The invention of the transistor in 1948 eliminated the need for bulky vacuum tubes in computers and other electronic devices. As other components were also reduced in size, engineers were able to design miniature, and increasingly complex, electronic circuits. However, the transistors and other parts of the circuit were made separately and then had to be wired together, a tricky task that became more difficult as circuit components became tinier and more numerous. Circuit failures often occurred when the wire connections broke.

The idea of manufacturing an electronic circuit with multiple transistors as a single, solid unit arose as a way to solve this problem. The integrated circuit (IC) concept was first suggested publicly by a British radar engineer, G. W. A. Dummer, in 1952. He envisaged implanting electronic equipment in a solid layered block of semiconducting material, with connections made by cutting out areas of the layers...