The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility. The initial specified clock frequency limit was 2 MHz and with common instructions having execution times of 4, 5, 7, 10 or 11 cycles this meant a few hundred thousand instructions per second. The 8080 has sometimes been labeled "the first truly usable microprocessor", although earlier microprocessors were used for calculators and other applications.

The 8080 was implemented using non-saturated enhancement-load NMOS, demanding an extra +12 volt and a −5 volt supply.

The Intel 8080 was the successor to the 8008. It used the same basic instruction set as the 8008 (developed by Computer Terminal Corporation) and was source code compatible with its predecessor, but added some handy 16-bit operations to the instruction set as well. The 8080's large 40-pin DIP packaging permitted it to provide a 16-bit address bus and an 8-bit data bus, allowing easy access to 64 kilobytes of memory.

Coordinates: 37°23′16.54″N 121°57′48.74″W / 37.3879278°N 121.9635389°W / 37.3879278; -121.9635389

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest and highest valued semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Intel Corporation, founded on July 18, 1968, is a portmanteau of Integrated Electronics (though a common misconception is that "Intel" is from the word intelligence^{[citation needed]}). Intel also makes motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Founded by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove, Intel combines advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing capability. Though Intel was originally known primarily to engineers and technologists, its "Intel Inside" advertising campaign of the 1990s made it and its Pentium processor household names.

Federico Faggin (born December 1, 1941), is an Italian physicist and electrical engineer, mostly widely known for designing the first commercial microprocessor. He lead the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort. He was founder and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors.

In 2010 he received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor the United States confers for achievements related to technological progress.

Born in Vicenza, Federico Faggin received a Laurea Degree in physics, summa cum laude, at the University of Padua, Italy.^{[citation needed]} 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 MOS transistors: the Fairchild 3708.