ChronotechAn atlas of how we made the world

Semiconductors · Vol. V|Microprocessor|1971 (Intel 4004)

Microprocessor

1971 (Intel 4004)

A microprocessor puts a computer’s central processing unit on one chip. The Intel 4004, 1971, was designed for a Japanese calculator and escaped into general use. Once the CPU is a component, you can hide a computer in a microwave, a car, a watch. Software becomes the way machines differ.

Intel team (Hoff, Faggin, Mazor, Shima) for Busicom · United States / Japan collaboration

Microprocessor — Original plate drawn for this atlas. Not a photograph of a museum object or a copyrighted portrait.

How the mechanism is arranged

A whole processor on one chip: fetch an instruction, decode it, execute, write back. Clock, then again.

How it works

Integrate control, arithmetic, and registers on one die.
Fetch instructions from off-chip (later on-chip) memory.
Expose pins so the rest of the product can talk to the CPU.

Why it mattered

Collapsed the cost of a programmable controller.
Started the personal-computer industry.
Made ‘computer’ an ingredient, not a room.

Who turned the wheel

What it unlocked

For further study

Intel archives / Computer History Museum. 4004.
Faggin memoirs. Silicon-gate implementation.

Check

What does putting a CPU on one chip change for product designers?