Federico Faggin
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== Federico Faggin == | == Federico Faggin == | ||
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Born: 01 December 1941 | Born: 01 December 1941 | ||
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In 1988, Faggin was awarded the Marconi Foundation Fellowship “for his pioneering contributions to the implementation of the microprocessor, a principle building block of telecommunications.” That same year, he was also awarded the Gold Medal for Science and Technology by the President of the government of Italy. In 1994 he received the IEEE’s W. Wallace McDowell Award for his work in silicon gate technology and microprocessors and in 1996, Faggin was inducted in the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame for the co-invention of the microprocessor.<br><br> | In 1988, Faggin was awarded the Marconi Foundation Fellowship “for his pioneering contributions to the implementation of the microprocessor, a principle building block of telecommunications.” That same year, he was also awarded the Gold Medal for Science and Technology by the President of the government of Italy. In 1994 he received the IEEE’s W. Wallace McDowell Award for his work in silicon gate technology and microprocessors and in 1996, Faggin was inducted in the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame for the co-invention of the microprocessor.<br><br> | ||
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Revision as of 15:54, 23 January 2009
Federico Faggin
Born: 01 December 1941
While at Fairchild, Faggin developed silicon gate technology. This replaced the aluminum control gates, which up to that time, had been used in MOS transistors. Silicon gates were faster, used less energy, and required less space on the microchip. The first silicon gate integrated circuits became commercially available in October of 1968, and today almost 90% of all semiconductors use silicon gate technology.
In 1970, Faggin moved to a new company called Intel, which Noyce and Moore founded a couple years earlier. Faggin was eager to return to designing circuits and Intel put him in charge of designing an integrated circuit for the Japanese calculator manufacturer Busicom. Faggin, along with colleagues Ted Hoff and Stanley Mazor, envisioned a single chip that could perform functions that had been performed by numerous chips. The result was the Intel 4004, the world’s first microprocessor.
In 1974, Faggin left Intel to found Zilog Corporation, and codesigned its most famous product, the Z80 microprocessor. More than one billion Z80s were eventually sold, and it remained in production for well over twenty years. Exxon Enterprises, which had supplied Zilog with venture capital, acquired Zilog in 1981. After the acquisition, Faggin left the company and cofounded Cygnet Technologies, which built intelligent voice and data peripherals for personal computers. In 1986, Faggin cofounded yet another company, Synaptics, Inc., which specializes in neural network technologies as well as computer/human interface devices based on touch, sound, and sight. This allowed computers to adapt to human behavior rather than forcing users to adapt to the computer. Faggin has been Chairman of the Board since January 1999.
In 1988, Faggin was awarded the Marconi Foundation Fellowship “for his pioneering contributions to the implementation of the microprocessor, a principle building block of telecommunications.” That same year, he was also awarded the Gold Medal for Science and Technology by the President of the government of Italy. In 1994 he received the IEEE’s W. Wallace McDowell Award for his work in silicon gate technology and microprocessors and in 1996, Faggin was inducted in the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame for the co-invention of the microprocessor.
