Intel 4004
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Intel 4004 Central processing unit |
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 A rare gold-white-gray Intel C4004 microprocessor |
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| Produced: | From late 1971 to 1974 |
| Manufacturer: | Intel |
| CPU Speeds: | 740 kHz |
| Instruction Set: | pre x86 |
| Socket: | 16 pin |
The Intel 4004, a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corp. in 1971, is widely considered to be the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor. The 4004 employed a 10μ silicon-gate PMOS technology and could execute approximately 60,000 instructions per second.
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[edit] History and description
The 4004 was released in 16-pin CERDIP packaging on November 15th, 1971. The 4004 is the first computer processor designed and manufactured by chip maker Intel, which previously made semiconductor memory chips. The chief designers of the chip were Federico Faggin (project leader and chip designer) and Ted Hoff (architecture) of Intel and Masatoshi Shima of Busicom (later of ZiLOG). Shima designed the Busicom calculator firmware and assisted Faggin during the implementation.
Originally designed for the Japanese company Busicom to be used in their line of calculators (instead of the complex special purpose calculator chipset that Busicom had designed themselves and brought to Intel to have made, which Intel determined was too complex to make with the technology they had at the time), the 4004 was also provided with a family of custom support chips (e.g., each "Program ROM" internally latched for its own use the 4004's 12-bit program address, which allowed 4 KiB memory access from the 4-bit address bus if all 16 ROMs were installed). The 4004 circuit was built of 2,250 transistors, and was followed the next year by the first ever 8-bit microprocessor, the 3,300 transistor 8008 (and the 4040, a revised 4004).
As its fourth entry in the microprocessor market, Intel released the CPU that started the microcomputer revolution — the 8080.
On 15 November 2006, the 35th anniversary of the Intel 4004, Intel celebrated by releasing the chip's schematics, maskworks, and user manual.
A popular myth has it that Pioneer 10, the first spacecraft to leave the solar system, used an Intel 4004 microprocessor. According to Dr. Larry Lasher of Ames Research Center, the Pioneer team did evaluate the 4004, but "it was too new at the time to include in any of the Pioneer projects."
The Intel 4004 CPU had 17 times the computing power of the 1946 ENIAC vacuum tube supercomputer, which weighed 33 tons and occupied 212 square metres of floor space.
[edit] Technical specifications
- Maximum clock speed is 740 kHz[1]
- Separate program and data storage (i.e., a Harvard architecture). Contrary to most Harvard architecture designs, however, which use separate buses, the 4004, with its need to keep pin count down, uses a single multiplexed 4-bit bus for transferring:
- 12-bit addresses
- 8-bit instructions
- 4-bit data words
- Instruction set contains 46 instructions (of which 41 are 8 bits wide and 5 are 16 bits wide)
- Register set contains 16 registers of 4 bits each
- Internal subroutine stack is 3 levels deep
[edit] Microarchitecture and pinout
Click the pictures to view the full-size versions.
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[edit] Custom support chips
- 4001: 256-byte ROM (256 8-bit program instructions), and one built-in 4-bit I/O port[2]
- 4002: 40-byte RAM (80 4-bit data words), and one built-in 4-bit output port; the RAM portion of the chip is organized into four "registers" of twenty 4-bit words:
- 4003: 10-bit parallel output shift register for scanning keyboards, displays, printers, etc.
- 4008: 8-bit address latch for access to standard memory chips, and one built-in 4-bit chip select and I/O port[2]
- 4009: program and I/O access converter to standard memory and I/O chips[2]
[edit] Collectability
The Intel 4004 is one of world's most sought-after collectible/antique chips. Of highest value are 4004s that are gold and white, with so-called 'grey traces' visible on the white ceramic (the original package type). As of 2005, such chips have reached around US$1000 each on eBay. The slightly less valuable white and gold chips without grey traces typically reach $300 to $500. Those chips without a 'date code' underneath are earlier versions, and therefore worth slightly more. More recently however, these vintage ICs have been dropping in value due to their relative abundance as the market is now flooded with surplus stock from sellers looking to cash in on the Intel craze.
[edit] Original publications
- F. Faggin and M.E. Hoff: "Standard parts and custom design merge in four-chip processor kit". Electronics/April 24, 1972, pp. 112-116
- F. Faggin, M.Shima, M.E. Hoff, Jr., H. Feeney, S. Mazor: "The MCS-4 An LSI micro computer system". IEEE '72 Region Six Conference
- US Patent 3,753,001 August 14, 1973. Faggin, Federico: Power supply settable bi-stable circuit.
- US Patent 3,821,715 June 28, 1974. Hoff, Marcian; Mazor, Stanley; Faggin, Federico: Memory system for multi-chip digital computer.
[edit] Notes
- ^ All of Intel's 4004 data sheets, including the very first data sheet from November 1971, clearly indicate that the minimum clock period is 1350 nanoseconds, which results in a maximum clock speed of 740 kHz. Unfortunately, many apparently reputable web pages and other sources list an incorrect clock speed of 108 kHz; even Intel's own pages on the 4004's history say this. The 4004's minimum instruction cycle time is 10.8 microseconds (8 clock cycles), and it seems most likely that someone in the past confused this with a clock speed. This error has now propagated very widely.
- ^ a b c a 4001 ROM+I/O chip cannot be used in a system along with a 4008/4009 pair.
[edit] External links
- Intel's First Microprocessor—the Intel® 4004 — Intel Museum (Intel Corporate Archives) entry.
- The Intel 4004: A testimonial from Federico Faggin, its designer, on the first microprocessor's thirtieth birthday — Faggin's own 4004 website.
- Interview with Masatoshi Shima regarding his role in the 4004 — at the IEEE's History Center.
- MCS-4 Micro Computer Set Data Sheet (12 pp.) — Intel Corp., November 1971; at the Smithsonian's Chip Collection.
- Comprehensive Intel 4004 chipset information — at Christian Bassow's CPU Museum.
- Intel 4004 chip collecting information — at The Antique Chip Collector's Page.
- Intel 4004 schematics — at the unofficial 4004 website, and a simulator in Java.
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