8 Aug
2008
8 Aug
'08
6:44 p.m.
Roy J. Tellason wrote:
The other thing that I took some notice of was mention
of an 18-pin chip
package as "recently developed" at one point in the story, and later on the
mention of the 40-pin package as being then available.
The 18 pin-per-package limit claims regarding the 4004 and 8008 have
been around for a long time, and I think they came from interviews with
Intel's founders and/or early employees, but I think they're factually
incorrect, at least as commonly stated.
The 24-pin DIP was very well established by 1968, and was already used
by TI at that time. There were certainly higher pin-count packages at
that time also. I'm not sure about the 40-pin DIP, but in 1969
Fairchild was shipping at least one memory chip in a 36-pin DIP, though
that particular package never became popular.
Possibly whatever specific company Intel was contracting with to supply
lead frames and ceramic packages didn't yet offer higher pin count
packages, but they obviously were available from some vendors since
other semiconductor companies like Fairchild and TI were using them.
Eric