𝗜𝗡𝗧. 𝗦𝘆𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 – 𝗪𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗼𝗻, 𝗗𝗖 – 𝗗𝗮𝘆 – 𝗡𝗬𝗖 (𝗠𝗮𝘆 𝟳, 𝟭𝟵𝟱𝟮)
GEOFFREY DUMMER, an English radar scientist and electronics engineer working for the Royal Radar Establishment of the British Ministry of Defence, stands at a podium, addressing the AUDIENCE.
DUMMER – “I stand before you as the first person ever to present you with the following concept. In the world of the digital, electronic, stored-program computer and respective ENIAC computing system, I have devised an idea that will become the next great advance in computing power.”
Ambient chatter fills the audience.
DUMMER – “I wish to introduce to you, the integrated circuit.”
Dummer flips over a piece of paper on a giant easel pad, detailing his outline for the integrated circuit.
DUMMER – “It is possible to fabricate multiple circuit elements on and into a substance-like silicon. It shall be called the microchip.”
Ambient chatter fills the audience, this time louder.
DUMMER – “It seemed so logical to me; we had been working on smaller and smaller components, improving reliability as well as size reduction. I thought the only way we could ever attain our aim was in the form of a solid block. You then do away with all your contact problems, and you have a small circuit with high reliability.”
Because of Dummer’s idea, we enabled applications such as virtual reality and on-device AI as well as gains in data transfer such as 5G connectivity, and they’re also behind algorithms such as those used in deep learning.
Dummer went on to win the USA Medal of Freedom with Bronze Palm. His idea inspired the first working integrated circuits being invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor.
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