T171 TMA03
Nick Shepherd T5293175
"Examine the influence that the company Intel has had on the current personal computer industry."
Introduction. The origins of Intel from the invention of the transistor,
Intel and the microprocessor How Intel invented the microprocessor and how that started the personal computer industry
How Intel have influenced the current personal computer industry The development of new products and Moore's Law.
Intel business and their employees Intel's business practises and employee relations
Conclusions My opinions
Additional Information
4004 the first microprocessor
©Intel corp.
Introduction
To explain the influence of Intel on the personal computer industry we must consider the microprocessor. The microprocessor also known as a chip or microchip is an integrated circuit (I C). The thinking parts of a computer, (central processing unit, memory and input output controls). An IC is a semiconductor wafer which can be used as as amplifier, oscillator, timer, counter, computer memory or microprocessor. It can be either digital or analog, the digital ones are used as computer memories or microprocessors. The wafer is basically the same as that which was used to make transistors at Bell labs. .
The first successful solid state transistor was made from a sandwich of three layers of semiconductor material in the form of a wafer. This was invented by William Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain while working at Bell labs. For this they won the Nobel prize for physics in 1956.
Shockley left to form his own company, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in February 1956. He decided to locate it where he had grown up in Palo Alto, Santa Clara Valley, now known as silicon valley. This was the first silicon in silicon valley. The only other high-tech company there then was Hewlett Packard
Shockley hired some scientists, including Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, the eventual founders of Intel. They found it difficult to work for Shockley because of his management style. After trying to improve things eight of them, including Gordon Moore, and Robert Noyce, left to found Fairchild Semiconductor.
Moore and Noyce worked at Fairchild for eleven years before leaving in 1968 to found Intel.
Intel and the microprocessor
Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce left Fairchild to start a semiconductor company. They chose the name Intel which is made from the words Integrated Electronics.
The integrated circuit was invented by Jack Kilby and Noyce separately, they share the credit. The Fairchild IC was better as it would be easier to manufacture. Intel decided to concentrate on computer memory. Their first product, was a static random access memory (SRAM) chip. Then in 1970, a 1-kilobyte dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) that was the first memory chip worth making. This was the end for magnetic core memory and became the basis for all computer developments in the 1970s.
In late1969 a Japanese company called Busicom asked Intel to make 12 chips for a calculator. Intel did not have the capacity for this but Ted Hoff one of their engineers suggested they put all 12 chips on one silicon wafer
The idea of a microprocessor had been suggested before but it was thought that the technology was still not advanced enough yet. Ted Hoff thought that with the new silicon-gated MOS technology it would be possible. Frederico Faggin, Ted Hoff and Stan Mazor started to design this new chip which became after 9 months work the Intel 4004 the worlds first microprocessor. This chip was 2mm by 4mm had 2300 transistors and was as powerful as ENIAC computer which was 3000 cubic feet.
The chip was delivered to Busicom in February1971. Busicom went bankrupt and never used the chip but Intel brought the rights and announced it in November 1971 together with the 4001 ROM, 4002 RAM and 4003 shift register chips. This chipset was enough for a home computer, the first kits soon appeared. In April the 8008 8bit microprocessor is introduced. The French Micral, the first non-kit computer based on a microprocessor appeared. Also in 1972 the Alto personal computer project began at Xerox PARC.
Scelbi offers the first microprocessor computer kit in the U.S. in 1973. In April 1974 Intel introduce their 8080 a 2Mhz chip ten times faster than the 200Khz 8008. Gary Kidall of Digital Research developed the CP/M operating system for it. In Popular Electronics January 1975 issue MITS announces the Altair 8800 computer kit. For which Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote their version of BASIC, the programming language. This was the start of microsoft.
How Intel have influenced the current personal computer industry
So far we have seen how Intel caused the personal computer exist. Without the availability of reliable microprocessors the PC industry would never have started, that has been an enormous influence. Another company, Digital, claims inventing the microprocessor as well although their influence is non existent. Intel shared the invention of the microprocessor but it is them that dominate the market.
Intel did not immediately dominate the market. Many personal computers appeared. the TRS80 had a Zilog chip, Texas Instruments' 99-4A used their own chips, the South West Tech 6800 used a Motorola 6800 chip and the Apple II was also powered by Motorola.
