First commercial microprocessor released

Both Federico Faggin and his employer Fairchild Semiconductors deserve to be better known to history. The Italian electrical engineer in 2010 received the highest award the United States confers for contributions to technological progress, but few know he was the mastermind behind microchips as we know them today. He was the original developer of the Silicon Gate Technology, which allowed for more transistors to fit on a single chip, dramatically improving computer power; or that his contributions led to the rise of a company that powers many of the world’s computers today.

On this day, November 15, in 1971, Intel released their 4004 microprocessor, developed by Faggin. This was the first chip to house a complete CPU, as well as the first microprocessor available commercially.

The chips were developed in response to an order from the Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation for their Busicom model. Japanese engineers intended to use 12 chips for each calculator. Faggin’s team figured out how to accomplish the same with just four chips – keeping one, the 4004, multipurpose.