The company's product line also includes chipsets and motherboards; flash memory used in wireless communications and other applications; hubs, switches, routers, and other products for Ethernet networks; and embedded control chips used in networking products, laser printers, imaging devices, storage media, and other applications.
Intel remained competitive through a combination of clever marketing, well-supported research and development, superior manufacturing proficiency, a vital corporate culture, legal proficiency, and an ongoing alliance with software giant Microsoft Corporation often referred to as 'Wintel.
Intel's founders, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, were among the eight founders of Fairchild Semiconductor, established in While at Fairchild, Noyce and Moore invented the integrated circuit, and, in , they decided to form their own company.
They were soon joined by Andrew Grove, a Hungarian refugee who had arrived in the United States in and joined Fairchild in Grove would remain president and CEO of Intel into the s. To obtain start-up capital, Noyce and Moore approached Arthur Rock, a venture capitalist, with a one-page business plan simply stating their intention of developing large-scale integrated circuits.
The company was incorporated on July 18, , as N M Electronics the letters standing for Noyce Moore , but quickly changed its name to Intel, formed from the first syllables of 'integrated electronics. Noyce and Moore's scanty business proposal belied a clear plan to produce large-scale integrated LSI semiconductor memories.
At that time, semiconductor memories were ten times more expensive than standard magnetic core memories. Costs were falling, however, and Intel's founders felt that with the greater speed and efficiency of LSI technology, semiconductors would soon replace magnetic cores. Within a few months of its startup, Intel produced the Schottky bipolar memory, a high-speed random access memory RAM chip. The proved popular enough to sustain the company until the , a metal oxide semiconductor MOS chip, was perfected and introduced in With the , Intel finally had a chip that really did begin to replace magnetic cores; DRAMs eventually proved indispensable to the personal computer.
The company's most dramatic impact on the computer industry involved its introduction of the , the world's first microprocessor. Like many of Intel's innovations, the microprocessor was a byproduct of efforts to develop another technology.
When a Japanese calculator manufacturer, Busicom, asked Intel to design cost-effective chips for a series of calculators, Intel engineer Ted Hoff was assigned to the project; during his search for such a design, Hoff conceived a plan for a central processing unit CPU on one chip.
The , which crammed 2, transistors onto a one-eighth- by one-sixth-inch chip, had the power of the old 3,cubic-foot ENIAC computer, which depended on 38, vacuum tubes. Although Intel initially focused on the microprocessor as a computer enhancement that would allow users to add more memory to their units, the microprocessor's great potential--for everything from calculators to cash registers and traffic lights--soon became clear.
The applications were facilitated by Intel's introduction of the , an 8-bit microprocessor developed along with the but oriented toward data and character rather than arithmetic manipulation.
The , introduced in , was the first truly general purpose microprocessor. The response was overwhelming. The soon became the industry standard and Intel the industry leader in the 8-bit market.
In response to ensuing competition in the manufacture of 8-bit microprocessors, Intel introduced the , a faster chip with more functions. The company was also developing two more advanced projects, the bit and the bit The was introduced in but took two years to achieve wide use, and, during this time, Motorola produced a competing chip the that seemed to be selling faster.
Intel responded with a massive sales effort to establish its architecture as the standard. When International Business Machines Corporation IBM chose the , the 's 8-bit cousin, for its personal computer in , Intel seemed to have beat out the competition. During the s, Intel had also developed the erasable programmable read-only memory EPROM , another revolutionary but unintended research byproduct. The browser version you are using is not recommended for this site.
Please consider upgrading to the latest version of your browser by clicking one of the following links. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore founded Intel to create a company that would reflect their belief in continuous innovation. Throughout decades of growth and adaptation, Intel has maintained the emphasis on innovation that drove its founding.
Nevertheless, Noyce and Moore were growing restless. In , Noyce and Moore resigned from Fairchild. Noyce explained his hopes for the future in his letter of resignation:. They had even worse names, for which the value may only be for trivia quizzes. Eventually they would settle on Intel. Yet, the real differences were under the hood. Intel the company was designed under a set of brilliant overlapping blue ocean strategies. This is extracted from a full poster SEMI had commissioned to show the explosion of semiconductor start-ups in the valley.
It was developed by Don C. Thackray, D. Brock, R. This day would be an inflection point in the course of semiconductor history.
Andrew S. Grove addresses the evolution of semiconductor manufacturing from the In , standard clean room practices were lax. Facilities were kept reasonably Craig describes the origins of manufacturing lore such as Copy Exactly, Intel U, The history of semiconductor research at Intel is discussed in this convers Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel, describes why America is losing its edge and w Last month, CEO Brian Krzanich , who led the company for the last five years, resigned amid revelations that he'd had an affair with another Intel employee.
Swan, Intel's chief financial officer, took over as the interim CEO. To commemorate Intel's year anniversary, here are 10 little-known facts about the company:. Intel began work on a museum in the early s and was opened to public in The 10,square-foot museum is visited by more than 86, people per year and is located at Intel's headquarters.
Exhibits range from displays on silicon chip fabrication to Intel's history as one of Silicon Valley's pioneers. In its early days, the company had to figure out how to keep technicians spotless when assembling chip sets in its clean rooms. Stricter clean suits were required, beginning at Intel's opening of its Fab 3 in Livermore in , according to Intel.
Called "bunny suits," they were worn at Intel's other facilities and became the company-wide standard by Before working with watchmakers like TAG Heuer and Fossil, Intel entered the digital watch market in with the acquisition of Microma. The company ended up selling the division to Timex in but Intel co-founder Gordon Moore reportedly still wears his Microma watch.
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