Definition: Intel

(Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA, www.intel.com) The second largest semiconductor manufacturing company (TSMC is the largest). Intel is also a leading vendor in computer, networking and communications products. Intel's hardware and Microsoft's software pioneered the PC and revolutionized the computer industry. The x86 family of CPUs is the most widely used in desktop PCs, laptops and servers.

Intel was founded in 1968 by Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove in Mountain View, CA. A year later it introduced its first product, a 64-bit bipolar static RAM chip. By 1971, its very successful memory chips began to render magnetic core storage obsolete.

In that same year, Intel developed the microprocessor. In response to a calculator chip order from Japanese manufacturer Busicom, Intel engineer Marcian E. "Ted" Hoff decided it would make more sense to design a general-purpose machine. The resulting 4004 chip was the world's first microprocessor (see Intel 4004).

Although known for its x86 line, over the years, Intel developed a wide variety of chips and board-level products, including the MULTIBUS used in industrial applications. See x86, Itanium, IA-64, MULTIBUS and Tera-Scale.

Intel Founders

The founders of Intel posing with a rubylith of the 8080 CPU in 1978. From left to right: Andy Grove, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. (Image courtesy of Intel Corporation.)

Inside the Plant

These pictures were taken inside Intel's semiconductor fabrication plants. Chip making is performed in clean rooms, where the air is exchanged seven times each minute and the workers wear "bunny suits" to keep themselves from contaminating the process. (Images courtesy of Intel Corporation.)