Before there was Moore’s Law, the electronics industry was bumping up against “tyranny of numbers.” Electronic devices before the development of integrated circuits were built in modules, similar to cars. Just as a car has different interconnected components for engines, wheels and lights, so the electronic devices had different modules with different functions interconnected for complex tasks. But whereas cars did not need to expand the amount of components, electronics manufacturers were having great difficulties increasing the number of modules they could connect to increase the device’s computing power. Until Jack Kilby discovered a solution.

On this day, February 6, in 1959, Kilby, a young engineer at Texas Instruments, filed a patent for his invention, the integrated circuit, the first of its kind. Kilby’s solution was brilliant in its simplicity: he realized that all circuit components could be built out of the same material, connected to one another as a single piece. It dramatically reduced the size and cost of electronic circuits.

Kilby’s invention, along with the independently-developed silicone chip integrated circuit enabled devices to grow in processing power exponentially. Soon, ICs were powering everything from handheld calculators (which, thanks to the shrinking, possessed as much power as desktops of several years before) to Titan nuclear missiles. Kilby’s invention was the predecessor of the microchips present in almost every electronic device of today.