TOCS Event-Silicon Valley Campus - Carnegie Mellon University

TOCS Event


Ted Hoff

Ted Hoff
Inventor of the Microprocessor


March 20, 1:30 pm



CMUSV, Rm 118 [directions]

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Title: The Microprocessor, etc.
Abstract: When they were being developed, the microprocessor, telephone CODEC and signal processing chips seemed like they were pushing the integrated circuit technology. Since that time, progress in semiconductor technology has made those developments seem almost obvious. This talk will tell about the state of the art and the discoveries that led to those developments as well as explore some past and future trends in semiconductor technology. It will also suggest some areas where research might lead to new or extended computer applications.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Marcian Edward "Ted" Hoff, Jr. was born October 28, 1937 at Rochester, New York. He received a BEE (1958) from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. During the summers away from college he worked for General Railway Signal Company in Rochester where he made developments that produced his first two patents. He attended Stanford as a National Science Foundation Fellow and received a MS (1959) and Ph.D. (1962) in electrical engineering. While at Stanford he developed the LMS algorithm with Professor Bernard Widrow. He joined Intel in 1968. In 1969 Intel Co. agreed to develop integrated circuits for a Japanese manufacturer of desk-top calculators. With a knowledge of computers (then still very large machines) he changed the design to include a computer-on-a-chip microprocessor, which came on the market as the Intel 4004 (1971), starting the microcomputer industry. In 1980, he was named the first Intel Fellow, the highest technical position in the company. He spent a brief time as VP for Technology with Atari in the early 1980s and then became Chief Technical Officer with Teklicon, Inc, from which he retired in 2007. His honors include the Stuart Ballantine Medal from the Franklin Institute, being inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1996, the Kyoto Prize in 1997, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2010, and the James Clerk Maxwell Award in 2011 for his invention of the Microprocessor Concept and Architecture.