who discover the first micro-processor?

Answer 1

The Intel 4004 is known to be the first microprocessor made in 1971.
Check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004
or: http://www.intel.com/museum/archives/4004.htm
Primary design seems to be credited to Federico Faggin.

Answer 2

nice googling on the answer...

Intel made the first commercially viable microprocessor, even though the 4004 of Intel and the 4bit processor of TI seem the same, Intel created the worlds most successful commercially available processor and it's architecture is the basis of today's computing power.

The applications for the 4 bit processor, be it TI or Intel was for calculators. Intel's 4004 was made when BUSICOM a Japanese company asked Intel for a product which can be used for calculation. What Faggin found was that he had a multipurpose or general purpose processor. However, since during that time Intel was into memory devices, the 4004 was made for a client and not to be for a wide general public application. When Busicom decided not to use the chip, Intel bought it's application license back and later used it's general design on the 8008 and later the widely accepted 8080 for the IBM and ALTAIR personal computer.

So it can be questioned on who was first, was it Intel or was it TI. The same with the first IC, was it TI or was it Intel. At the early age of semiconductor process, these ideas was openly floating around, and engineer's notebook became a lawyer's tool of trade in protecting patents only a couple of years down the road.

this is why cross licensing was done and is acceptable, since it is really grey at that time on who was first. Now every tiny bit would need to be filed for patent or kept as a trade secret for a company to survive the patent wars.

patent became arsenal's to a company's warchest.

Answer 3

Three projects arguably delivered a complete microprocessor at about the same time, namely Intel's 4004, the Texas Instruments (TI) TMS 1000, and Garrett AiResearch's Central Air Data Computer (CADC).

In 1968, Garrett AiResearch, with designer Ray Holt and Steve Geller, were invited to produce a digital computer to compete with electromechanical systems then under development for the main flight control computer in the US Navy's new F-14 Tomcat fighter. The design was complete by 1970, and used a MOS-based chipset as the core CPU. The design was significantly (approximately 20 times) smaller and much more reliable than the mechanical systems it competed against, and was used in all of the early Tomcat models. This system contained a "a 20-bit, pipelined, parallel multi-microprocessor". However, the system was considered so advanced that the Navy refused to allow publication of the design until 1997. For this reason the CADC, and the MP944 chipset it used, are fairly unknown even today. (see First Microprocessor Chip Set.) TI developed the 4-bit TMS 1000, and stressed pre-programmed embedded applications, introducing a version called the TMS1802NC on September 17, 1971, which implemented a calculator on a chip. The Intel chip was the 4-bit 4004, released on November 15, 1971, developed by Federico Faggin and Marcian Hoff.

TI filed for the patent on the microprocessor. Gary Boone was awarded U.S. Patent 3,757,306 for the single-chip microprocessor architecture on September 4, 1973. It may never be known which company actually had the first working microprocessor running on the lab bench. In both 1971 and 1976, Intel and TI entered into broad patent cross-licensing agreements, with Intel paying royalties to TI for the microprocessor patent. A nice history of these events is contained in court documentation from a legal dispute between Cyrix and Intel, with TI as intervenor and owner of the microprocessor patent.

Interestingly, a third party (Gilbert Hyatt) was awarded a patent which might cover the "microprocessor". See a webpage claiming an invention pre-dating both TI and Intel, describing a "microcontroller". According to a rebuttal and a commentary, the patent was later invalidated, but not before substantial royalties were paid out.

A computer-on-a-chip is a variation of a microprocessor which combines the microprocessor core (CPU), some memory, and I/O (input/output) lines, all on one chip. The computer-on-a-chip patent, called the "microcomputer patent" at the time, U.S. Patent 4,074,351 , was awarded to Gary Boone and Michael J. Cochran of TI. Aside from this patent, the standard meaning of microcomputer is a computer using one or more microprocessors as its CPU(s), while the concept defined in the patent is perhaps more akin to a microcontroller.

According to A History of Modern Computing, (MIT Press), pp. 220–21, Intel entered into a contract with Computer Terminals Corporation, later called Datapoint, of San Antonio TX, for a chip for a terminal they were designing. Datapoint later decided not to use the chip, and Intel marketed it as the 8008 in April, 1972. This was the world's first 8-bit microprocessor. It was the basis for the famous "Mark-8" computer kit advertised in the magazine Radio-Electronics in 1974. The 8008 and its successor, the world-famous 8080, opened up the microprocessor component marketplace.

Answer 4

Its not discover, rather its invent

Intel 4004 was regarded as the world's first commercial microprocessor.

Invented by intel engineers of course