HISTORY OF THE CHIP

Until 1990, most people credited Ted Hoff, an employee of Intel Corporation with inventing, in 1971, the first true microprocessor chip. However, on July 17, 1990, nearly 20 years after Hoff's chip was developed, Gilbert Hyatt, an independent inventor, won a 20-year-old battle to obtain a patent for a computer-on-a-chip that he invented in 1968.

Hyatt's patent has broad implications for established chip manufacturers such as Intel, Motorola, and Texas Instruments, because they may have to pay royalties to Hyatt to use the technology on which he holds a patent. Most chip manufacturers admitted that the announcement was a surprise to them and said they were unaware of the existence of such a patent claim. The validity of Hyatt's patent, however, is being contested in court, and no immediate effect on the chip industry is expected.

Notwithstanding the Hyatt patent, the origins of the chips used in today's computers can be traced to 1959, when Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor simultaneously developed the first integrated circuit (IC). Noyce and another scientist, Gordon Moore, formed the Intel (for INTegrated ELectronics) Corporation in 1968. Since then, Intel has become a leader of the chip industry. Then, as mentioned, in 1971, Intel developed a microprocessor chip named the Intel 4004. Even though the 4004 could work with only 4 bits at a time (compared to the 16- and 32-bit machines so common today), it was revolutionary in design and gave rise to the family of Intel chips that are such an important part of personal computers.

When the microprocessor was introduced, Intel thought sales of memory chips would increase, because the microprocessor can't run without chips. However, with the introduction of the first general-purpose microprocessor chip, the 8080, it became clear that this new chip would be of revolutionary significance. Intel and other companies then began developing improved versions of the 8080, including the Intel 8085, the Motorola 6800, and the Z80 from Zilog (a company formed by scientists leaving Intel).

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