25 Microchips that shook the world…
IEEE Sprectrum has a neat article detailing 25 microchips that fundamentally changed the IC business (or could have). Some of them are as simple as the 555 timer chips, whose 23 transistors were used, and continue to be used in millions of projects. Some of the processors that made the list are the MOS 6502, Intel 8088 (of course) as well as the SPARC, and Acorn ARM.
