Like a computer microchip, this museum may be small but it’s packed full of information.
At this unique museum located at Intel's headquarters in Santa Clara, you can learn all about how the world's largest microchip maker, including how the company grew from a start-up in 1968 to the Silicon Valley giant it is now. The museum was originally a company department where Intel kept track of its achievements, but since 1992, the museum has been open to the public and now receives over 100,000 visitors a year.The Intel Museum may be small, but it's definitely worth taking the time to visit and explore its exhibits. There's plenty to learn about Intel's business culture as well as the role of their microprocessors in our everyday lives, from the flash memory in our cameras to the chips in our mobile phones. The way in which supercomputers have changed the world is also explored and throughout the museum, there are interactive exhibits so that visitors can get have a hands-on experience.There are plenty of fascinating exhibits including the original IBM PC containing the Intel 8088 microprocessor, and the tiny microprocessor that changed the computing world when it was released in 1971. This '4004' chip is the size of fingernail but had the same power as a computer that filled a whole room.If you are interested in Intel's corporate history, there's an exhibition on Intel founders Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce and how they founded a company that went on to change the world. The museum is free to enter and you can either tour on your own or join an organised tour, which has to be booked in advance.The Intel Museum is open from Monday to Saturday and is located 11 kilometres from downtown San Jose.
