Born on Dec. 12, 1927, in Burlington, Iowa, Noyce moved to Grinnell and finished high school and college there, graduating with a BA in physics and mathematics, and later receiving a doctorate in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
After working as a research engineer at Philco and Shockley corporations, he co-founded the Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, a company that pioneered transistor and integrated circuit manufacturing.
In 1958, Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit using germanium, later receiving a Nobel Prize for his work. Noyce's breakthrough, which replaced germanium with silicon, came half year later, but solved some practical problems in Kilby's design and laid the foundation for all modern computer chips.
After leaving Fairchild, together with Gordon Moore and Arthur Rock he co-founded an even more influential corporation in 1968: Intel, where he was known for his laid-back, modest style of management. Intel was the first company to start successfully manufacturing microprocessors, which helped it become the IT giant it is today.
Noyce died June 3, 1990 after suffering a heart attack. Today's Doodle depicts the ever-changing Google logo as a microchip, marking Noyce's 84th birthday and reminding us that -- perhaps -- we wouldn't be Googling anything if it weren't for Noyce's visionary spirit and inventions.