Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor independently invented the integrated circuit (IC) in 1958 and 1959. An IC is a single piece of semiconductor material (usually silicon) that contains multiple transistors, resistors, and capacitors. Before this, electronic components had to be wired together by hand, which was slow and prone to failure. The 'microchip' allowed engineers to pack thousands, and eventually billions, of components into a space the size of a fingernail. This invention led directly to the development of the personal computer, the internet, and modern artificial intelligence. It turned the computer from a room-sized machine used only by governments into a ubiquitous tool found in every home and pocket.