TWO inventions have shaped our modern world more than any other: the engine and the computer. Where the engine captured and extended the human capacity to do physical work, the computer did the same for the capacity of the human brain to think, organise and control. This power has now pervaded not just homes and offices but also tens of thousands of products where it once didn鈥檛 seem to fit, thanks to a small and beautiful device called the microprocessor.
Early computers were huge machines constructed from heterogeneous technologies and were very costly and wasteful of energy. Fifty years ago, a computer was an end in itself 鈥� it was inconceivable to put a computer inside, say, a toy or an electric toothbrush.
Semiconductor technology changed all that. Semiconductors made it possible to shrink computing components down to previously unimaginable sizes, enabling the invention of the microprocessor. This extended the idea of what a computer could be and provided a conceptual framework for delivering the immense power of computing technology into practical components that could be manufactured in volume, and therefore at low cost.
Advertisement
The microprocessor led naturally to the microcontroller, an entire computer on a single integrated circuit: very small, inexpensive and energy efficient. Today there is no industry and no human endeavour that hasn鈥檛 been touched by microprocessors or microcontrollers.
Microprocessors and semiconductor technology are co-evolving, one feeding the other in a cycle of growth limited only by the 鈥渇ood鈥� supply 鈥� the ability to make ever smaller transistors. This process is not only delivering ever smaller, faster and cheaper microprocessors, but also adding capabilities such as sensors and motors. We can now routinely make digital video and still cameras smaller than a grain of rice, optics included, costing less than a dollar. As time goes on, we will be able to mass-produce ever more complex and complete systems.
We are fascinated with creating machines built in our image. The microprocessor is arguably the greatest of them all.
鈥淭he microprocessor is arguably the greatest of all the machines created in our image鈥�
The greatest discovery of the past 50 years
We invited computing pioneer Federico Faggin to write this piece to celebrate the microprocessor鈥檚 victory in a poll to find the discovery that has had the greatest impact on the world in the past 50 years.
To mark the lauch of the website we teamed up with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), one of the UK government鈥檚 main science funding agencies. The EPSRC came up with a list of 10 discoveries and nominated an eminent scientist to make the case for each one.
The discoveries were: the mobile phone; space exploration; magnetic resonance imaging; the World Wide Web; the global optical fibre network; error-correcting codes; lasers; public key encryption; green chemistry; and the microprocessor.
The microprocessor won hands down with 48 per cent of the vote, followed by the World Wide Web (31 per cent). Everything else was languishing in single figures. For the nominations and poll results, visit .
- Federico Faggin was part of the team that developed the Intel 4004, the world鈥檚 first commercial microprocessor, released in 1971
