Federico Faggin (born 1941) is a physicist and electrical engineer considered to be one of the inventors of the microprocessor.
Born in Vicenza, he received a doctorate in physics, summa cum laude, at the University of Padua, then went to work at Olivetti. In 1968 he moved to Palo Alto, where he worked for the Fairchild Semiconductor company, where he invented the MOS Silicon Gate technology.
In 1970 he went to Intel where, with Marcian Hoff, Stanley Mazor and Intel customer Masatoshi Shima, he developed the Intel 4004, Intel's first microprocessor. He also co-developed the Intel 8008, the world's first 8-bit microprocessor.
Faggin left Intel to cofound ZiLOG, the producer of the Z80. In 1986 he cofounded Synaptics. In 1988 he received the International Marconi Fellowship Award for his contributions to the birth of the microprocessor, and in the same year he was awarded the Golden Medal for Science and Technology from the Italian Prime Minister. In 1994 he received the IEEE W. Wallace McDowell Award .
On 11 July 2002 he rejoined the ZiLOG board of directors.
