The Birth, Evolution and Future of the Microprocessor

Abstract

The world's first microprocessor, the 4004, was co-developed by Busicom, a Japanese manufacturer of calculators, and Intel, a U.S. manufacturer of semiconductors. During the development of a general-purpose LSI for not only desktop calculators but also other business machines, originally based on a decimal computer with a stored program method, a basic architecture of 4004 was developed in August 1969; a concrete plan for the 4004 system was finalized in December 1969; and the first microprocessor was successfully developed in March 1971. Microprocessors, which became the "technology to open up a new era," brought two outstanding impacts, "power of intelligence" and "power of computing". First, microprocessors opened up a new "era of programming" through replacing with software, the hardwired logic based on IC's of the former "era of logic". At the same time, microprocessors allowed young engineers access to "power of computing" for the creative development of personal computers and computer games, which in turn led to growth in the software industry, and paved the way to the development of high-performance microprocessors. Development engineers involved in creative development can be likened to explorers who go into unmapped territory without a compass, having hope for success and fear of failure. Also, an engineer must be armed with the firm belief that his mission is nothing but development, and must be determined to go his own way, never following another's tracks. In this talk, the birth, evolution and future of Microprocessor will be described. 4004 performance was only 0.06MIPS with 2,238 transistors and 750 KHz operating frequency. Microprocessors evolved from 4 bit to 64 bit microprocessors, introducing computer technologies such as pipeline, super-pipeline, super-scalar, VLIW, cache memory, and virtual memory system. Now, it is possible to integrate 16 sets of microprocessor with 64GB of memory on the board. In 20th century, microprocessors were used for increasing "power of intelligence". In 21st century, microprocessors will evolve into "tool to bring forth wisdom" for all mankind. . When he is an employee at Busicom Corp. in Japan, he developed the desk-top-calculator where he introduced ROM based stored program technology with decimalplus-binary computer architecture in 1968. He co-developed the world first microprocessor 4004 with Intel in 1969 thru 1970.He joined to Intel in 1972, then developed 8080 and several peripheral chips such as 8259, 8251, 8253, 8255, 8237 which were used for the first business personal computer IBM PC. He joined to Zilog in 1975, then developed Z80, Z8000 and their peripheral chips as a manager of high-end microprocessor group. He returned to Japan in 1980 as a director of Intel Japan Design Center. He is now a CTO of Visual Technology Inc., which is an advanced cluster system company, in Japan. He formerly was a full professor at the University of Aizu in Japan. Prize:"Inventor of MPU ( Micro Processor Unit )" M.Shima A salute to the 50th

Digitalization and Its Impact on Business

“…John Bardeen, William Schockley and Walter Brattain, three researchers from the American Bell Laboratories, invented the transistor in 1947 (Amiri et al, 2019). The microprocessor concept dates back to 1969 (Shima 2005). However, it was not until 1974 that Intel marketed its 8080 model, which was used in the very first PCs such as the Altair 8800 from MITS and the Imsai 8080 (Crossman & Williams 1978;Shima 2005;Johnson 2014).…”

“…The microprocessor concept dates back to 1969 (Shima 2005). However, it was not until 1974 that Intel marketed its 8080 model, which was used in the very first PCs such as the Altair 8800 from MITS and the Imsai 8080 (Crossman & Williams 1978;Shima 2005;Johnson 2014). The synergy between these components, becoming cheaper and more miniaturized as time went by, and the brilliant idea of Steve Jobs and later of Microsoft to make an application out of it that was accessible to all, caused an explosive growth of computing (Yang et al 2021).…”