Federico Faggin

<p>Federico Faggin  is an <a href="/facts/Italian-American/xrp3KgVX">Italian-American</a> physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial <a href="/facts/Microprocessor/Fx9CaQht">microprocessor</a>, the <a href="/facts/Intel_4004/kAoetjSU">Intel 4004</a>. He led the <a href="/facts/Intel_4004/kAoetjSU">4004 (MCS-4) project</a> and the design group during the first five years of <a href="/facts/Intel/SMF0gJJX">Intel</a>'s microprocessor effort. Faggin also created, while working at <a href="/facts/Fairchild_Semiconductor/TUD8v4P0">Fairchild Semiconductor</a> in 1968, the <a href="/facts/Self-aligned_gate/rMkDbyqp">self-aligned</a> MOS (<a href="/facts/MOSFET/eTDJT2Km">metal–oxide–semiconductor</a>) silicon-gate technology (SGT), which made possible MOS <a href="/facts/Semiconductor_memory/XXP0CacJ">semiconductor memory chips</a>, <a href="/facts/Charge-coupled_device/l6xffIcz">CCD</a> <a href="/facts/Image_sensor/j3GNrRln">image sensors</a>, and the microprocessor. After the 4004, he led development of the <a href="/facts/Intel_8008/BccvN1qS">Intel 8008</a> and <a href="/facts/Intel_8080/32FvNTcD">8080</a>, using his SGT methodology for random logic chip design, which was essential to the creation of early <a href="/facts/List_of_Intel_processors/gBqeUglP">Intel microprocessors</a>. He was co-founder (with <a href="/facts/Ralph_Ungermann/E9IttkP5">Ralph Ungermann</a>) and CEO of <a href="/facts/Zilog/sB6jH5vw">Zilog</a>, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors, and led the development of the <a href="/facts/Zilog_Z80/Jeqe2h55">Zilog Z80</a> and <a href="/facts/Zilog_Z8/9RjqPUVV">Z8</a> processors. He was later the co-founder and CEO of Cygnet Technologies, and then <a href="/facts/Synaptics/TnKed0Qr">Synaptics</a>.
</p><p>In 2010, he received the 2009 <a href="/facts/National_Medal_of_Technology_and_Innovation/yh1hThv4">National Medal of Technology and Innovation</a>, 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 <a href="/facts/University_of_California%2c_Santa_Cruz/ez1IKCYp">UC Santa Cruz</a> 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."
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Federico Faggin open-in-new

Federico Faggin