On Friday July 11th, Ted Hoff told the story of how he invented the microprocessor. On Friday July 18th, Busicom's Masatoshi Shima, told how he designed it. On Friday July 25th, Federico Faggin described how the first microprocessor was made. This week, Ted Hoff, tells the story of how it got taken to market.
Hoff invented the microprocessor to drive a calculator for the Japanese calculator company Busicom. Hoff's idea was a radical departure from Busicom's idea for a 12 chip chip-set to drive the calculator, and Busicom didn't, initially, like Hoff's idea which involved four chips.
"The Japanese engineers already had a lot of work invested", recalls Hoff, "they didn't want to change the design at a late date, but Bob Noyce was very encouraging he said: 'It's good to have an insurance policy - why not pursue it?'"
"In September 1969 Intel hired Stan Mazor," continues Hoff, "we hit it off pretty well and worked together quite effectively. Two weeks after Stan joined, in mid-September, the marketing department sent a letter to
"In October we had a meeting with the Japanese.", says Hoff, "both approaches were presented. We pointed out that our solution had the potential for outside applications. That really was the factor that encouraged them to go for the Intel approach."
Busicom was not without reservations - 'I hope it's as good as you say' the leader of the Busicom team told Hoff. Intel's fee for developing the chips was fixed at $60,000
Federico Faggin one of a handful of people with expertise in implementing random logic using silicon gate technology was hired from Fairchild to translate Hoff's architecture into silicon.
Busicom's Masatoshi Shima who had expert systems knowledge of calculators took on the design of the logic for the processor chip.
The resulting chip used 2300 transistors measured one-sixth of an inch by one-eighth and executed 60,000 operations a second. It was called the '4004'. '4000' signified that it was a custom product; the final '4' marked it as the fourth custom chip made by Intel.
"I was surprised to find that Intel had given the rights away completely to the customer" says Hoff. It took much lobbying by Hoff and Mazor to prod Intel into re-negotiating a lower price for the chips in return for the right to market the 4004 for non-calculator applications.
Another struggle for Hoff and Mazor was to persuade Intel to market the chip. Only after Ed Gelbach became director of marketing in August 1971 was it agreed to sell the 4004 and then rather grudgingly: "We saw it as a way to sell more memories" was Gelbach's attitude.
On November 15th 1971 the 4004 was advertised in Electronics News as a 'micro-programmable computer on a chip'. Shortly afterwards at a computer conference Hoff remembers an indignant engineer complaining to Mazor 'How dare you say you've got a computer on a chip?' Mazor handed him a data sheet and the engineer exclaimed 'God it really is a computer!'
NEXT FRIDAY August 8th: After the 4004: the 8008 and 8080 by Federico Faggin.July 25th:
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