Intel was founded on July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, who left Fairchild Semiconductor to do so.

Originally called “NM Electronics” for Noyce and Moore, the company purchased the rights to use the name “Intel,” short for Integrated Electronics, from a company called Intelco. The term “intel” already being associated with “intelligence” was a bonus.

Intel’s original business plan was written by Moore and consists of three very vague paragraphs. Though short, the paragraphs were enough to secure funding as venture capitalist Arthur Rock contributed $10,000 and raised the $2.5 million to get the company started. Rock became Intel’s first chairman.

Andy Grove, a vital member of the young company’s team, joined Intel as its first hire soon after the founding (see photo below with Grove, Noyce, and Moore from 1978). With Grove on board, Intel released its first product in 1969, the 3101 64-bit Schottky bipolar RAM, and launched denser MOS SRAM & DRAM soon after.

A $6.8 million IPO (initial public offering) moved the company along in 1971, with Intel public at $23.50 a share.

Intel became a household name with its 1991 “Intel Inside” ad campaign, which involved commercials and a logo that told consumers which computers had Intel processors.

In 1993, Intel shipped the first Intel Pentium processor, kicking off what would become a core line for the company and a well-regarded brand to the public.

In 2005, Apple announced that it would transition to the Intel x86 architecture, which began a partnership that would put Intel processors in Macs to this day, though Apple announced at WWDC 2020 that it would move to its own Arm-based SoCs.

The series of company milestones and technology advancements made by Intel since its founding are too great to list in this blog post. However, a timeline can be found on Intel’s web site, here.

As of 2019, Intel had 110,000 employees, and an annual revenue of nearly $72 billion.

Celebrating 64 years of EDN In 1968, EDN was in its 12th year. What else was happening in 1968?: NASA launched missions Apollo 6 and 7.

President Lyndon Johnson mandated that federal government computers support ASCII.

The Soviet Zond 5 unmanned lunar flyby mission returned to earth.

Douglas Engelbart presented “The Mother of All Demos,” featuring NLS and the computer mouse.

Apollo 8 returned to earth.

A patent was granted for DRAM. Read our coverage of EDN’s anniversary here.

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For more moments in tech history, see this blog. EDN strives to be historically accurate with these postings. Should you see an error, please notify us.

Editor’s note: This article was originally posted on July 18, 2012 and edited on July 17, 2020.

