 thumb|upright|right|faggin in september 2011. federico faggin (born december 1, 1941) is an italian-born and educated physicist, naturalized us citizen, widely known for designing the first commercial microprocessor. he led the 4004 (mcs-4) project and the design group during the first five years of intel's microprocessor effort. most importantly, faggin created in 1968, while working at fairchild semiconductor, the self-aligned mos silicon gate technology that made possible dynamic memories, non-volatile memories, ccd image sensors, and the microprocessor. he was co-founder and ceo of zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors. in 2010 he received the 2009 national medal of technology and innovation, the highest honor the united states confers for achievements related to technological progress. in 2011 federico faggin founded the âfederico and elvia faggin foundationâ to support the scientific study of consciousness at us universities and research institutes. ==life== born in vicenza, federico faggin received a laurea degree in physics, summa cum laude, at the university of padua, italy. at age 19, after his graduation from technical high school a. rossi (vicenza), he took a job at olivetti, in italy, where he co-designed and led the implementation of a small computer. after obtaining his university degree he worked at sgs fairchild in italy, where he developed sgs's first mos process technology and designed its first integrated circuits. in 1968 he moved to palo alto and worked at fairchild semiconductor, where he created the mos silicon gate technology with self-aligned gate, the basis of all modern cmos computer chips. at fairchild he produced the world's first commercial integrated circuit using silicon gate technology with self aligned mosfet transistors: the fairchild 3708. in 1970 he joined intel where marcian hoff, with stanley mazor and intel's customer masatoshi shima, had formulated a new architecture for a family of busicom calculators in 1969. faggin was hired as project leader to implement such architecture.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt1pclzapyk youtube.c
1941_births European_Inventor_Award_winners Intel_people Italian_businesspeople Italian_emigrants_to_the_United_States Italian_engineers Italian_inventors Living_people National_Medal_of_Technology_recipients People_from_Vicenza Silicon_Valley_people University_of_Padua_alumni