Stanley Mazor is an American microelectronics engineer who was born on 22 October 1941 in
Chicago, Illinois
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. He is one of the co-inventors of the world's first
microprocessor architecture, the
Intel 4004, together with
Ted Hoff,
Masatoshi Shima, and
Federico Faggin.
Early years
Mazor was born to Jewish parents, As a youth, Mazor's family moved to California, where he attended
Oakland High School from which he graduated in 1959. He enrolled in
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
(SFSU), majoring in math and studying
helicopter design and construction as a
hobby. Mazor met his future wife Maurine at SFSU and they wed in 1962. Around the same time, he became interested in
computers and learned to program SFSU's
IBM 1620 computer, taking a position as a professor's assistant and teaching other students to use the technology. Meanwhile, he continued to study
computer architecture in technical manuals outside of school.
Career summary
In 1964, he became a programmer with
Fairchild Semiconductor, followed by a position as computer designer in the Digital Research Department, where he co-patented "Symbol", a high-level language computer.
In 1969, he joined the year-old
Intel Corporation, and was soon assigned to work with
Ted Hoff on a project to help define the architecture of a
microprocessor—often dubbed a "computer-on-a-chip"—based on a concept developed earlier by Hoff. The Japanese calculator manufacturer
Busicom
was a Japanese company that manufactured and sold computer-related products headquartered in Taito, Tokyo. It owned the rights to Intel's first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, which they created in partnership with Intel in 1970.
Busicom ask ...
asked Intel to complete the design and manufacture of a new set of chips. Credited along with Faggin, Hoff, and
Masatoshi Shima of Busicom as co-inventor, Mazor helped define the architecture and the instruction set for the revolutionary new chip, dubbed the
Intel 4004.
Although there was an initial reluctance on the part of Intel marketing to undertake the support and sale of these products to general customers, Hoff and Mazor joined Faggin, designer of the 4004 and project leader, and actively campaigned for their announcement to the industry and helped define a support strategy that the company could accept. Intel finally announced the 4004 in 1971.
After working as a computer designer for six years, Mazor moved to
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, Belgium where he continued to work for Intel, now as an application engineer helping customers to use the company's products. He returned to California the following year, and began teaching, first in Intel's Technical Training group, and later at
Stanford University and the
University of Santa Clara
Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...
. Various teaching engagements took him around the world, including
Stellenbosch, South Africa;
Stockholm, Sweden; and
Nanjing, China. In 1984, Mazor joined Silicon Compiler Systems. In 2008, Mazor was the Training Director of
BEA Systems
BEA Systems, Inc. was a company that specialized in enterprise infrastructure software products which was wholly acquired by Oracle Corporation on April 29, 2008.
History
BEA began as a software company, founded in 1995 and headquartered in ...
.
Publications
In 1993, then working at
Synopsys
Synopsys is an American electronic design automation (EDA) company that focuses on silicon design and verification, silicon intellectual property and software security and quality. Products include tools for logic synthesis and physical design ...
, he coauthored, with Patricia Langstraat, a book on chip design language entitled ''A Guide to VHDL''. Over the course of his career, Mazor has also published fifty articles.
Recognition
Along with his co-inventors Hoff, Faggin, and Shima, he has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the
Ron Brown
Ronald Harmon Brown (August 1, 1941 – April 3, 1996) was an American politician. He served as the United States Secretary of Commerce during the first term of President Bill Clinton. Prior to this he was chairman of the Democratic National C ...
American Innovator Award, the 1997
Kyoto Prize
The is Japan's highest private award for lifetime achievement in the arts and sciences. It is given not only to those that are top representatives of their own respective fields, but to "those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, ...
, and induction into the
National Inventors Hall of Fame
The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also ope ...
. In 2009 the four were inducted as Fellows of the
Computer History Museum "for their work as the team that developed the Intel 4004, the world's first commercial microprocessor."
In 2010, Mazor and his co-inventors Hoff and Faggin, were awarded the
National Medal of Technology
The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...
by President Barack Obama.
References
External links
IEEE Global History NetworkScribd article on Architectural Innovation in MicroprocessorsThe History of the 40041996 paper in IEEE Micro ()
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mazor, Stanley
1941 births
Living people
20th-century American Jews
People from Chicago
Engineers from Illinois
Intel people
San Francisco State University alumni
Kyoto laureates in Advanced Technology
21st-century American Jews