Federico

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Faggin's career began at Olivetti R&D Labs at age 19, where he co-designed a small digital transistor computer with 4 K × 12 bit of magnetic memory in 1960. He later earned a laurea degree in physics, summa cum laude, from the University of Padua. In 1967, he joined SGS-Fairchild in Italy, pioneering MOS metal-gate technology before moving to Fairchild's Palo Alto offices in February 1968. There, he led the development of silicon-gate technology (SGT), designing the unique process architecture for a MOSFET with a silicon self-aligned gate. This innovation replaced earlier metal-gate MOS technology and rendered bipolar transistors-based integrated circuits obsolete within a decade. At Fairchild, he designed the 3708, an 8-bit analog multiplexer that was five times faster and had 100 times less junction leakage than its predecessor, the 3705.

In Their Own Story

In 1970, Faggin joined Intel as the project leader and designer of the MCS-4 family, which included the world's first single-chip microprocessor, the 4004. The chip was made possible by SGT enhanced through a novel random logic chip design methodology Faggin created at Intel. Two additional innovations allowed the fit: "buried contacts" that doubled circuit density and bootstrap loads with 2-phase clocks that improved speed five times while halving the chip area compared to metal-gate MOS. The 4004 was part of a family designed for Busicom, including the 4001 ROM, 4002 RAM, and 4003 shift register. Faggin promoted marketing the MCS-4 to other customers by building a tester using the 4004 as its controller, convincing Bob Noyce to renegotiate exclusivity with Busicom. While Ted Hoff formulated the architectural proposal, he was not familiar with SGT; Faggin led the project separately, completing the chip design in January 1971 with routine help from Masatoshi Shima.

Reader's Guide

Faggin's silicon design methodology implemented all of Intel's early microprocessors. The Intel 8008, the first single-chip 8-bit CPU, was built with p-channel SGT and resumed under Faggin's direction in January 1971, utilizing circuits developed for the 4004. He also created the architecture of the 4040 microprocessor (1974) and supervised Tom Innes on its design. The Intel 8080 (1974), conceived and architected by Faggin and designed by Masatoshi Shima, was the first high-performance 8-bit microprocessor using faster n-channel SGT. It retained software compatibility with the 8008 but offered much higher performance. Before founding Zilog at the end of 1974, Faggin served as Intel's R&D department manager for all MOS products except dynamic memories. He co-founded and became CEO of Zilog, leading the development of the Z80 and Z8 processors, making it the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors.

Did You Know?

• Faggin created the self-aligned MOS silicon-gate technology (SGT) in 1968 at Fairchild Semiconductor, which enabled the creation of the first microprocessor.
• The Intel 4004 used 'buried contacts' to double circuit density and bootstrap loads with 2-phase clocks to improve speed five times while reducing chip area by half.
• In 2015, a $1 million endowment was established for the Faggin Family Presidential Chair in the Physics of Information at UC Santa Cruz.
• Faggin co-founded Zilog with Ralph Ungermann, creating the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors.
• Federico Faggin received the 2009 National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2010.