Noyce, Robert Norton (1927–1990)

US scientist and inventor, with Jack Kilby, of the integrated circuit (microchip), which revolutionized the computer and electronics industries in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1968 he and six colleagues founded the Intel Corporation, which became one of the USA's leading semiconductor manufacturers.

The integrated circuit was developed independently by Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959, and by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments in 1958. Noyce applied for a patent for the integrated circuit in 1959 and, although this was challenged by Texas Instruments, in 1969 the appeal courts eventually found in his favour. In 1961 he founded his first company, Fairchild Camera and Instruments Corporation, around which Silicon Valley was to grow. The company was the first in the world to understand and exploit the commercial potential of the integrated circuit. It quickly became the basis for such products as the personal computer, the pocket calculator, and the programmable microwave oven. At the time of his death, he was president of Sematech Incorporated, a government–industry research consortium created to help US firms regain a lead in semiconductor technology that they had lost to Japanese manufacturers.