Semiconductor Industry Honors Inventors of the Microprocessor; 2000 Robert N. Noyce Award recipients Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, Stanley Mazor.

Business Editors and High Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 2, 2000

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) has awarded the industry's highest honor for leadership, the Robert N. Noyce Award, to the inventors of the microprocessor, Federico Faggin, Marcian Edward (Ted) Hoff, Jr., and Stanley Mazor.

The annual award recognizes individuals for their outstanding achievements and leadership in support of the U.S. semiconductor industry. This year's Noyce Award specifically honors Faggin, Hoff, and Mazor for their collective work on the architecture and logic design that led to the development of the microprocessor. Jerry Sanders, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, presented the tenth annual award at the SIA's 24th Annual Forecast and Award Dinner Wednesday in San Jose.

Hoff was the first to recognize that Intel's new Metal Oxide Silicon technology might make possible the development of a CPU on a single chip. Further refinements in architecture and logic design were made by Mazor and Faggin, then Faggin refined the required manufacturing process. Intel was initially reluctant to market the microprocessor, but Hoff, Mazor, and Faggin promulgated their pioneering efforts and helped define a support strategy that Intel could accept. The world's largest chip company formally announced the "4004" CPU in November 1971.

"One of the most important developments of the last half of the 20th century has been the microprocessor," Sanders said. "Semiconductors are found in virtually every automobile, medical device, and computer in the modern world. Who knows where we would be today without the vision, passion and unyielding tenacity of these three men?"

Faggin is president and co-founder of Synaptics Inc. and a recipient of the Marconi Fellowship and IEEE W. Wallace McDowell awards. He was born in Vicenza, Italy and graduated from Instituto Industriale at Vicenza in 1960. He received a doctorate in physics from the University of Padua in 1965. In 1968, he came to the US to join Fairchild in Palo Alto where he developed the original silicon gate technology. The 4004 project brought him to Intel in 1970. In 1974, he founded Zilog, Inc. which produced a new chip design for the fledgling personal computer industry.

Hoff is vice president and chief technical officer of Teklikon Inc. He was born in Rochester, New York, and 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 developing 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. Hoff joined Intel in 1962, and in 1980, he was named the first Intel Fellow, the highest technical position in the company. He spent a brief time as vice president for technology with Atari in the early 1980s.His other prestigious honors include the Stuart Ballantine Medal from the Franklin Institute.

Mazor is a long-time academic and corporate educator and co-author of a book on a chip design. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and studied mathematics and programming at San Francisco State University. He joined Fairchild Semiconductor in 1964 as a programmer and later became a computer designer in the Digital Research Department where he shares patents on the Symbol computer. In 1969, Mazor joined Intel, and in 1977, he began his teaching career in Intel's Technical Training group, and later taught classes at Stanford, University of Santa Clara, and KTH in Stockholm and Stellenbosch. Mazor co-authored a book on chip design language and was invited to present "The History of the Microcomputer" at the 1995 IEEE Proceedings.

"Without the accomplishments of these three men, information technology might not be nearly as advanced as it is today and might not have made nearly as great an impact on the global economy," said George Scalise, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association.

The Robert N. Noyce Award was created by the SIA Board of Directors in 1990 to honor the memory of Bob Noyce, co-founder of Intel, who died that year. Noyce was a leader in the semiconductor industry's efforts to influence public policy and improve American high tech competitiveness. He was one of the five original founders of the SIA in 1977 and served as the first chief executive officer of the semiconductor manufacturing consortium, SEMATECH. Noyce is one of two individuals credited with inventing the integrated circuit.

Last year's Noyce Award recipient was Erich Bloch, former IBM vice president and founding chairman of the Semiconductor Research Corporation. The year before, Wilfred Corrigan, chairman and chief executive officer of LSI Logic (1998), and Jerry Sanders, chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices (1998), were the recipients. Previously awarded were Charlene Barshefsky (1997), Charles Sporck (1996), Jack Kilby (1995), Gordon Moore (1994), Robert Galvin (1993), Ian Ross (1992), and Joseph Canion (1991).

The SIA is the leading voice for the semiconductor industry and has represented US- based manufacturers since 1977. SIA member companies comprise more than 90 percent of US- based semiconductor production. Collectively, the chip industry employs a domestic workforce of 284,000 people. More information about the SIA can be found at www.semichips.org.