'What we didn't realize then was that the integrated circuit would reduce the cost of electronic functions by a factor of a million to one, nothing had ever done that for anything before'
Jack Kilby

It seems that the integrated circuit was destined to be invented. Two separate inventors, unaware of each other's activities, invented almost identical integrated circuits or ICs at nearly the same time.

Jack Kilby, an engineer with a background in ceramic-based silk screen circuit boards and transistor-based hearing aids, started working for Texas Instruments in 1958.
A year earlier, research engineer Robert Noyce had co-founded the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. From1958 to 1959, both electrical engineers were working on an answer to the same dilemma: how to make more of less.