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tor and Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments are credited for independently inventing the
integrated circuit [21].
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union played an impor-
tant role in advancing integrated circuit technology. American engineers developing the
Minuteman II ballistic missile in the early 1960s decided to use integrated circuits to im-
prove the processing speed of its guidance computer. The Minuteman II program was
the single largest consumer of integrated circuits in the United States between 1962 and
1965, representing about 20 percent of total sales. During these years companies learned
how to make rugged, reliable integrated circuits [9]. They also continued to shrink the
components within the integrated circuits, leading to an exponential increase in their
power. Gordon Moore noted this trend in a 1965 paper and predicted it would continue.
Today
Moore's law
refers to the phenomenon of integrated circuits becoming twice as
powerful roughly every two years.
The integrated circuit made possible the construction of much more powerful and
reliable computers. The 1960s was the era of mainframe computers—large computers
designed to serve the data-processing needs of large businesses. Mainframe computers
enabled enterprises to centralize all of their data-processing applications in a single
system. As we have seen, by this time IBM dominated the mainframe market in the
United States.
In 1964 IBM announced the System/360, a series of 19 compatible computers with
varying levels of computing speed and memory capacity (Figure 1.9). Because the sys-
tems were software compatible, a business could upgrade its computer without having
to rewrite its application programs. This feature was important, because by the 1960s
companies were making much larger investments in software.
In 1968 Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore left Fairchild Semiconductor to found another
semiconductor manufacturing company, which they named Intel. A year later Japanese
calculator manufacturer Busicom approached Intel about designing 12 custom chips
for use in a new scientific calculator. Intel agreed to provide the chips and assigned
responsibility for the project to Marcian “Ted” Hoff. After reviewing the project, Hoff
suggested that it was not in Intel's best interest to manufacture a custom chip for every
customer. As an alternative, he suggested that Intel create a general-purpose chip that
could be programmed to perform a wide variety of tasks. Each customer could program
the chip to meet its particular needs. Intel and Busicom agreed to the plan, which
reduced the required number of chips for Busicom's calculator from 12 to 4. A year of
development by Ted Hoff, Stanley Mazor, and Federico Faggin led to the release of the
Intel 4004, the world's first
microprocessor
. Inside the 1/8-inch
1/6-inch chip were
2,300 transistors, giving the Intel 4004 the same computing power as the ENIAC, which
had occupied 3,000 cubic feet.
Microprocessors made it possible to integrate computers into everyday devices. To-
day we're surrounded by devices containing microprocessors: cell phones, MP3 players,
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