chip
Gold ceramic Integrated Circuit
Intel Pentium III Mobile processor samples
Seeq Technology EEPROM Chip paperweight
CISCO IBM ASIC switching chips for Pixar
Vintage Intel CPU pin
Oki Semiconductor memory chips jewelry
Fairchild Computer chips
Fetron
IBM chip keychain
Intel Israel Chip keychain
Interdesign Monochip IC
Ramtron Ram memory
HP paperweight with Integrated circuits
data-terminal-systems-electronic cash register   terminal-computer chip
Mitsubishi 256K DRAM tie clip with integrated circuit chip
Intel Pentium chip necklace
Apple Computer Vintage Microprocessor CPU
delco electronics early car Transponder Key
Burroughs Integrated Circuit
AMD Athlon processor chip paperweight










Check out our Collection of hundreds of
Vintage CPU's
displayed in Shadow Boxes
image of a Computer Chip Collection


​

Related: ​       Computer Chip Microscope Images           Integrated Circuit Package types



Vacuum Tubes > Transistors > Hybrid Circuits > Integrated Circuits


____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

​

Explore our collection of memorabilia from the world's leading Electronics & Semiconductor Companies​​


ADS    AKAI    AMD    ​Amdahl    Ampex    AMS    Analog Devices    Apple    Applied Materials    Atari    ATI    AT&T    Bell Labs

Bosch
    Burroughs    CBS-HYTRON    Cisco    ​Canon    Cincinnati Milacron    Control Data    Cray    Cyrix    Digital Angel

​Data General
    Data Terminal Systems    DEC    Delco    Destron Fearing    Elbit    EMR    ESI    Fairchild    Fastcomm    Ferranti    Ford

Freescale    ​Fujitsu    GE    GM    GTE    Hitachi    Honeywell    HP    Hughes    Hybrid Systems    
Hyundai    ​IBM    Intel    Interdesign

ITT    Kyocera    Lear Siegler
    Lucid    Memorex    ​Micron    Microsoft    ​Microvision    MIPS    MIT    Mitsubishi    Motorola

NAPA ECHLIN
    National Semiconductor    NCR    ​NEC    Nintendo    NTK​    NMBS    NorthStar Computers    NVIDIA    OKI Electric

Pacific Semi    ​Panasonic    PHILCO    Philips    Pixim    Precision Monolithics    Ramtron    Raytheon    RCA

Remington Rand    Samsung    Seeq    ​Siemens    SGS-Thomson    Sharp    Signetics
    Smith-Corona Marchant    Sony

SpaceX    ​Sperry    Storage Technology
    STMicroelectronics    Sun Microsystems    Sylvania Electric    Tandem Computers

Tesla
    Texas Instruments    Teledyne    Toshiba    Tung-Sol    TSMC    United Technologies    Unitrode    UNIVAC    VeriChip

Volvo    VLSI    Wavesat    Western Electric    Westinghouse    WYSE    Etc.
​

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



​Home       About Us      See Us      Collectors Resources        Technology Timeline        Link to Us       Terms / Privacy       Site Map         Advertise


​ 

© 2022 ChipsEtc.com. All Rights Reserved. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. 
​