Search giant Google paid tribute Monday to Robert Norton Noyce, inventor of the integrated circuit (IC), the heart of today's computers, with yet another of its patented Doodles.
Visitors to Google's homepage were greeted with an image of an IC with the word "Google" embedded in the circuitry.
As in the past, clicking on the Doodle will take the visitor to a Google Search Results page for "Robert Noyce."
Noyce, born Dec. 12, 1927, earned the nickname "Mayor of Silicon Valley," and co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968. Noyce died of heart failure on June 3, 1990, at age 62.
He is also credited along with Jack Kilby with the invention of the IC or microchip, which triggered the personal computer revolution.
Noyce, the son of a preacher, grew up in Grinnell, Iowa. He was a physics major at Grinnell College, and exhibited while there an almost baffling amount of confidence.
While in college, Noyce's physics professor Grant Gale got hold of two of the very first transistors ever to come out of Bell Labs. Gale showed them off to his class and Noyce was hooked, according to a narration of PBS.
Noyce founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. While there, he invented the IC, a chip with many transistors etched into it at once.
In 1968, he left with Gordon Moore to found Intel, where he oversaw Ted Hoff's invention of the microprocessor.
"At both companies, Noyce introduced a very casual working atmosphere, the kind of atmosphere that has become a cultural stereotype of how California companies work. But along with that open atmosphere came responsibility," PBS said.
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