The integrated circuit was conceived by a radar scientist, Geoffrey W.A. Dummer (1909-2002), working for the Royal Radar Establishment of the British Ministry of Defence, and published at the Symposium on Progress in Quality Electronic Components in Washington, D.C. on May 7, 1952.[1] He gave many symposia publicly to propagate his ideas.

Dummer unsuccessfully attempted to build such a circuit in 1956.

Early developments of the integrated circuit go back to 1949, when the German engineer Werner Jacobi (Siemens AG) filed a patent for an integrated-circuit-like semiconductor amplifying device [5] showing five transistors on a common substrate arranged in a 2-stage amplifier arrangement. Jacobi discloses small and cheap hearing aids as typical industrial applications of his patent. A commercial use of his patent has not been reported.

A precursor idea to the IC was to create small ceramic squares (wafers), each one containing a single miniaturized component. Components could then be integrated and wired into a bidimensional or tridimensional compact grid. This idea, which looked very promising in 1957, was proposed to the US Army by Jack Kilby, and led to the short-lived Micromodule Program (similar to 1951's Project Tinkertoy).[6] However, as the project was gaining momentum, Kilby came up with a new, revolutionary design: the IC.

The aforementioned Noyce credited Kurt Lehovec of Sprague Electric for the principle of p-n junction isolation caused by the action of a biased p-n junction (the diode) as a key concept behind the IC.[7]

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