MAKE Terry Kilby - The Advent of Microchips

apparatus design. He increased transmitter eciency by short-
ening the leads and was the first to describe the much lighter,
one-tube on-board receiver for model aircraft. Twin brothers
Walter and William Good won first place titles in 1940 and 1947
at the US National Aeromodeling Championships. Their iconic
RC model airplane, known as the Gu, is now owned by the
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (see Figure 1-1).
Figure 1-1. The Good brothers’ RC airplane, the Gu.
The Advent of Microchips
In the summer of 1958, Jack Kilby—a new employee at Texas
Instruments and young inventor at the time—revolutionized the
electronics industry with the introduction of his integrated cir-
cuit. This precursor to the microchip consisted of a transistor
and other components on a thin piece of germanium 7/16 ×
1/16 inches in size. Knowing that many electronic components,
like passive resistors and capacitors, could be made from the
same material as the active transistors, Kilby realized they could
also be made into
configurations to form a complete circuit.
Many electronics we use now would not be possible without Kil-
by’s tiny chip. It transformed room-sized computers into the
microcomputers sold today.
4 Make: Getting Started with Drones