Federico Faggin

Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur.

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

He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort.

There he co-designed and led the implementation of a small digital transistor computer with 4 K × 12 bit of magnetic memory (1960).

The Olivetti R&D department subsequently developed one of the world's first programmable desktop electronic calculators, the Olivetti Programma 101 (1964).

After this first work experience, Faggin studied physics at the University of Padua and taught the electronics laboratory course for 3rd year physics students in the academic year 1965–1966.

In 1967 he joined SGS Fairchild, now STMicroelectronics, in Italy, where he developed its first MOS metal-gate process technology and designed its first two commercial MOS integrated circuits.

Faggin also created, while working at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968, the self-aligned MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) silicon-gate technology (SGT), which made possible MOS semiconductor memory chips, CCD image sensors, and the microprocessor.

After the 4004, he led development of the Intel 8008 and 8080, using his SGT methodology for random logic chip design, which was essential to the creation of early Intel microprocessors.

He was co-founder (with Ralph Ungermann) and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors, and led the development of the Zilog Z80 and Z8 processors.

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

SGS sent him to California in 1968.

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

The silicon-gate technology (SGT) is one of the most influential technologies to have fueled the progress of microelectronics since the MOSFET.

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.

The SGT became the basis of all modern NMOS and CMOS integrated circuits.

It made possible the creation of MOS semiconductor memory chips during 1969–1970, the first microprocessor during 1970–1971, and the first CCD and EPROM (electrically programmable read-only memory) with floating silicon gates (1970-1971).

The SGT replaced the incumbent aluminum-gate MOS technology, and was adopted worldwide within 10 years, eventually making obsolete the original integrated circuits built with bipolar transistors.

At Fairchild, Faggin designed the first commercial integrated circuit using silicon-gate technology with self-aligned MOSFET transistors: the Fairchild 3708.

The 3708 was an 8-bit analog multiplexer with decoding logic, replacing the equivalent Fairchild 3705 that used metal-gate technology.

The 3708 was 5 times faster, had 100 times less junction leakage and was much more reliable than the 3705, demonstrating the superiority of SGT over metal-gate MOS.

See also: Faggin, F., Klein T. (1969).

"A Faster Generation of MOS Devices With Low Threshold Is Riding The Crest of the New Wave, Silicon-Gate IC's".

Electronics, 29 Sep. 1969.

Without the SGT, the first microprocessor could not have been made during 1970–1971.

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 Faggin wanted to use his new technology to design advanced chips.

The 4004 (1971) was made possible by the advanced capabilities of the silicon gate technology (SGT) being enhanced through the novel random logic chip design methodology that Faggin created at Intel.

It was this new methodology, together with his several design innovations, that allowed him to fit the microprocessor in one small chip.

A single-chip microprocessor – an idea that was expected to occur many years in the future – became possible in 1971 by using SGT with two additional innovations: (1) "buried contacts" that doubled the circuit density, and (2) the use of bootstrap loads with 2-phase clocks—previously considered impossible with SGT— that improved the speed 5 times, while reducing the chip area by half compared with metal-gate MOS.

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

The Intel 4004 – a 4-bit CPU (central processing unit) on a single chip – was a member of a family of 4 custom chips designed for Busicom, a Japanese calculator manufacturer.

In 2010, he received the 2009 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor the United States confers for achievements related to technological progress.

In 2011, Faggin founded the Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation to support the scientific study of consciousness at US universities and research institutes.

In 2015, the Faggin Foundation helped to establish a $1 million endowment for the Faggin Family Presidential Chair in the Physics of Information at UC Santa Cruz to promote the study of "fundamental questions at the interface of physics and related fields including mathematics, complex systems, biophysics, and cognitive science, with the unifying theme of information in physics."

Born in Vicenza, Italy, Federico grew up in an intellectual environment.

His 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 had a strong interest in technology from an early age.

He attended a technical high school in Vicenza, I.T.I.S. Alessandro Rossi, and later earned a laurea degree in physics, summa cum laude, from the University of Padua.

Faggin joined Olivetti aged 19.