The revelatory moment of the electronics age arguably came in January 1959, when Robert Noyce, an engineer and a founder of Fairchild Semiconductor, scrawled in his notebook the words "Methods of Isolating Multiple Devices." Under that obscure heading, Noyce went on to write, "In many applications now it would be desirable to make multiple devices on a single piece of silicon in order to be able to make interconnections between devices as part of the manufacturing process, and thus reduce size, weight, etc., as well as cost per active element."

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