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Marcian “Ted” Hoff

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Marcian “Ted” Hoff — architect of the Intel 4004, the first microprocessor

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Marcian “Ted” Hoff is best known as the architect of the first microprocessor — the Intel 4004. Released in November 1971, the 4004 sparked the microprocessor revolution that came to define Silicon Valley.

Hoff earned both his master’s degree and PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford, where he studied under a National Science Foundation Fellowship. As the 12th employee of Intel, he devised a computing architecture that combined memory, calculating and processing on one circuit rather than scattering them among many custom-designed circuits. The result was the Intel 4004, which opened the door to breakthroughs in personal computing, communications and the Internet.

Hoff was the first Intel Fellow, the highest technical position in the company. He is a U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation winner, a recipient of the IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award and has been named to the National Inventors Hall of Fame.