The Roundup: Federico Faggin’s birthday news extras

Faggin might be best known for leading the design of the Intel 4004, 8008 and 8080 microprocessors.

Today is the birthday of Italian-American physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur, Dr Federico Faggin. Born in Vicenza, Italy, in 1941, Faggin graduated with a doctorate in physics from the University of Padua in 1965. Three years later, he joined Fairchild Semiconductor in Palo Alto, California, where he developed the original silicon gate technology (SGT).

Faggin is best known, though, for leading the development of the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He went on to head development of the Intel 8008 and 8080, also based on SGT. Later, Fagin went on to co-found Zilog, leading the development of the Zilog Z80 and Z8 processors. With a past so glittering, it would be easy to overlook Faggin’s subsequent co-founding of and stewardship of Cygnet Technologies, and then Synaptics.

PC tech

Gaming

Tech and business

  • Meta ordered to sell Giphy by UK regulator
  • New iPhone SE reportedly on track for release in first quarter of 2022
  • Physicists from Harvard and MIT claim to have made a quantum computer with far more qubits than rivals, including Google and IBM—a record-breaking 256 qubits
  • Capacity expansion: Intel factory decision in Europe “within days”
  • Chip foundry giant UMC will reportedly raise prices 8%-12% in January for its top-three American clients, Taiwan media report, noting that AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments are all clients
  • Google engineers claim they were fired for following its “don’t be evil” policy
Mark Tyson
Mark Tyson
Former News Editor at Club386, he lent a helping hand at the start of Club386, shaping the website you see today. With a long history spanning back to Sinclair Spectrum 48K, there isn’t much Mark hasn’t reported on, leaving his keys battered and broken in a typing fury.

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