Jack St. Clair Kilby 1923-2005

You wouldn't have ever heard of him unless you were a techy nerd or you lived in Dallas. I live in Dallas. Jack Kilby changed the world every bit as much as Edison or Alexander Graham Bell, but you probably never heard of him. Kilby, who worked for Texas Instruments, "set off the high-tech revolution with his invention of the semiconductor chip in 1958."

Mr. Kilby's semiconductor put an entire electronic circuit on a single piece of material, an idea that ushered in a second industrial revolution. Although he shunned the thought, many put the longtime Texas Instruments engineer in the same league with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.

Mr. Kilby won the Nobel Prize for physics in 2000. His chip made it possible for man to travel to the moon, for personal computers and cellphones to enter everyday life and for the electronics industry to grow into a $1 trillion-a-year business.

"He is one of but a handful of people that have changed the world around us," said Rich Templeton, chief executive of Texas Instruments Inc.

The 6-foot, 6-inch inventor was a "gentle giant" who did little to toot his own horn, his friend Pat Weber said Tuesday.

"He was always a very humble man," said Mr. Weber, former vice chairman of TI. He always understated his accomplishments."

Mr. Kilby avoided many of the fruits of his invention. He didn't own a digital watch or a microwave oven. A conventional watch with its sweeping hands better conveyed the passage of time, he reasoned. And, although he helped invent the hand-held calculator in 1967 to demonstrate a practical use for his semiconductor, Mr. Kilby continued to use his slide rule.

"Many times he'd be late for lunch, and we all told him, 'Jack, you need a cellphone so we can check up on you,' " said Mr. McGarity, a former TI senior vice president. "He was very dismissive of it. He said, 'I'll be where I need to be when I get there.'"

Please check out the entire piece in the Dallas Morning News.