A 512-bit binary memory chip, the 4004 was designed as an alternative to a series of more specific chips that used a decimal architecture by a team that included Busicom’s Masatoshi Shima, and Intel’s Ted Hoff, Stanley Mazor, and Federico Faggin. It’s been a post of the period of the 4004 years for my own personal story. The 4004 was a single silicon chip measuring eight inches by one-sixth of an inch compared to 2250 circuit elements. It was made up of a set of chips that included an easy to read memory chip for the programming (the 4001), a small RAM chip (the 4002), and a 10-bit input-output register to convert the data into the main processor and remove the results (the 4003). The 4004 prototype proved that it was possible to build it with the technology available in 1971 and that there was a market for such devices. Quite a few other projects with similar goals were being performed simultaneously at different firms. The 4004 hit the market first. What the reason the 4004 is considered the most important is the fact that it set the stage for general-purpose microprocessors, that became the main horse of modern electronics. The 8-bit 8008, followed by the 8080 which were used in the Altair 8080, the arguably first major personal computer, and then to the 8086/8088, the successor that became the brainchild of the IBM PC. Certainly four-bit computing had made way to 16-bit, then 32-bit and then to the standard of 64-bit computing. It isn’t all about the Intel family of microprocessors. Microprocessors from many other companies followed the 4004, resulting in more diverse architectures and applications. (In the early years, TI, Zilog and Motorola were big competitors; soon AMD became Intel’s biggest competitor; and so on, we saw a vast array of designs using the architecture of ARM that powers most cell phones and devices in high-power configurations. Many of today’s electronics are powered by a general-purpose processor – PCs, mobile phones, digital televisions, smart speakers, smart watches, etc. Apple Chips are now indispensable ingredients in all kinds of other products, including automobiles and other appliances. It would not have happened without the microprocessor. If we have the 50th anniversary of this important chip, it would be useful to remember how much more powerful these machines are and how much more and more efficiently this work is done. Of course, none of that would have happened without the first microprocessor, the 4004.
