Here at OC3D we haven’t done enough to celebrate what is a historic time for the chip manufacturer Intel. The 40th anniversary of the birth of the world’s first commercially available microprocessor, the Intel 4004
On November 15th 1971 an advertisement appeared in Electronic News for a new type of processor that could perform different operations depending upon the instructions given to it. This is so commonplace nowadays that people take it for granted, but most chips then were custom made for single purposes
The 4004 story
In 1969, Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation requested that Intel design 12 custom chips for its new Busicom 141-PF printing calculator. Instead of creating a dozen custom chips specifically for the calculator, Intel's engineers proposed a new design: a family of just four chips, including one that could be programmed for use in a variety of products.
The set of four chips was called the MCS-4. It included a central processing unit (CPU) chip—the 4004, 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. Intel delivered the four chips and Busicom went on to sell some 100,000 calculators.
Intel offered Busicom a lower price for the chips in return for securing the rights to the microprocessor design and the rights to market it for non-calculator applications, allowing the Intel 4004 microprocessor to be advertised in the November 15, 1971 issue of Electronic News. It's then that the Intel 4004 became the first general-purpose microprocessor 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.
(Source: Intel Museum)
This first single-chip 4-bit CPU ran at a blistering 740khz and connected to the motherboard through 16 legs. It was capable of between 46,300 and 92,600 instructions per second and was the size of a small finger nail
Today’s LGA1155 designs have a level of performance over 350,000 times that of the 4004 and each transistor within uses approximately 5,000 times less energy than those of the older processor
On November 15th 1971 an advertisement appeared in Electronic News for a new type of processor that could perform different operations depending upon the instructions given to it. This is so commonplace nowadays that people take it for granted, but most chips then were custom made for single purposes
The 4004 story
In 1969, Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation requested that Intel design 12 custom chips for its new Busicom 141-PF printing calculator. Instead of creating a dozen custom chips specifically for the calculator, Intel's engineers proposed a new design: a family of just four chips, including one that could be programmed for use in a variety of products.
The set of four chips was called the MCS-4. It included a central processing unit (CPU) chip—the 4004, 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. Intel delivered the four chips and Busicom went on to sell some 100,000 calculators.
Intel offered Busicom a lower price for the chips in return for securing the rights to the microprocessor design and the rights to market it for non-calculator applications, allowing the Intel 4004 microprocessor to be advertised in the November 15, 1971 issue of Electronic News. It's then that the Intel 4004 became the first general-purpose microprocessor 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.
(Source: Intel Museum)
This first single-chip 4-bit CPU ran at a blistering 740khz and connected to the motherboard through 16 legs. It was capable of between 46,300 and 92,600 instructions per second and was the size of a small finger nail
Today’s LGA1155 designs have a level of performance over 350,000 times that of the 4004 and each transistor within uses approximately 5,000 times less energy than those of the older processor
