MURRAY HILL, July 6 — The figure that matters: 2,300. That is the number of transistors on Intel’s 4004 microprocessor, introduced in 1971. It was the first microprocessor, and it capped a 24-year run that began with the invention of the transistor itself in 1947.
The bottom line: the semiconductor industry, and the region now known as Silicon Valley, traces directly to a single lab and a handful of men. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the transistor at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, in 1947.
That breakthrough earned them a Nobel Prize and set the stage for everything that followed. Shockley later moved west. In 1956, he founded Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, California.
The location was strategic, but the management was not. By 1957, eight engineers — the “Traitorous Eight” — left Shockley to found Fairchild Semiconductor.
Fairchild delivered the first commercially viable integrated circuit in 1959. Its planar process made mass production of chips possible. Investors will note that Fairchild’s real legacy was its people.
Spinoffs from Fairchild include Intel, founded in 1968 by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), founded in 1969. Those companies established the region’s dominance in semiconductors.
Moore’s Law and the numbers
Gordon Moore articulated his famous prediction in 1965. Moore’s Law held that transistor density would double approximately every two years. That trend held for decades.
By the numbers, the 4004’s 2,300 transistors in 1971 was just the start. The law became a self-fulfilling prophecy for an industry that planned around it.
The history is clear. The U.S. is the birthplace of the semiconductor industry. Bell Labs, Fairchild, Intel, AMD — the chain of innovation runs through American labs and startups.
What began in a New Jersey lab in 1947 reshaped global technology. What to watch next: the industry continues to push against the physical limits of Moore’s Law.
The 4004’s 2,300 transistors now looks quaint. But the structure that built it — talent, spinoffs, competition — remains the model. Investors will track whether that model holds as chip design moves toward new architectures and materials.
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