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The MOS silicon gate technology and the first microprocessors

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Today we are so used to the enormous capabilities of microelectronics that it is hard to imagine what it might have been like in the early Sixties and Seventies when much of the technology we use today was being developed. This paper will first present a brief history of microelectronics and computers, taking us to the threshold of the inventions of the MOS silicon gate technology and the microprocessor. These two creations provided the basic technology that would allow only a few years later to merge microelectronics and computers into the first commercial monolithic computer. By the late Seventies, the first monolithic computer weighting less than one gram, occupying a volume of less than one cubic centimeter, dissipating less than one Watt, and selling for less than ten dollars, could perform more information processing than the UNIVAC I, the first commercial electronic computer introduced in 1951, made with 5200 vacuum tubes, dissipating 125 kW, weighting 13 metric tons, occupying a room larger than 35 m2, and selling for more than one million dollars per unit. The first-person story of the SGT and the early microprocessors will be told by the Italian-born physicist who led both projects.

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Faggin, F. The MOS silicon gate technology and the first microprocessors. Riv. Nuovo Cim. 38, 575–620 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1393/ncr/i2015-10119-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1393/ncr/i2015-10119-7

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