7/18/1968 to 1985
On July 18, 1968 Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove from Fairchild Semiconductor founded NM Electronics, later known as Intel. The company's first property was purchased in Santa Clara, California.
1970: The Intel 1103
In 1970 Intel announced the Intel 1103, the world's first commercially available Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) chip (1K bit pMOS dynamic RAM ICs).
1971: The Intel 4004
In November 1971 announced the first microprocessor: the Intel 4004 four-bit central processor logic chip (U.S. Patent #3,821,715). Invented by Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Marcian Edward "Ted" Hoff, Stanley Mazor and Masatosi Shima, this was the first microprocessor. The size of "a little fingernail," the 4004 contained 2400 transistors and delivered more computing power than the ENIAC, which occupied a large room.
Quoting from:
"The Crucial Role Of Silicon Design In The Invention Of The Microprocessor (A Testimonial from Federico Faggin, designer of the 4004 and developer of its enabling technology)
"Every time there is a new and important invention, there are many people who claim to be their inventor. This is also the case for the microprocessor. What are then the criteria to determine what the invention is and who invented it? What is exactly the microprocessor and what is novel about it?
"The microprocessor is the central processing unit (CPU) of a general-purpose electronic computer implemented in a single integrated circuit. The Intel 4004 was unquestionably the world’s first commercial microprocessor. No one had commercialized a single-chip CPU prior to Intel. There are people, however, who claim to have built CPUs in more than one chip before the 4004, although they were never commercialized as chip-sets but were used only in proprietary equipment. For example, Raymond Holt claims to have built with his team a three-chip microprocessor in 1969 for the US Navy’s F-14A; Lee Boysel of Four Phase Systems Inc., claims that he and his team created the first microprocessor, which was incorporated as part of a system, in 1969. Although their contributions were remarkable, their CPU implementation, not being a single chip, was not a microprocessor.
"Why is one chip so much different or better than two or three chips? If we accept to call a microprocessor a three-chip implementation of a CPU, then why shouldn’t a four or five-chip implementation be also called a microprocessor? Pretty soon it would be impossible to distinguish a microprocessor from a CPU board built with conventional components! A single chip is important not only because of its simplicity and elegance, but because a one-chip CPU is the irreducible minimum for a CPU, thus optimizing all the critical requirements of size, speed, cost and energy consumption. The microprocessor changed the world of computing exactly because it reduced to an absolute minimum the size, cost and energy consumption of a CPU while maximizing its speed."The existence of multiple-chip CPU realizations predating the 4004 indicates that the critical contribution of the 4004 in the industry was its implementation in a single chip rather than in multiple chips. This fact places much emphasis on the fundamental role played by the chip design that enabled the integration of the 4004 in a single chip, more than on its architecture. Simple CPU architectures requiring two to three thousand transistors – the same number of transistors used in the 4004 -- were generally known in 1968-1969, however it was not possible to integrate all those transistors in a single chip with the MOS technology available at that time.
"The primary reason for the appearance of the microprocessor in 1971, rather than a few years later and possibly by other companies, was the existence of the MOS Silicon Gate Technology (SGT). With the silicon gate technology, twice as many transistors could be integrated in the same chip size than with conventional metal gate MOS technology, using the same amount of energy, and with a speed advantage of about 4:1. This technology, originally developed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968, had also been adopted by Intel. In 1970, only Fairchild and Intel had been able to master the SGT. The 4004 could be integrated and made to function in a single chip not only because of Faggin’s intimate understanding of the silicon gate technology and his skills as a chip designer, but also because of all the additional technological and circuit innovations he created to make it possible (new methodology for random logic using silicon gate, bootstrap load, buried contact, power-resettable flip-flop - US patent 3.753.011-, new flip-flop design used in a novel static MOS shift register).
