IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 54

ing to fund the project. not long after,
tI entered a four-year, $18 million costsharing arrangement with the Doe to
accelerate development of what was
now more openly being called the
texas Instruments solar energy system (tIses). With that funding, Kilby
and colleagues built a prototype system, boosted the efficiency of the solarelectric conversion process, increased
the capacity of the fuel cells, and
extended the lifetime of the components.

ilby and Ti sTill had To find a market and customers for the system. here they were optimistic
because the federal government and
some states had started offering tax
credits for the adoption of residential
solar equipment. But they made some
critical missteps.
from the start of Project Illinois, tI
had borrowed r&D templates from the
military-industrial complex. Kilby and
his colleagues relied on networks of
contacts who moved freely between
the military and its suppliers. tI
insisted that its contract with the Doe
contain intellectual-property language
lifted from tI's Pentagon contracts,
and Deutch explicitly modeled the tI
grant on the high-risk, high-reward
funding approach favored by DArPA.
tI even tried to figure out its strategy
for developing tIses using a nuclear

oct 2016

North AmericAN

Kilby's blanket reply
war- gaming techwas, "All of the peonique called scenario
ple who have been
planning. Drawing on
involved with the solar
military-industrial
program should go....
practices made sense,
In general it is my
of course, since tI
feeling that the level
had a great deal of
of competence of the
experience with the
people within Doe is
military. moreover,
a couple of notches
the company's sucbelow those in DoD."
cess with integrated
Instead, Kilby
circuits showed that
it could, quite prof- small siliCon spHeres: The size sought out military
colleagues. In late
itably, spin off large of the silicon spheres in the solar
energy scheme evolved over time.
civilian markets from These measure roughly a quarter of 1978, for instance, he
pushed for richard
its military work.
a millimeter in diameter.
D. Alberts, the u.s.
But that approach
Air force grant officer who funded tI
had a less salutary feature: a reluctance
work on integrated circuits, to take over
to trust solar power experts who did not
the Doe's photovoltaic section. A year
have strong ties to the military. Despite
later he asked Alberts to introduce him
Deutch's claim, the Doe actually had
to someone in the Air force who would
a fair number of people working on
consider adopting tIses as the energy
solar energy. In fact, it had an entire
source used at mX missile silos. that
solar energy research Institute (now
application never panned out, but Kilthe national renewable energy Labby's preference for military experts over
oratory), headed by earth Day orgacivilian solar energy advocates such as
nizer Denis hayes. But Kilby and his
hayes is telling.
tI colleagues found little traction for
Ironically, because of their militarytheir idea among the group, and they
industrial bias, Kilby and tI were lookwere dismissive of points raised by serI
ing for allies for tIses among a group
personnel in turn. When ronald reaof people who were unlikely to support
gan's presidential transition team wrote
it. At the time, the u.s. national secuto Kilby after the 1980 election to ask
rity establishment's imagined energy
which Doe solar energy officials should
future emphasized nuclear power
be kept on by the new administration,

SPectrUm.ieee.orG

Texas insTrumenTs records/degolyer library/souThern meThodisT universiTy

pHoton power: These photos show the front and back of a TISES prototype. According to a document in the Southern
Methodist University archive, this system is the "TISES 'C' Prototype Module."

http://SPectrUm.ieee.orG

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum October, 2016