COSMAC: The Long, True, and Never-ending Story of the World’s First CMOS Microprocessors, Part 2

What happened

RCA announced the 1802 single-chip microprocessor in February 1976. Samples were available internally by 1975. Compared to the earlier two-chip 1801, the 1802 reduced silicon real estate from 120,000 square mils to 40,000 square mils, a 3× reduction, while adding 10 or 15 percent more functions.

Impact and signal

Affected components and suppliers

Source and time

Source: EE Journal · 10/12/2026 · View original source