"There is a very specific and quite striking example showing that the chip design, more than its architecture, was the key to the creation of the microprocessor -- it is the CPU used in the Datapoint 2200 terminal. Conceived in 1969 by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC), Texas Instruments attempted to integrate this CPU in a single chip in 1971, as a custom project commissioned by CTC. Described in the press in mid-1971, only a few months after the 4004 completion, this chip never functioned and it was never commercialized. In early 1972, exactly the same CPU that Texas Instruments failed to make viable, was integrated at Intel (assigned to Hal Feeney, under Faggin’s supervision) using the silicon gate technology and the CPU design methodology created by Federico Faggin. This CPU became the Intel 8008 microprocessor, and was first commercialized in April 1972. The 8008 chip size was about half the size of Texas Instrument’s chip and it worked perfectly" (//www.intel4004.com/hyatt.htm, accessed 12-02-2013).
1972: The Intel 8008
In April 1972 Intel introduced the 8008 microprocessor, the first 8-bit microprocessor. With an external 14-bit address bus that could address 16KB of memory, it became the CPU for the first commercial, non-calculator personal computers: the US SCELBI kit and the pre-built French Micral N and Canadian MCM/70, and the Datapoint 2200.
"Originally known as the 1201, the chip was commissioned by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) to implement an instruction set of their design for their Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal. As the chip was delayed and did not meet CTC's performance goals, the 2200 ended up using CTC's own TTL based CPU instead. An agreement permitted Intel to market the chip to other customers after Seiko expressed an interest in using it for a calculator" (Wikipedia article on Intel 8008, accessed 12-02-2013).
1974: The Intel 8080
In April 1974 Intel released the 8080 eight-bit microprocessor, considered by many to be the first general-purpose microprocessor. It featured 4,500 transistors and about ten times the performance of its predecessors. Within a year the 8080 was designed into hundreds of different products, including the MITS Altair 8800 designed by H. Edward Roberts.
"The 8080 also changed how computers were created. When the 8080 was introduced, computer systems were usually created by computer manufacturers such as Digital Equipment Corporation, Hewlett Packard, or IBM. A manufacturer would produce the entire computer, including processor, terminals, and system software such as compilers and operating system. The 8080 was actually designed for just about any application except a complete computer system. Hewlett Packard developed the HP 2640series of smart terminals around the 8080. The HP 2647 was a terminal which ran BASIC on the 8080. Microsoft would market as its founding product the first popular programming language for the 8080, and would later acquire DOS for the IBM-PC" (Wikipedia article on Intel 8080, accessed 12-02-2013).
1978: The Intel 8086In 1978 Intel introduced the 8086 sixteen-bit microprocessor. The 8086 gave rise to the x86 architecture which eventually turned out as Intel's most successful line of processors.
1979: The Intel 8088
On July 1, 1979 Intel introduced the 8088 microprocessor, a low-cost version of the 8086 using an eight-bit external bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086, allowing the use of cheaper and fewer supporting logic chips. It was the processor used in the original IBM PC.
1985: The Intel 386
In 1985 Intel introduced the 32-bit 386 microprocessor. It featured 275,000 transistors— more than 100 times as many as the first Intel microprocessor, the 4004, developed in 1971.
(This entry was last revised on 01-18-2015.)
The Intel C4004, the very first commercially available microprocessor
On November 15, 1971, Intel presented the Intel 4004 microprocessor, the world’s very first commercially available 4-bit central processing unit (CPU). It was the first complete CPU on one chip. By the time, this revolutionary microprocessor, the size of a little fingernail, delivered the same computing power as the first electronic computer built in 1946, which filled an entire room. Subsequently, the successors to the 4004 should drive the digital revolution.
A New Set of Chips
Back in 1969, Busicom Crop. of Japan approached chip maker Intel, which had previously made semiconductor memory chips, to design a number of custom designed chips for its new printing calculator. Busicom already had a lot of experience with electronic computers, but was looking for a partner who could integrate the semiconductors even more densely on a chip. At the time, Intel was one of the manufacturers with the greatest available integration density. Intel engineers suggested a family of just four chips, including one that could be programmed for use in a variety of products, setting in motion an engineering feat that dramatically altered the course of electronics. The chief designers of the chip were Federico Faggin and Ted Hoff of Intel, and Masatoshi Shima of Busicom (later Zilog). Intel’s employee Ted Hoff formulated the architectural idea in 1969, but did not take part in the development of the first microprocessor.
