1958 Integrated Circuit Prototypes From Jack Kilby's TI Lab Up For Sale

First time accepted submitter Dharma's Dad writes Christie's New York is auctioning off a 1958 prototype microchip, used by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments in his Nobel Prize-winning invention of putting an integrated circuit onto a single chip. Gifted to one of the lab employees by Kilby, the family has decided to sell it. Estimated at $1,000,000 - $2,000,000, this prototype integrated circuit was built between July 18 and September 12, 1958, of a doubly diffused germanium wafer with flying gold wire and four leads.

Kilby & Noyce

[crgrace]

While Kilby's chip with bondwire interconnect was first, it's interesting that Noyce's concept at Fairchild using Hoerni's planar technology with all interconnect fabricated using the same photolithography as the devices is pretty much how we do it today. Kilby's concept was a technological dead end.

Re:Kilby & Noyce

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm not completely sure your analogies are 100 % apt. Newton, Maxwell etc. made breakthroughs in thinking that really didn't get hampered by their original notation to the extent as to be unrecognizable. Kilby's circuit, OTOH, had much more in common with the technologies preceding it, most obviously the fact that they were manually wired. At best, it was halfway between the preceding and following technologies. Maxwell's theory wasn't "half-electromagnetic". Kirby's circuits, however, were "half-monolithic", since the problem of, e.g., insulating the parts and only working with doping was only solved later in Noyce's invention.

Re:GIVEN to one of the lab employees.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

gift, v.: "To bestow as a gift; to make a present of." It's actually a pretty old usage.

Learn to use a dictionary

[langelgjm]

From the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of "gift" as a verb:

2. To bestow as a gift; to make a present of. Const. with to or dative. Also with away. Chiefly Sc.
1619 J. Sempill Sacrilege Sacredly Handled 31 If they object, that tithes, being gifted to Levi, in official inheritance, can stand no longer than Levi [etc.].
a1639 J. Spottiswood Hist. Church Scotl. (1677) v. 278 The recovery of a parcel of ground which the Queen had gifted to Mary Levinston.
1711 in A. McKay Hist. Kilmarnock (1880) 98 This bell was gifted by the Earl of Kilmarnock to the town of Kilmarnock for their Council~house.
1754 J. Erskine Princ. Law Scotl. (1809) i. 51 Where a fund is gifted for the establishment of a second minister, in a parish where the cure is thought too heavy for one [etc.].
1801 A. Ranken Hist. France I. 301 Parents were prohibited from selling, gifting, or pledging their children.
1829 J. Brown New Deeside Guide (1876) 19 College of Blairs..having been gifted to the Church of Rome by its proprietor.
1836 A. Alison Hist. Europe V. xlii. 697 Thus did Napoleon and D'Oubril..gift away Sicily.
1878 J. C. Lees Abbey of Paisley xix. 201 The Regent Murray gifted all the Church Property to Lord Sempill.

I'm not sure when Zynga was founded, but I'm pretty sure it was after 1619.