Intel releases the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer components such as central processing units (CPUs) and related products for business and consumer markets. It was the world's third-largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue in 2024 and has been included in the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue since 2007. It was one of the first companies listed on Nasdaq.

A microprocessor is a computer processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry required to perform the functions of a computer's central processing unit (CPU). The IC is capable of interpreting and executing program instructions and performing arithmetic operations. The microprocessor is a multipurpose, clock-driven, register-based, digital integrated circuit that accepts binary data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results as output. Microprocessors contain both combinational logic and sequential digital logic, and operate on numbers and symbols represented in the binary number system.

The Intel 4004 was part of the 4 chip MCS-4 micro computer set, released by the Intel Corporation in November 1971; the 4004 being part of the first commercially marketed microprocessor chipset, and the first in a long line of Intel central processing units (CPUs). Priced at US$60, the chip marked both a technological and economic milestone in computing.