Intel Hist.
...velopment in a small growing company. Although the production of memory chips was starting to become a commodity business in the late 1960’s, Moore and Noyce believed they could produce chip versions of their own design that would perform more functions at less cost for the customer and thus offer a premium price. Intel’s unique challenge was to make semiconductor memory functional. Semiconductor memory is smaller in size, provides great performance, and reduces energy consumption. This first started when Japanese manufacturer Busicom asked Intel to design a set of chips for a family of high-performance programming calculators. Intel’s engineer, Ted Hoff, rejected the proposal and instead designed a Single-chip, a logic device that retrieved its application instruction from semiconductor memory. Buying Back the Cash There was a problem with this new chip Busicom owned it. Intel was convinced to repurchase the rights to the product. Intel then offered to return Busicon’s $60,000 investment in exchange for the rights of the product. The Japanese agreed after struggling with the financial troubles. The Microprocessor Hits the Market Intel’s first microprocessor, the 4004, was introduced in 1971. This $200 chip delivered as much computing power as the first electronic computer, the ENIAC. After the 4004, Intel introduced the 8008 microcomputer, which processed eight bits of information at a time. The 4004 and 8008 began to open new markets for Intel products. Today, affordable computing power is available to designers of all types of products, producing creativity and innovation. Turning Point: IBM PC In 1981, Intel microprocessor family had grown to include the 16-bit 8086 and the 8-bit 8088 processors. These two chips created 2,500 winning designs in the year. A product from IBM was one of those designs, which became the first PC. Intel was convinced IBM to choose the 8088 as the brains of its first PC. Because of IBM’s intelligent decision, the PC business grew to tens of millions of units every year. In 1982, Intel introduced the 286 chip. It contained 134,000 transistor...