Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
set of ICs, which could be programmed to perform different tasks. These were the first ever
microprocessors and soon Intel (short for
Int
egrated
El
ectronics) produced a general-purpose
4-bit microprocessor, named the 4004.
In April 1970, Wayne Pickette proposed to Intel that they use the computer-on-a-chip for
the Busicom project. Then, in December, Gilbert Hyatt filed a patent application entitled
'Single Chip Integrated Circuit Computer Architecture', the first basic patent on the micro-
processor.
The 4004, as shown in Figure 1.1, caused a revolution in the electronics industry as pre-
vious electronic systems had a fixed functionality. With this processor, the functionality
could be programmed by software. Amazingly, by today's standards, it could only handle
four bits of data at a time (a nibble), contained 2000 transistors, had 46 instructions and al-
lowed 4 KB of program code and 1 KB of data. From this humble start, the PC has since
evolved using Intel microprocessors. Intel had previously been an innovative company, and
had produced the first memory device (static RAM, which uses six transistors for each bit
stored in memory), the first DRAM (dynamic memory, which uses only one transistor for
each bit stored in memory) and the first EPROM (which allows data to be downloaded to a
device, which is then permanently stored).
In the same year, Intel announced the 1 KB RAM chip, which was a significant increase
over previously produced memory chip. Around the same time, one of Intel's major partners,
and also, as history has shown, competitors, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Incorporated
was founded. It was started when Jerry Sanders and
seven others left - yes, you've guessed it, Fairchild
Semiconductor. The incubator for the electronics
industry was producing many spin-off companies.
At the same time, the Xerox Corporation gathered a
team at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and gave
them the objective of creating 'the architecture of
information.' It would lead to many of the great
developments of computing, including personal
distributed computing, graphical user interfaces, the first
commercial mouse, bit-mapped displays, Ethernet,
client/server architecture, object-oriented programming,
laser printing and many of the basic protocols of the
Internet. Few research centers have ever been as
creative, and forward thinking as PARC was over those
years.
In 1971, Gary Boone, of Texas Instruments, filed a
patent application relating to a single-chip computer
and the microprocessor was released in November.
Also in the same year, Intel copied the 4004 micro-
processor to Busicom. When released the basic specifi-
cation of the 4004 was:
Figure 1.1
Intel 4004 die
•
Data bus:
4-bit
•
Clock speed:
108 kHz
•
Price:
$200
•
Speed:
60 000 operations per second
•
Transistors:
2300
