Eugene McDermott
In 1951, McDermott, along with Cecil Howard Green, Patrick E. Haggerty, and J. Erik Jonsson co-founded Texas Instruments. This was done when the company changed its name to Texas Instruments; GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company. This acknowledged that the company had changed its focus from one primarily devoted to oil exploration to one focused on manufacturing. McDermott was the Chairman of TI from 1951-1957, Chairman of the Executive Committee of Board of Directors from 1957-1964 and Director until his death in 1973. During this period of time, Texas Instruments rose to be one of the world's largest corporations.
Invention of the integrated circuit
In April 1960, Texas Instruments announced multivibrator #502 as the world's first integrated circuit available on the market. The company assured that contrary to the competitors they actually sell their product, at a price of US$450 per unit or US$300 for quantities larger than 100 units. However, the sales began only in the summer of 1961, and the price was higher than announced. contained two transistors, four diodes, six resistors and two capacitors, and repeated the traditional discrete circuitry. The device contained two Si strips of 5 mm length inside a metal-ceramic housing. One strip contained input capacitors; the other accommodated mesa transistors and diodes, and its grooved body was used as six resistors. Gold wires acted as interconnections.