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.
Intel physicist Dov Frohman was working on the reliability problems of the silicon gate used in the MOS process when he realized that the disconnected, or 'floating,' gates that were causing malfunctions could be used to create a chip that was erasable and reprogrammable.
Since conventional ROM chips had to be permanently programmed during manufacture, any change required the manufacture of a whole new chip. With EPROM, however, Intel could offer customers chips that could be erased and reprogrammed with ultraviolet light and electricity. But the microprocessor, invented at the same time, created a demand for memory; the EPROM offered memory that could be conveniently used to test microprocessors.
Another major development at Intel during this time was that of peripheral controller chips. Streamlined for specific tasks and stripped of unneeded functions, peripheral chips could greatly increase a computer's abilities without raising software development costs. One of Intel's most important developments in peripherals was the coprocessor, first introduced in Coprocessor chips were an extension of the CPU that could handle specific computer-intensive tasks more efficiently than the CPU itself.
Once again, innovation kept Intel ahead of its competition. Intel's rapid growth, from the 12 employees at its founding in to 15, in , demanded a careful approach to corporate culture. Noyce, Moore, and Grove, who remembered their frustration with Fairchild's bureaucratic bottlenecks, found that defining a workable management style was important.
Informal weekly lunches with employees kept communication lines open while the company was small, but that system had become unwieldy. Thus, the founders installed a carefully outlined program emphasizing openness, decision making on the lowest levels, discipline, and problem solving rather than paper shuffling. Moreover, the company's top executives eschewed such luxuries as limousines, expense account lunches, and private parking spaces to establish a sense of teamwork with their subordinates.
In an interview with the Harvard Business Review in , Noyce remarked on the company's hiring policy, stating, 'we expect people to work hard. Intel Shapes the Future of Technology. Our Purpose We create world-changing technology that improves the life of every person on the planet. We are inspired to: Drive innovation that makes the world safer, builds healthy and vibrant communities, and increases productivity.
Harness our reach around the globe to better society, business, and the planet. Push ourselves and our industry peers to be more responsible, inclusive, and sustainable. Driving Innovation We believe that data is dramatically shaping the future of all humankind. Our Values Our values — Customer First, Fearless Innovation, Results Driven, One Intel, Inclusion, Quality and Integrity — guide how we make decisions, treat each other, serve our customers to achieve their goals and shape technology as a force for good.
Global Impact We are applying our reach, scale, and resources to deliver on bold goals. Go Bigger With Intel Tech has never been more important to humanity. Read more. Our Brand Here at Intel, we believe in doing something wonderful. Keep Up on the Latest News. Visit our newsroom. More about Intel. Founded in as Int egrated El ectronics Corporation and based in Santa Clara, California, USA , Intel also makes motherboard chipsets, network cards and ICs, flash memory, embedded processors, and other devices related to communications and computing.
Founded by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, Intel combines advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing capability. Originally known primarily to engineers and technologists, Intel's successful "Intel Inside" advertising campaign of the s made it and its Pentium processor household names.
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