{
  "patent_number": "US 3138743",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How Jack Kilby Invented the First Integrated Circuit",
  "original_title": "Miniaturized electronic circuits",
  "summary": "Texas Instruments' 1959 patent for the first integrated circuit, which combined transistors and resistors on a single piece of semiconductor material.",
  "what_it_does": "This patent describes the fundamental structure of an integrated circuit, or a microchip. It explains how to build multiple electronic components, specifically transistors and resistors, directly into a single wafer of semiconductor material like germanium or silicon. By layering regions of different electrical conductivity types—creating PN junctions—and connecting them with conductive paths on the surface, the design allows an entire circuit to exist on one small piece of material rather than using bulky, separate components wired together. This architecture is the ancestor of every modern processor.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Does not cover the use of non-semiconductor materials for building circuit components.",
    "Does not cover vacuum tube-based circuit designs.",
    "Does not cover specific manufacturing lithography techniques used to etch these patterns.",
    "Does not cover multi-chip modules where separate dies are packaged together."
  ],
  "filed": "1959-02-06",
  "granted": "1964-06-23",
  "expires": "1981-06-23",
  "status": "expired",
  "holder": "Texas Instruments Inc",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/texas-instruments-inc",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "Jack S Kilby",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/jack-s-kilby"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 27,
  "tags": [
    "semiconductors",
    "consumer_electronics",
    "mechanical"
  ],
  "abstract": "945,749. Semi-conductor devices. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS Inc. Feb. 2, 1960 [Feb. 6, 1959], No. 32744/63. Divided out of 945,734. Heading H1K. The subject matter of this Specification is included in Specification 945,734 from which the present Specification is divided but the claims relate to a device comprising a semi-conductor body with three superposed regions of alternate conductivity types forming a pair of PN junctions extending to a surface of the body and there defining two enclosed areas one within the other, with an insulating oxide of a semi-conductor covering selected parts of said surface, first and second ohmic contacts secured to said surface on opposite sides of the inner PN junction and a third ohmic contact secured to the third region. Specifications 945,737, 945,738, 945,739, 945,740, 945,741, 945,742, 945,743, 945,744, 945,745, 945,746, 945,747 and 945,748 also are referred to.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/3138743/kilby-monolithic-integrated-circuit",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/3138743/kilby-monolithic-integrated-circuit/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US3138743",
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}