Marcian Edward "Ted" Hoff Jr. (born October 28, 1937 in Rochester, New York), is one of the inventors of the microprocessor. Hoff, an engineer, joined Intel in 1967 as employee number 12, and is credited with coming up with the idea of a universal processor instead of custom-designed circuits. His insight started the microprocessor revolution in the early 1970s. Commonly, he is credited with having invented the microprocessor in 1971, although he proposed the architectural idea in 1969 and Federico Faggin independently created the innovative silicon design, essential to the realization of the microprocessor, in 1970-1971. In 1985, Hoff was named the first Intel Fellow, the highest technical position in the company. He stayed in that position until 1988.

He gained his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1958. He received his first two patents while working during his undergraduate college summers for the General Railway Signal Corp. of Rochester, New York. He then received a National Science Foundation Fellowship to enroll in Stanford University, where he received his master's degree (1959) and PhD (1962). As part of his PhD dissertation, Hoff co-invented the Least mean squares filter with Professor Bernard Widrow.

External links

• IEEE Virtual Museum entry
• Hoff's alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, inducts him into its hall of fame

Patents

• -- Memory System for a Multi-Chip Digital Computer (CPU), issued June 28, 1974.

He was never Born!