Marcian "Ted" Hoff is best known as the architect of the first microprocessor, Intel's 4004, released in November 1971. He devised the idea that if the architecture could be constructed simply, the memory, calculating and processing functions of a computer could be combined into one circuit instead of many custom-designed circuits. The Intel 4004 paved the way for many subsequent breakthroughs in personal computing, communications and the Internet. Hoff was the first Intel Fellow, the highest technical position in the company. He is a U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation winner, a recipient of the IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award, has been named to the National Inventors Hall of Fame and is a Fellow of the Computer History Museum. He attended Stanford as a National Science Foundation Fellow, and holds both a master’s degree and a PhD in Electrical Engineering.