Then they added a collection of functional blocks that could satisfy these requirements. Together, they compiled a matrix of customer requirements derived from conversations with various calculator makers. It’s a customer-intensive business.īoone’s frustration and family matters drove him to seek out Daniel Baudouin, TI’s MOS Marketing manager. That’s the nature of the custom chip business. Many prospective clients wanted calculator chips in those days, but each client wanted something just a little different. Boone quickly became bored with the intense travel just to develop a new chip set that looked a lot like the previous one. Boone spent a lot of time on the road and his family resented his absence. The job entailed flying all over the world, to Japan, Italy, and Germany. Executing these custom chip projects fell on the shoulders of a few TI engineers including Gary Boone. Calculator companies including Canon, Olivetti, and Olympia asked TI to develop 4-, 5-, and 6-chip sets for their calculators. TI’s MOS Department was deeply into the thick of things regarding calculator chip sets. However, this story is about microcontrollers, which took a related but different evolutionary path. The contract with Intel eventually led to the development of the Intel 4004 microprocessor. Busicom incorporated this chip into its Busicom Junior, a small 4-function desk calculator. Mostek reached the goal first in late 1970 with the MK6010, a single custom chip that replaced 22 integrated circuits. Busicom asked Mostek to develop a one-chip calculator and contracted with Intel to develop a custom chip set for a more complex, programmable calculator. Sharp partnered with Rockwell, Canon partnered with TI, and Busicom partnered with Mostek and Intel for different calculator models. Japanese calculator vendors Sharp, Canon, and Busicom connected with various US semiconductor vendors to develop custom chips for their calculators. Eventually, semiconductor manufacturers would reduce the electronic guts of a calculator to a single chip. By 1968, IC-based calculator designs had largely supplanted transistor-based designs. As integrated circuits incorporated more components, it took fewer and fewer ICs to build a working calculator. North American Rockwell Microelectronics, Mostek, General Instruments, and Texas Instruments were early players in the multi-chip calculator market.Īt first, a few dozen integrated circuits were needed to replace hundreds of transistors and diodes. Semiconductors made it possible to replace the hundreds of intricate metal and plastic parts in these electromechanical calculators, first with hundreds of transistors and diodes, and then with fewer and fewer integrated circuits. During the 1960s, electronic calculators replaced the electromechanical Marchant and Frieden calculators that had owned the market for decades. He’d joined TI in 1969 just when calculator chips were getting to be big business. Gary Boone, who worked in the Texas Instruments (TI) MOS Department, devised the first chip that can be called a microcontroller because he was becoming bored with his job and in trouble with his family.
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