What was the first microprocessor in history and who invented it

The microprocessor has been the key piece in computing as we know it today, since it is a whole work of art inside which billions of electrical circuits are hidden, which are called transistors or allow to execute a huge number of operations per second. In this post we give a review of what was the first microprocessor in the industry and which were its creators.

Intel 4004 was the first microprocessor in history

To discover the origin of the microprocessor we have to go back to November 1971, when Intel announced the first microprocessor in history, the Intel 4004. This first processor gave rise to computing as we know it today, with incredible features for the time, such as the ability to perform 60, 000 operations per second and the ability to handle up to 640 bytes of memory.

Jointly designed by Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stanley Mazor, the Intel 4004 was a 4-bit, 16-pin microprocessor that operated at a frequency of 740 KHz and offered eight clock cycles per instruction cycle , meaning that the chip was capable of executing up to 92, 600 instructions per second. The Intel 4004 used advanced PMOS (Silicon Gate Technology - SGT) technology, a technique that Faggin perfected at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968 and was the world's first metal oxide process (MOS). This advance allowed the 4004 to include 2, 300 transistors in a 10 micron function size.

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To put us in perspective, there are half a billion transistors on a Sandy Bridge chip, each of which is only 0.032 microns in size. Considering that human hair is around 100 microns. The fact that it was made from a single piece of silicon is what made the Intel 4004 truly spectacular.

Later, in April 1972, the Intel 8008 was announced, a more evolved version of the previous microprocessor to improve its capabilities, this model managed to multiply by two the number of transistors of its predecessor to reach 3500 transistors. This second processor could process no less than 200, 000 operations per second and was the first designed for general use. The great capabilities of this chip made Intel manage to sell tens of thousands of units in a few months, giving many users the possibility of having their first PC.

From there a fierce race began to offer increasingly powerful processors with less or equal power consumption. The key to this whole process has been silicon, a very special material that lets pass or not the current depending on several variables. The manufacturing processes have also been progressing non-stop, making the integrated circuits inside the processors smaller and smaller, allowing a larger quantity to be integrated in the same space.

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