Intel 4004

What Does Intel 4004 Mean?

Intel 4004 was the first commercially available microprocessor. This 4-bit microchip was released in 1971 and was mainly designed by Federico Faggin and Masatoshi Shima. It was designed for use in calculators, automated teller machines and cash machines. Intel 4004 was a part of the MCS-4 family of chips.

Techopedia Explains Intel 4004

Intel 4004 was initially released for use in small business systems. The manufacture of this microchip was made possible using the silicon gate technology. This method made it possible to design smaller and more efficient microchips than previous generations of microchips. Intel 4004 had a clock speed of 740 kHz and could process up to 92,600 instructions per second. It had 12-bit addresses and a 4-bit address bus. The Intel 4004 had a separate memory for both data and program.

Related Reading

Margaret Rouse

Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

All Articles by Margaret Rouse