CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗
Intel 4004 Microprocessor
- Year
- 1971
- Creator
- Ted Hoff, Stanley Mazor, Federico Faggin, Masatoshi Shima
- Company
- Intel
- Location
- Room
- Augmentation ↗
Description
The 4004 is a four-bit central processing unit on one chip, with approximately 2,300 transistors in a 16-pin package. Intel designed it for the Japanese calculator company Busicom and started to advertise it to other customers in November 1971.
Importance
One programmable chip could now do the work of many custom circuits, and software gave each product its special function. The 4004 started the microprocessor market, and the Intel 8080 of 1974 later made that market much larger. Intel led that market for many decades.
Interesting fact
In May 1971, Intel got the right to sell the chip for uses other than calculators when it returned Busicom's $60,000 payment.
Sources
- The Intel 4004 ↗Intel Corporation
- 1971: Microprocessor Integrates CPU Function onto a Single Chip ↗Computer History Museum, The Silicon Engine
- Chip Hall of Fame: Intel 4004 Microprocessor (Stephen Cass) ↗IEEE Spectrum · 2018-07-02