The world’s most highly-efficient solar cells are twice as efficient as the ones people put on their roofs, but hardly anyone uses them because the semiconductor materials they’re made of are so expensive. That could be about to change.
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the life and career of inventor Robert Noyce, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. Noyce, who died in 1990, is credited with the invention of the integrated circuit. His patent for a “Semiconductor Device and Lead Structure” paved the way for the semiconductor revolution of the next decades.
He was called the Mayor of Silicon Valley and his relaxed corporate structures encouraged his employees to experiment in an era of buttoned-down austerity. Without Noyce and his various projects, you probably wouldn’t be reading this right now…