Without the invention of the integrated circuit, computers would still be room-sized devices affordable to only the largest and most powerful governments and organizations. You can see a picture of the first IC and read the inventor's original notes at the Texas Instruments site at www.ti.com/corp/docs/company/
history/tihistory.htm (formerly, www.ti.com/corp/
docs/history/firstic.htm). For information on Marcian (Ted) Hoff and other inventors, visit the Invention Dimension site at web.mit.edu/invent and go to the Inventor of the Week archives. To get an idea of how many ICs have been manufactured and to see what kinds of products they're in, check out the QuestLink Technology site www.questlink.com.

Sandia National Laboratories Microelectronics and Photonics Home Page Sandia National Laboratories is on the cutting edge of microelectronics research. Its Center for Microelectronics Technologies conducts research on integrated circuits and semiconductors. At this Web site, you can view photographs of the Sandia facilities, read descriptions of its laboratory and research facilities, read about its varied research programs, and see photographs of some of the devices it has developed.

Chip Directory The Chip Directory is a vast searchable catalog of computer chips. You can search the catalog by chip name, family, function, or voltage. The site includes texts about hardware (for example, tips for chip spotting and transistors) and software (for example, IBM PC specific information and instruction sets). There are also links to external resources such as FAQs, FTP sites, and manufacturers.