Because the planar process covered the transistor with an insulating layer of silicon dioxide, Noyce could put “wires” directly on the chip by depositing lines of metal on top of it, conducting electricity between the chip’s transistors. Like Kilby, Noyce had produced an integrated circuit: multiple electric components on a single piece of semiconductor material. However, Noyce’s version had no freestanding wires at all. The transistors were built into a single block of material. Soon, the “integrated circuits” that Kilby and Noyce had developed would become known as “semiconductors” or, more
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