JACK KILBY, MICROCHIP INVENTOR AND 2000 NOBELIST IN PHYSICS, RECEIVES PENN’S PENDER AWARD MARCH 21

Jack Kilby, father of the microchip and 2000 Nobel Prize winner in physics, will receive the highest honor of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science on Wednesday, March 21.

Before receiving the Pender Award, Kilby will deliver a talk titled “Invention of the Integrated Circuit” at 4:30 p.m. in Heilmeier Hall in the Towne Building at 220 S. 33rd St., on the Penn campus. The talk is free and open to the public.

In 1958, shortly after joining Texas Instruments, Kilby conceived and built the first electronic circuit in which all components, active and passive, were fabricated in a single piece of semicondutor material half the size of a paper clip. He went on to pioneer military, industrial and commercial applications of microchip technology and to lead teams that built the first computer incorporating integrated circuits. Kilby, who holds more than 60 U.S. patents, also co-invented the hand-held calculator.

The Pender Award, which recognizes significant contributions to society, is named for Harold Pender, who served as the first dean of Penn’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering from 1923 until his retirement in 1949. Under Pender’s direction, faculty research tackled significant engineering problems, culminating in the 1946 development of ENIAC, the world’s first large scale, electronic, general-purpose digital computer.

NOTE: Kilby will be available at a news conference from 3 to 4 p.m. on March 21 in Room 108 of the Towne Building. Those interested in attending the news conference should contact to Sandy Rathman at 215-573-3027.