Instead of using light to etch a transistor circuit on a wafer of silicon, they propose to fabricate tiny wires.

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Fairchild's 1959 integrated circuit contained one transistor.

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What he did not foresee was the development of the transistor and later the integrated circuit, which mean satellites are far smaller than the objects he sketched out, which would have used valve technology and needed regular maintenance.

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In 1959 Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor and Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments each invented the integrated circuit, etching a transistor onto a two- dimensional chip of silicon.

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By the standards of the rest of the industry, the circuit pattern is quite crude, and the transistor is 25 times as large as those found in conventional, modern chips.

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The paper thus acted as the dielectric between the components of each transistor, as well as being the substrate for the circuit, in the same way that the base of a silicon chip acts both as substrate and as dielectric.

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