Silicon

From the Invention of the Microprocessor to the New Science of Consciousness

By: Federico Faggin

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall

“As soon as she heard me enter, Elvia awoke from a light sleep that had overcome her as she anxiously waited: ‘How did it go?’ Excited, I exclaimed, ‘It works!’ We embraced, almost overwhelmed with feelings of euphoria and happiness, aware that something epochal had happened. On that cold January night of 1971, the world’s first microprocessor was born!”

The creation of the microprocessor launched the digital age. The key technology allowing unprecedented integration, and the design of the world’s first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, were the achievement of Federico Faggin. Shrinking an entire computer onto a tiny and inexpensive piece of silicon would come to define our daily lives, imbuing myriad devices and everyday objects with computational intelligence.

In Silicon, internationally recognized inventor and entrepreneur Federico Faggin chronicles his “four lives”: his formative years in war-torn Northern Italy, his pioneering work in American microelectronics, his successful career as a high-tech entrepreneur, and his more recent explorations into the mysteries of consciousness. In this heartfelt memoir, Faggin paints vivid anecdotes, walks listeners through society-changing technological breakthroughs, and shares personal insights, as each of his lives propels the next.

©2020 Federico Faggin (P)2021 Federico Faggin

This is great!

Silicon is a wonderful firsthand account of the creation of the first working microprocessor. Federico Faggin tells the story with unusual power and clarity, bringing together the human struggle, the business realities, and the extraordinary technical challenges behind this historic achievement. I especially appreciated the way his expert perspective makes the engineering come alive without losing the personal dimension of the story.

Great half-book

This is the rare book I left unfinished despite loving everything I had read so far, specifically up to Chapter 5. That's because the first chapters tell the "Silicon" story of Faggin's role inventing the modern microprocessor. Then by the middle of chap.5, he moves into his spiritual awakening and naive speculations about consciousness (he's in the team of "Qualia" miraculous bulls*it). It's very nice that the book is structured in this way so, once you are finished with the good stuff, you can just "mark as read" unless you are also interested in infantile philosophy which is not any less infantile just because the author is a genius in a completely unrelated intellectual area.

Mind-banding book

There are three "stories" being told in this book: the personal, the silicone, and the consciousness one. I liked all of them even though they're told not always in a balanced way. There are probably, at least for me, too many technical details about silicon chips and microprocessors despite my quite high knowledge in the field of IT. But at the end, the consciousness theory has given me some hints I had been missing and looking for. Mind opening and banding concurrently. I hope there will be some other writing from Faggin on this topic.

The Revolution Continues

Federico Faggin’s grasp of this complex and fundamental subject and ability to express it in such clear language are extraordinary. These ideas are ever more important as AI gains traction in our daily life. I truly hope many people can read this book and be inspired to dive inwards and undertake the journey to know themselves, so a healthy synthesis of the inner and the outer realities can become a common experience for many.

A significant piece of Silicon Valley history

I found the history of the microprocessor and Faggin's involvement very interesting. I also found the story of his life's work and the different rolls he had was so interesting.

The author's 4th life, as he called it which delved into the new science of consciousness was not very interesting. I believe he has been caught up in a suedo-science that isn't very beneficial to our human experience. I believe that having a faith in God answers that all I'm portrait question, what is the meaning of life! The author claims that he outgrew "blind" faith when I grew up and no longer could place his trust in a God he could not experience. He claims to have out of body experiences and puts his faith in things that become difficult to comprehend.

I am not going to argue against his own experiences. I simply didn't find the part on the new science of consciousness very appealing to me. But I want to tell anyone reading this that it is in his autobiography and if this is of interest to you, then it's there for you to read, comprehend, and study.

the history part was REALLY good! And I wish to thank the author for taking the time and effort to write about it and clear up some matters that have been suppressed in past histories of computing.