L'Italo-Americano

I n their January 24, 2019 issue, L'Italo Americano published a front page arti- cle titled Federico Faggin, The M an Behind the Genius. In that interview, we asked Dr. Faggin if he had plans for an autobiography, to which he replied: "Yes, interesting that you would ask. I do have an autobiography written in Italian, and at a later time it will be released in English. I am almost certain that it will be available in 2019." And so it was with antic- ipation that we looked forward to his autobiography. And that time has come! On September 3rd, the Con- s u l a t e G e n e r a l o f I t a l y S a n Francisco and the San Francisco Italian Cultural Institute (ICI) presented the first American preview of Federico Faggin's new book, an autobiography, titled Silicio (Mondadori, 2019). A n e n t h u s i a s t i c a u d i e n c e gathered at Italian Community Services' historic Fugazi Hall, located in the heart of San Fran- cisco's North Beach District. The ICI event was in collabora- tion with the Leonardo da Vinci Society, Italian Community Ser- vices, and the Italian Scientists & Scholars in North America Foundation. T h e e v e n i n g b e g a n w i t h r e m a r k s b y C o n s u l G e n e r a l Ortona, followed by an on-stage c o n v e r s a t i o n m o d e r a t e d b y Mauro Aprile Zanetti. Faggin shared his thoughts and insights about his life and career. The evening included the presenta- t i o n o f t h e d i s t i n g u i s h e d L e o n a r d o 5 0 0 A w a r d t o D r . Faggin. L ' I t a l o - A m e r i c a n o s p o k e with Dr. Faggin about his new book and his latest award. We asked why he chose the year 2019 in particular to publish his a u t o b i o g r a p h y . " A b o u t t e n years ago, after 20 years of first- person and third-person study on the nature of consciousness, I concluded that consciousness must be a fundamental and irre- d u c i b l e p r o p e r t y o f n a t u r e instead of an emergent property of the brain – the current scien- tific hypothesis that unfortu- nately explains nothing. "I soon realized that if we take consciousness to be funda- mental, the nature of reality must have been affected in some fundamental way by it. This observation forced me to distill the essential aspects of con- sciousness in the evolution of physical reality and develop a n e w c o n c e p t u a l f r a m e w o r k based on its primacy. "I decided to start writing a test book, about five years ago, to aid the clarification of the framework through a coherent narrative because there is no better way than this to illumi- nate the real issues and refine the framework. "This process led to a draft of a book about the nature of reality that was ready in early 2018. That book however was too dense and covered too much material. I had also planned to write an autobiography at some point. Therefore, I decided to combine the two objectives into an autobiography with one or two chapters dedicated to the nature of consciousness to be f o l l o w e d b y a s e c o n d b o o k entirely on the nature of reality. The first book could then serve as an introduction to the second by describing the motivation for my interest and some of the key ideas of the framework. This is the origin of Silicio. "I hope the current book will create a wider interest on the nature of consciousness than would have been possible if I had printed the original version. I expect that the story of the m i c r o p r o c e s s o r w i l l a t t r a c t many more people than the sub- ject of consciousness, which is almost neglected in our time. The bottom line is that many more people will be exposed to my ideas about the nature of c o n s c i o u s n e s s t h a n t h e f i r s t b o o k c o u l d h a v e p o s s i b l y reached. And a good portion of them may also be interested to read the second book to deepen their understanding." W h e n a s k e d t o s h a r e h i s thoughts on his latest award, Dr. Faggin replied: "The Leonardo 5 0 0 a w a r d w a s a s u r p r i s e because the idea of awarding the prize emerged spontaneously a m o n g t h e o r g a n i z e r s o f t h e book-presentation event during the preparations of the event itself. The award was especially significant to me since I also gave a book presentation three months ago in the small Tuscan village of Vinci, Italy, the beau- tiful birthplace of Leonardo." Federico Faggin was born in V i c e n z a , I t a l y i n 1 9 4 1 . H e describes growing up in an intel- lectual environment by saying, "My father was a teacher of his- tory and philosophy at the liceo classico, a very traditional high school in Italy, but he was also a libero docente, which is like a Ph.D. He taught at the Universi- ty of Padua and was a writer of about 40 books. My mother was an elementary school teacher." Faggin attended the Istituto Tecnico Industriale Statale with the intention of studying aero- nautical engineering. As it hap- pens, the school dropped that curriculum. It was then that he began his study of radio technol- ogy. In the early 1960s, Faggin began working at the Olivetti Electronics Laboratory where he co-designed and built an experi- mental transistorized electronic computer. In 1967, he began w o r k a t S G S - F a i r c h i l d , n o w STMicroelectronics, in Italy. Joining Intel in 1970, he led the design of the world's first com- m e r c i a l m i c r o p r o c e s s o r , t h e Intel 4004. Faggin left Intel at the end of 1974 to found Zilog, Inc., with Ralph Ungermann, and was the company's president and CEO until 1980. In 1986 Faggin co- founded and directed Synaptics Inc. He later became president and CEO of Foveon Inc. Faggin is currently president of the Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation, a non-profit organi- zation dedicated to the scientific study of consciousness, a long- standing interest that now has become a full-time activity. Federico Faggin ended our i n t e r v i e w w i t h a l o o k t o t h e future. "I hope to have complet- ed the first draft of the second book by the middle of 2020. I am looking forward to the writ- ing process because I very much e n j o y t h e i n t u i t i o n s a n d t h e ideas that spontaneously emerge when I set myself into the joyful discipline of writing a book." THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano Annamaria Di Giorgio, Mauro Aprile Zanetti, Dr. Federico Faggin, Elvia Faggin, Consul General Lorenzo Ortona, Enrica Zappacosta & Sabrina Longega Wilson. Credit for all photos: Enrica Cavalli, Photographer SAN FRANCISCO ITALIAN COMMUNITY Silicio – the autobiography of Federico Faggin, Italian physicist, inventor and entrepreneur CATHERINE ACCARDI

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