29 Facts About Federico Faggin

Federico Faggin is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur.

Federico Faggin is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004.

Federico Faggin led the 4004 project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort.

Federico Faggin was co-founder and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors, and led the development of the Zilog Z80 and Z8 processors.

Federico Faggin was later the co-founder and CEO of Cygnet Technologies, and then Synaptics.

Federico Faggin's father, Giuseppe Faggin, was a scholar who wrote many academic books and translated, with commentaries, the Enneads of Plotinus from the original Greek into modern Italian.

Federico Faggin had a strong interest in technology from an early age.

When Fairchild sold SGS-Fairchild, Federico Faggin accepted an offer to complete the development of the silicon-gate technology with Fairchild.

In February 1968, Federico Faggin joined Fairchild Semiconductor in Palo Alto where he was the project leader of the MOS silicon-gate technology, a MOSFET with a silicon self-aligned gate, and the inventor of its unique process architecture.

At Fairchild, Federico Faggin designed the first commercial integrated circuit using Silicon Gate Technology with self-aligned MOSFET transistors: the Fairchild 3708.

Federico Faggin joined Intel from Fairchild in 1970 as the project leader and designer of the MCS-4 family of microprocessors, which included the 4004, the world's first single-chip microprocessor.

Fairchild was not taking advantage of the SGT and Federico Faggin wanted to use his new technology to design advanced chips.

The 4004 was made possible by the advanced capabilities of the silicon gate technology being enhanced through the novel random logic chip design methodology that Federico Faggin created at Intel.

The design methodology created by Federico Faggin was utilized for the implementation of all Intel's early microprocessors and later for Zilog's Z80.

Federico Faggin promoted the idea of broadly marketing the MCS-4 to customers other than Busicom by showing to Intel management how customers could design a control system using the 4004.

Federico Faggin designed and built a 4004 tester using the 4004 as the controller of the tester, thus convincing Bob Noyce to renegotiate the exclusivity clause with Busicom that didn't allow Intel to sell the MCS-4 line to other customers.

Federico Faggin led the project in a different department without Hoff's and Mazor's involvement.

Federico Faggin had invented the original SGT at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968 and provided additional refinements and inventions to make possible the implementation of the 4004 in a single chip.

The Intel 2102A is a redesign of the Intel 2102 static RAM, where Federico Faggin introduced to Intel, for the first time, the depletion load, combining the silicon gate technology with ionic implantation.

Federico Faggin created the architecture of the 4040 and supervised Tom Innes who did the design work.

The 8080 was conceived and designed by Federico Faggin, and designed by Masatoshi Shima under Federico Faggin's supervision.

Federico Faggin was Zilog's president and CEO until the end of 1980 and he conceived and designed the Z80 CPU and its family of programmable peripheral components.

Federico Faggin co-designed the CPU whose project leader was Masatoshi Shima.

Federico Faggin conceived the Z8 in 1974, soon after he founded Zilog, but then decided to give priority to the Z80.

The Cosystem was conceived by Federico Faggin and designed and produced by Cygnet Technologies, Inc.

In 1986 Federico Faggin co-founded and was CEO of Synaptics until 1999, becoming chairman from 1999 to 2009.

Federico Faggin came up with the general product idea and led a group of engineers who further refined the idea through many brainstorming sessions.

Federico Faggin is a co-inventor of ten patents assigned to Synaptics.

Federico Faggin oversaw the successful acquisition of Foveon by the Japanese Sigma Corporation in November 2008.