hist78
Well-known member
"In the late 1970s, a time when 8-bit processors were state of the art and CMOS was the underdog of semiconductor technology, engineers at AT&T’s Bell Labs took a bold leap into the future. They made a high-stakes bet to outpace IBM, Intel, andother competitors in chip performance by combining cutting-edge 3.5-micron CMOS fabrication with a novel 32-bit processor architecture.
Although their creation—the Bellmac-32 microprocessor—never achieved the commercial fame of earlier ones such as Intel’s 4004 (released in 1971), its influence has proven far more enduring. Virtually every chip in smartphones, laptops, and tablets today relies on the complementary metal-oxide semiconductor principles that the Bellmac-32 pioneered.
As the 1980s approached, AT&T was grappling with transformation. For decades, the telecom giant—nicknamed “Ma Bell”—had dominated American voice communications, with its Western Electric subsidiary manufacturing nearly every telephone found in U.S. homes and offices. The U.S. federal government was pressing for antitrust-driven divestiture, but AT&T was granted an opening to expand into computing.
With computing firms already entrenched in the market, AT&T couldn’t afford to play catch-up; its strategy was to leap ahead, and the Bellmac-32 was its springboard.
The Bellmac-32 chip series has now been honored with an IEEE Milestone. Dedication ceremonies are slated to be held this year at the NokiaBell Labs’ campus in Murray Hill, N.J., and at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif."
spectrum.ieee.org
Although their creation—the Bellmac-32 microprocessor—never achieved the commercial fame of earlier ones such as Intel’s 4004 (released in 1971), its influence has proven far more enduring. Virtually every chip in smartphones, laptops, and tablets today relies on the complementary metal-oxide semiconductor principles that the Bellmac-32 pioneered.
As the 1980s approached, AT&T was grappling with transformation. For decades, the telecom giant—nicknamed “Ma Bell”—had dominated American voice communications, with its Western Electric subsidiary manufacturing nearly every telephone found in U.S. homes and offices. The U.S. federal government was pressing for antitrust-driven divestiture, but AT&T was granted an opening to expand into computing.
With computing firms already entrenched in the market, AT&T couldn’t afford to play catch-up; its strategy was to leap ahead, and the Bellmac-32 was its springboard.
The Bellmac-32 chip series has now been honored with an IEEE Milestone. Dedication ceremonies are slated to be held this year at the NokiaBell Labs’ campus in Murray Hill, N.J., and at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif."
32 Bits That Changed Microprocessor Design
Bell Labs’ Bellmac-32 paved the way for today’s smartphone chips
spectrum.ieee.org