this guy turns out to have been the man...

Jack Kilby, the soft-spoken engineer whose invention of the integrated circuit won the Nobel Prize and initiated the digital revolution, has died at 81.

Kilby died Monday of cancer at his home in Dallas, according to Texas Instruments, where he worked for most of his career.

Kilby's research for Texas Instruments in 1958 ultimately led to the computer chip, which spawned a trillion-dollar global industry and transformed the way people live and work. His breakthrough shrank tons of complex circuitry to the size of a fingernail and enabled the development of personal computers, automated sprinklers, mobile phones, microwave ovens and other staples of modern life.

"In my opinion, there are only a handful of people whose works have truly transformed the world and the way we live in it -- Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and Jack Kilby," said Texas Instruments Inc. Chairman Tom Engibous. "If there was ever a seminal invention that transformed not only our industry but our world, it was Jack's invention of the first integrated circuit."