Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab on Thursday unveiled plans to invest $5 billion in Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab, offering a fresh lease of life to the crisis-hit chipmaker, which has struggled to turn itself around after a series of missteps.
Intel, once the undisputed leader in chip manufacturing, has fallen on hard times after missing the AI boom, while its longtime rival AMD has been gaining share in its mainstay personal computer and server semiconductor markets.
Here’s a timeline of the major events that have shaped the chipmaker:
1968 – Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore found Intel, helping reshape California’s Santa Clara Valley from fruit orchards into the Silicon Valley tech hub.
1971 – Intel introduces the 4004, the world’s first commercially made programmable microprocessor, with 2,300 transistors. These were among the first chips that could be programmed to perform specific functions, unlike previous processors that were hardwired only for a certain task – a turning point in the history of the semiconductor industry that laid the groundwork for the development of CPUs.
1981 – Intel’s 8088 microprocessor, with 29,000 transistors, becomes the brain in the IBM Personal Computer, kicking off the era of personal computing.
1982 – Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab, co-founded in 1969 by a fellow Fairchild Semiconductor alum, becomes a second producer of the Intel 8086 microprocessor. This partnership would later cause a long legal battle over AMD’s rights to use Intel’s x86 chip architecture, which is the basis of a majority of PC and server chips today.