George Lang
Technology Essay
The Microchip
The fascinating thing about technology is that it relies on previous technologies to drive the path of new ones. One of the most influential technological inventions of the 21st century has to be the microchip. It was invented in 1959 and changed the way the world as we know it. Two engineers actually happened to have invented the microchip at about the same time. In order to come up with the idea of the microchip, these two engineers had to use their knowledge of past technologies to help them. Jack Kilby, one of the engineers who came up with the invention, had a lot of experience working with circuit boards and transistors. One could say that he was kind of a computer expert as well. Robert Noyce was the other engineer that played a pivotal role in the creation of the microchip. His background was with conductors and semiconductors. This was important because choosing a proper semiconductor is key to creating a well functioning microchip. In the beginning, Noyce and Kilby fought for the rights and patents to this creation. However, after many lawsuits and legal fights, the two decided to work together and use their combined knowledge to make a better microchip.
The creation of the microchip was made possible because of various other types of technologies that had been created before it. Hearing aids, for example, were one of these technologies. Hearing aids helped lead to the microchip because of the different transistors that were used and put in place. These transistors were used in the same way in a microchip to function as a switch. These switches were able to stop a current or allow it to continue. It also happened to be a recent scientific finding that silicon made for an excellent semiconductor. A semiconductor was necessary for the creation of the microchip because it is what allows the currents to run within it. Without the silicon based semiconductor, there would be no microchip.
We know that many different past technologies influenced the invention of the microchip, so it would be interesting to ponder on the possible new technologies that could be created because of it. These microchips already led to new technologies and improvements to other technologies in the years after its creation. For example, it led to the creation of the portable calculator. Without the microchip, this technology would not have been possible. It also drastically improved the functionality of the computer. With the use of the microchip, computers were able to act faster and retain more memory. On top of this, the microchip actually made the computer much cheaper and this eventually led to computers being affordable by most people. Microchips allowed for the wide spread of computers in everyday life. Chip technology is used in so many sorts of technologies that it became a trillion dollar industry. In the future, I still believe that it will lead to new inventions that we have not even heard about. Personally, I could see them being used in autonomous transportation vehicles. Technology never ceases to amaze me, so who knows, maybe it can lead to a teleportation device in the future. Technology adds to other technologies and engineers are constantly creating new and innovative ideas. The microchip definitely played one of the most pivotal roles in the creation of these new technologies.
