Micrologic
More info
- Manufacturer
- Fairchild Semiconductor
- Released
- 1961
- Type
- Integrated circuits (RTL logic)
- Creator
- Robert Norman, Jay Last, et al.
Fairchild's Micrologic was the world's first commercial family of monolithic integrated circuits, launched in 1961.
Where Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce had shown that a whole circuit could be built on a single sliver of silicon, Micrologic was the product that turned it into something you could order. The logic used RTL — resistor-transistor logic — and the first chip was a flip-flop. Robert Norman designed the circuits; Jay Last's group made them manufacturable in volume, thanks to Hoerni's planar process.
The price was astronomical at first, but the space program didn't care: Micrologic parts flew in both the Apollo Guidance Computer and the Minuteman missile, and kicked off the entire commercial chip industry.