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Chip Hall of Fame

The stories of the greatest and most influential microchips in history—and the people who built them

Welcome to the Chip Hall of Fame

The stories of the greatest and most influential microchips in history—and the people who built them

15 Jul 2019

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: MOS Technology 6581

A synthesizer that defined the sound of a generation

15 Jul 2019

5 min read

Photo of Fairchild Semiconductor μA741 Op-Amp

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Fairchild Semiconductor μA741 Op-Amp

This chip became the de facto standard for analog amplifier ICs. Still in production, it’s available everywhere there are electronics

30 Jun 2017

2 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Intersil ICL8038 Waveform Generator

Intersil’s somewhat cranky chip brought complex sound generation to consumer electronics

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Micronas Semiconductor MAS3507 MP3 Decoder

This chip began the digital music revolution

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Texas Instruments TMC0281 Speech Synthesizer

The world’s first speech synthesizer on chip—and accidental supporting star of E.T.

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Tripath Technology TA2020 Audio Amplifier

This solid-state, high-power amp brought big sound to inexpensive devices

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Amati Communications Overture ADSL Chip Set

This communications chip helped to usher in the age of broadband Internet

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Western Digital WD1402A UART

Freeing processors from doing the grunt work of communications accelerated the connected world

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: IBM Deep Blue 2 Chess Chip

Deep Blue’s logic chip powered the first major victory of an AI over a human

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Signetics NE555

A humble timer chip that became the Swiss Army knife of countless circuits

30 Jun 2017

2 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Toshiba NAND Flash Memory

Once, all bulk data storage was magnetic. Then along came flash

30 Jun 2017

2 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Kodak KAF-1300 Image Sensor

The chip that brought digital photography outside the lab

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Mostek MK4096 4-Kilobit DRAM

The basic architecture of this memory chip is still used whenever more than a small amount of RAM is needed

30 Jun 2017

2 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Texas Instruments Digital Micromirror Device

An Oscar-winning invention brought digital video to movie theaters

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Acorn Computers ARM1 Processor

Reading this on a smartphone? Then you’re using a direct descendant of this processor right now

30 Jun 2017

1 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Atmel ATmega8

The chip at the heart of the original Arduino was created by two annoyed students

30 Jun 2017

2 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Computer Cowboys Sh-Boom Processor

You’ve never heard of it. But this processor’s high-speed architecture has been duplicated in every modern computer

30 Jun 2017

2 min read

History of Technology Article Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame

Chip Hall of Fame: Intel 8088 Microprocessor

The “castrated” processor that birthed the IBM PC

30 Jun 2017

2 min read

History of Technology Special Reports Chip Hall of Fame Article

Chip Hall of Fame: Nvidia NV20

The first configurable graphics processor opened the door to a machine-learning revolution

02 Jul 2018

4 min read

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© Copyright 2024 IEEE — All rights reserved. A not-for-profit organization, IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.