- of
1. Intel was founded in 1968 by physicist Robert Noyce and chemist Gordon Moore.
2. The two men had previously worked together at the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory and then Fairchild Semiconductor.
3. Noyce shares credit with Jack Kilby for inventing the integrated circuit, aka the microchip.
4. Moore's eponymous law: the number of transistors affordably placed on a microchip will double every two years.
5. Moore's 1965 prediction was for an annual change; he updated it to every other year in 1975.
6. Many believe that Moore's Law will cease to be true by 2014; Moore says the end of the trend is near.
7. Intel's initial name, "Moore Noyce" was scrapped, allegedly because it sounded a too much like "more noise."
8. The name Intel derives from "INTegrated ELectronics," but they had to pay a hotel chain $15,000 for exclusive use of it.
9. Intel's first year revenues: $2,672.
10. An estimated 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 transistors were shipped annually by 2003, about 100 times the world's ant population.
11. The price of a single transistor on a chip is about the cost of a single printed newspaper character.
12. The so-called Wintel alliance with Microsoft -- the Windows in Wintel -- helped make Intel a global power.
13. Intel has held the number one spot in market share for semiconductor manufacturing since 1991.
14. In 2009, it had 14.2 percent of the market, double the 7.2 percent held by second-place Samsung Electronics.
15. In 2009 Intel was ranked the 23rd most powerful brand in the world.
16. Noyce, nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley," was known as a daredevil who heli-skied the backcountry.
17. Moore is known for donating millions to environmental and educational causes.
18. Noyce mentored many other tech upstarts, among them Steve Jobs.
19. Intel's first big success came in 1971 with the Intel 4004 microprocessor.
20. The fingernail-thin 4004 offered the same computing firepower as the room-sized ENIAC, the first ever computer introduced in 1946.
21. The four-bit CPU contained 2,300 transistors.
22. Ten years later, the 8088 CPU was included in the first personal computer released by IBM.
23. That was the first time IBM had ever used an outside vendor to create a key microprocessor for one of its machines.
24. The 8088 had 29,000 transistors.
25. The current Core2Duo processor has 100,000 times the number of transistors of the 4004 and 10,000 times the number in the 8088.
26. Thank Intel's founders for popularizing office cubicles, a staple of early corporate culture.
27. Current CEO Paul Otellini sits in a cubicle.
28. The cleanroom of a semiconductor chip fabrication plant is thousands of times cleaner than the typical hospital room.
29. Air in a cleanroom has no particles measuring thicker than 0.5 micron across. A human hair is about 100 microns.
30. "Bunny suits" are the specialized outfits worn by cleamroom technicians to protect chips from contamination.
31. The monorail systems used to transport silicon wafers in an Intel cleanroom have up to three miles of track.
32. Intel maintains a 10,000-square-foot museum dedicated to its 40-year history.
33. Around 80,000 people a year visit the Intel Museum.
34. Intel employs more than 80,000 people worldwide. Half of them are based in the U.S.
35. Intel spent $5.7 billion on R&D in 2008.
36. Intel Capital has invested $9 billion in 1,000 companies since 1991, and will spend $3.5 billion more over the next two years.
37. Intel refers to its non-stop, iterative process of developing processor microarchitecture as the "tick-tock" model.
38. The first year is the "tick" phase, focusing on new process technology and refining the existing microarchitecure.
39 The second year is the "tock" phase, where the goal is to deliver a brand new microarchitecure.
40. The New York Attorney General announced in 2009 an antitrust case against Intel, claiming "illegal threats and collusion."
Business Intelligence 
Ten iPhone Apps that Will Save You Money
Eight Ways Top Companies Beat the Competition With IT
Your Online History Jeopardizes Your Career
Things that Make Your CEO Nervous 
10 Ways to Work With People You Hate
How You Spend $120,000 on Coffee and Lunch
See All Slideshows