Intel gained market dominance when IBM chose the 8088 version of the 8086 for the IBM 5150 PC. Most of the alternatives were better. IBM's own engineers wanted to use the motorola 68000, but IBM already had rights to manufacture the 8086.From then on the Intel microprocessors were used in the PC.
Intel are the largest cpu makers in the world. From 1971 to 1995 their chips improved each one being better than the last. This happen following the time scale of Moore's Law which says that chip power will double every 18 months but the price will remain the same.
The design of cpus was often better from other manufactures but Intel are manufacturing experts and they were able to keep in front. Intel were able to be constantly making the next chip while the competition were copying the previous one. The Intel chips were also available which was often not the case with other makers.
What Intel have done is speed up the whole process. Their 8088 pushed aside the 8-bit chips and started the 16-bit era a year or two earlier. Their need to sell huge numbers of processors has forced them to find ways to improve the performance. They did this with the 486 which was four times bigger,slower, and much more expensive than the 386 when it first appeared. Then again when the Pentium Pro which was a 32bit chip but slow and designed for a 32bit Windows 95.
In 1998 Intel's share of the US retail market fell from 90% to less than 50%. By 1999, they were in second place to AMD. Of the ten best-selling computer models in the US retail market, only one had an Intel CPU.
Intel expanded into other parts of the PC industry, motherboard chipsets and complete systems. During the mid-Nineties Intel became the world's largest supplier of chipsets as well as CPUs. Intel make networking products, they also made a lot of RAM, until the mid '80s.
Intel: business and their employees
Business
Several times Intel have been found guilty of misuse of monopoly power.
Intel formed an off shore company in the Cayman Isles to try to get hold of patents it wants. This resulted in a suit for assault, libel and slander against Intel. The judge said that Intel's tactics were "wholly inappropriate".
Federal Trade Commission found Intel guilty of misusing market power when they refuse Digital Equipment, Intergraph Corp. and Compaq Corp. access to advanced technical information.
Intel also paid up out of court on charges of stealing secrets. They opened a new premises near to Motorola and hired 15 of their employees knowing that they would bring intellectual property with them inside their heads.
The employees
All of these stories are from the same source. The first book to be written about Intel. It is called Inside Intel by Tim Jackson a reputable journalist. Some of the stories are of individuals misbehaving, like the thrown dictionary, and not so serious.
Other times the situation has been very serious. A security officer reported an attempt to fabricate evidence of people receiving stolen property. For this he was sacked, he says Intel attempted to get him arrested for drugs. Something similar happened to another security officer.
According to Jackson many other improper or illegal acts have been committed by Intel security and management. Breaking into desks, searching garbage and taking typewriter ribbons are among the most innocuous deeds. More seriously breaking into desks and cars, wiretapping. Bribing a motel a motel worker to search a room. Threatening people with arrest and imprisonment to permit them to search their homes. Unauthorised checking of criminal records, license plates and finances.
All this apart from the verbal aggressiveness and slander that is alleged. I also saw mention of a black list that Intel have but I could not find any useful information.
Conclusions
Intel were in the right place at the right time. Intel was formed to make memory chips so was perfectly placed to invent the microprocessor. By inventing the microprocessor they fathered the home computer and in a way fathered microsoft. They could not start without a computer.
Although never making the best chips they maintained their position with their manufacturing skills which helped them to follow to Moore's Law. This was useful as other manufactures then knew what was needed and when and could make their plans. The adhesion to Moore's Law did not give them time to improve design.
I believe this is the biggest and most useful influence that Intel have had on the personal computer industry. They set the pace.
As a company I find their secrecy, threatening of employees, illegal investigating and verbal threats, frightening and a bit sinister. They behave more like an arms manufacture.
Intel used its market power to try to prevent other manufactures from selling their products. They tried to stop competition and this is bad for the customers and the development of the product.
References
These are links to the sites I used. I looked at others and these precis the information best.
From this site I have used biographies of the two founders Moore and Noyce.
http://inventors.about.com/science/inventors/
This page is the biographies of the inventors, and why the microprocessor was invented.
Another timeline
A very technical site about microprocessors.
This site has a lot of information about a PCs components. They criticise Intel's products, at the same time explain how they stayed on top.
http://www.faceintel.com/lawlessness.htm
This site is by Former And Current Employees (FACE) of Intel and tries to list their crimes.
This is the site of the Federal Trade Commission the American government body that tries to keep the market fair.