I count two transistors. Does that really count as an integrated circuit? I've always viewed the definition of an IC as a manufactured object, this is clearly hand-built.
The relevant paragraph:
"Robert N. Noyce, co-founder of chip giant Intel Corp., is credited with developing the manufacturing process that made economical the wide-scale production of integrated circuits. Kilby and Noyce bickered for years over the other's claim to have invented the integrated circuit. Ultimately, the two agreed to share credit. In 1995, Kilby was awarded the Robert N. Noyce Award, the Semiconductor Industry Association's highest honor. When Kilby won the Nobel Prize, he invited Intel's other founder, Gordon Moore, to the ceremony as a gesture to the contribution of Noyce, who died in 1990. Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously."
But, technically, Kilby's chip counts because it was a circuit on a semiconductor substrate. It just looks odd because that image is blown up considerably, the real size is 0.040 x 0.062 inches. A modern IC would look substantially similar under a high enough magnification.
Actually, modern ICs are surprisingly regular and clean looking. My wife is a semiconductor process engineer and I occasionally get to peek at the electron microscopy images over her shoulder. She isn't allowed to tell me what they are, but I can read the distance scale, and these are transistor-sized features. And they have square corners and straight lines. It's pretty amazing stuff.
But yeah, if this thing wasn't produced by photolithography, it's sort of a evolutionary dead end. Whatever the semantics of what qualifies for an IC, this really isn't a meaningful predecessor of a modern chip.