Intel designed a set of four chips known as the MCS-4, which included a central processing unit (CPU) chip – the famous 4004 – as well as a supporting read-only memory (ROM) chip for the custom applications programs, a random-access memory (RAM) chip for processing data, and a shift-register chip for the input/output (I/O) port. Federico Faggin, the sole chip designer among the development team on the MCS-4 project, was the only one with experience in MOS random logic and circuit design. He created a new random logic design methodology based on silicon gate, and contributed many technology and circuit design inventions that enabled a single chip microprocessor to become a reality for the first time. His methodology set the design style for all the early Intel microprocessors and later for the Zilog’s Z80. Faggin founded Zilog in 1974, the first company to take on the microprocessor exclusively, and created the architecture of the Z80. Shima joined Zilog and developed the Z80 under Faggin’s direction.
A New Era
Intel immediately saw the potential of their new development, purchased the rights from Busicom for $60,000 and launched the Intel®4004 processor and its chipset with an advertisement in the November 15, 1971 issue of Electronic News ”Announcing A New Era In Integrated Electronics”, though unconfirmed reports put the date of first delivery as early as March 1971. That’s when the Intel 4004 became the first general-purpose programmable processor on the market – a “building block” that engineers could purchase and then customize with software to perform different functions in a wide variety of electronic devices.
Intel 4004 Architecture
Intel 4004 Design
Packaged in a 16-pin ceramic dual in-line package, the Intel 4004 was built of approximately 2,300 transistors. It employed a 10 µm process silicon-gate enhancement load pMOS technology on a 12 mm2 die and could execute approximately 92,000 instructions per second. The 4004 provided separate program and data storage. Contrary to Harvard architecture designs, however, which use separate buses, the 4004, with its need to keep pin count down, uses a single multiplexed 4-bit bus for transferring 12-bit addresses, 8-bit instructions, and 4-bit data words. It was able to directly address 5120 bits (equivalent to 640 bytes) of RAM, stored as 1280 4-bit “characters”. The processor had 16 registers of 4 bits (or 8 of 8 bits) and a CALL and a RET instruction for subroutine calls, with a stack of up to four return addresses. The 4004 was the first commercially available computer processor designed and manufactured by chip maker Intel, which had previously made semiconductor memory chips. The processor was still in production until 1981. The schematics were released for non-commercial use on 15 November 2006 – 35 years after Intel released the product.
Popular Myths, Challengers, and Aftermath
A popular myth says that Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, applied an Intel 4004 microprocessor on board. According to Dr. Larry Lasher of Ames Research Center, the Pioneer team actually did evaluate the 4004, but decided it was too new at the time to include in any of the Pioneer projects. Actually, the first commercial product to use a microprocessor was the Busicom calculator 141-PF. The 4004 was also used in the first microprocessor-controlled pinball game, a prototype produced by Dave Nutting Associates for Bally in 1974. In 1974, the 4040 was produced, which offered 14 additional commands, 8 return addresses and a larger address space (8 KBit). Despite being the first multi purpose microprocessor design on a single chip, the Intel 4004 is challenged by a slightly older MOS integrated device, the Central Air Data Computer (CADC) developed by Garrett AiResearch for Grumman and the military fighter jet F-14 Tomcat in 1969-1970. The CADC consisted of an A-to-D converter, several quartz pressure sensors, and a number of MOS-based microchips to compute altitude, vertical speed, air speed, and mach number from sensor inputs such as pitot and static pressure and temperature. [6]
On October 15, 2010, Faggin, Hoff, and Mazor from the original designer team were awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for their pioneering work on the Intel 4004.
Ted Hoff Inventor of the Microprocessor, UCTV []
References and Further Reading: