Oral History of Federico Faggin Interviewed by: Gardner Hendrie Recorded: Sept. 22, 2004, Dec. 13, 2004, March 3, 2005 Los Altos, California CHM Reference number: X2941.2005 © 2006 Computer History Museum [Note: edits made in square brackets were made by Federico Faggin following the oral history] Oral History of Federico Faggin Session 1: September 22, 2004 Gardner Hendrie: We have today Federico Faggin, who has graciously agreed to do an oral history for the Computer History Museum’s oral history project. We really appreciate that, Federico. Federico Faggin: My pleasure. Hendrie: I think maybe you could tell us a little bit about where you were born and where you grew up. A little bit about the background that may have influenced, in some way, who you are. Faggin: Yeah. O.k. Hendrie: Or who you turned out to be. Faggin: All right. I was born in Italy in Vicenza, which is a town near Venice in northeast Italy, and I was born in 1941 during the early phases of the Second World War. We lived in downtown Vicenza at that time. And when ’43 came about, with the fall of the fascism in Italy, and the Americans coming up from Sicily all the way toward the north of Italy, the family moved to the countryside, because it was dangerous. In fact, our home eventually was destroyed by Allied bombing. I lived in the countryside until I was about eight years old, and then we went back to Vicenza and I pretty much grew up in Vicenza until I came to this country, except for a small parenthesis of work in Milan, or around Milan, depending on the case. So I was a boy that was very interested in mechanisms and making things with Meccano and stuff like that. I had a very important experience when I was 11 years old: I was playing with the kids and there was this “old” man, he was probably 20 years old, with a model plane in the field where we were playing. He was winding up the propeller, and then he let this thing go… And it was flying. I was absolutely amazed that you could actually build a toy that flies; I mean, only airplanes fly, not toys. So I was just running after this thing -- I was fascinated -- and I decided that I was going to build model planes. So, that was a passion that I still have to this day, where I build and fly [model planes]. Of course, now they are radio controlled; they’ve got three-phase motors -- electric motors -- and all that kind of stuff, with lithium-polymer batteries. But that was a very important part of my experience, because I didn’t have any money, so I had to visualize a model plane the way I wanted it, and draw it; then make the plans; then build it, buying the basic material -- some sheets of balsa -- but cutting all the strips and doing all the profile of the wing and everything else. And building the plane, and then trying it out, see if it worked. And then enjoy it, right? So it was the complete process, from imagining a product to designing it, building it, and flying it. Hendrie: Did you do that when you first started? Do you remember what your first one? Did you start with a kit and sort of make the rudiments? Faggin: No. No. Hendrie: Or did you just start? Faggin: No. I just started with sticks and just made-up stuff, with the paper my mom used to cut models for dresses. And I made a contraption and, of course, it couldn’t possibly -- it violated all the aerodynamic CHM Ref: X2941.2006 © 2006 Computer History Museum Page 2 of 139 Oral History of Federico Faggin laws in the universe -- so it couldn’t possibly work. But I went to this field to make it fly, and of course it didn’t fly. And while I was there, the guy who had the model plane was coming by in his bike. So he stopped by and he started laughing at my thing. I was 11 years old. I mean, I was 11 and a half, right. He started laughing at me, and he told me: “you got to buy this stuff from the store; and you got to really do it this way… You don’t do it this way, because it can never work.” So he explained it to me and that was my introduction. So the second model still didn’t fly, but it was better. The third model actually flew and then… I bought a book about how to do it, also -- which actually was the first book that I bought myself. In other words… Hendrie: With your own money. Faggin: With my own money. And it was my book as opposed to being something that my dad would gift me. So it was really something. It was actually the first book that I bought with my money and that I read cover to cover, of course. And one of the things that fascinated me in there was the fact that you could actually build radio controlled model planes. It was the beginning of radio control -- I’m talking about the early 50s now -- using ultra miniature vacuum tubes and, of course, they were with very rudimentary escape mechanisms, and so on. And I was fascinated. So that’s how actually I got interested in electronics and radio technology, and so on. So I went into a technical high school, because I wanted to learn how to do that stuff. Also I wanted to learn how to build real planes. There was a specialization in aeronautical engineering… Hendrie: Yeah, what kind? Faggin: Aeronautical engineering. And also there were specializations in radio technology and... Hendrie: So this was a really a pretty good technical high school back then. Faggin: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, a lot of the designers in Italy actually come out of this school, and they were not even engineers. In fact, I designed and built a computer when I was 19, after going to this school, working for Olivetti. So that was my first work experience in an actual project. So it was a school… I mean, math, for example, we did differential equation. I mean, calculus, differential equations. In some cases, I did the… Hendrie: In high school? Faggin: In high school. I did the cable equations for transmission lines, which is a partial differential equation. So, I mean, of course, it was only a special solution and all that. And it was 44 hours a week of lectures and laboratories. So it was very intensive. It was... Hendrie: Sounds like a wonderful school. Faggin: It was a very good school. Hendrie: What did your mother and father do? Just to sort of… I’m trying to understand the environment at home a bit. CHM Ref: X2941.2006 © 2006 Computer History Museum Page 3 of 139 Oral History of Federico Faggin Faggin: Yeah. My father was teaching history -- History of Philosophy and History -- at a classical high school, and also Aesthetics at the University of Padua. And he was an accomplished writer. He wrote about 40-50 books in all subjects from history of art to mysticism -- about Meister Eckhart -- and all that. And he also had a translation of the Enneads of Plotinus from Greek to Italian. A very, very well received translation, and so on and so forth. So he was a very, very accomplished… Hendrie: Very educated. Faggin: Very educated, yeah, yeah. But most of all in the arts and the humanities, and not in science or technology. In fact, I was considered a bit the “mechanic” of the family. Hendrie: And your mother? Faggin: My mother was an elementary school teacher. Hendrie: So they were both teachers in Faggin: Yeah. In different levels, yeah. Hendrie: Now did you have any brothers or sisters? Faggin: I had an older brother, who eventually graduated in humanities and followed the path of my father. He became an expert in Flemish art. And also he wrote about [Flemish art and philology]… and he teaches now at the University of Padua. So I’m the second. And a sister, who became a fashion designer. She’s very, very artistic. And my youngest brother, who is ten years younger, that… he’s a lawyer. There ought to be a lawyer in the family, so he’s the one. Hendrie: Very good. Well, that’s very interesting. What are your earliest… I think I know the answer, but I’ll ask the question anyway. What were your earliest thoughts as to what you wanted to be when you grow up. Do you remember what were? Faggin: Oh, yeah, well, the earliest, probably, I wanted to be an ice-cream man or something, you know, when I was four. But the earliest [thought] that really felt like what I really wanted to do, was after this experience with the model planes. So within a year or two I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. So that’s why I chose that high school and I wanted to build real planes and I wanted to do it in a hurry, too. I didn’t want to have to go to university or all that, right? Yeah. I ended up going to university later on. But at that time I didn’t want to. I wanted to just graduate -- it was a five-year program --and then go design planes.