Gordon Moore

On 9th September, 1950, Gordon married Betty Whitaker and the couple is blessed with two children named Steve Moore and Kenneth Moore.

He has been involved in many philanthropic works and has provided huge donations to many organizations such as ‘Caltech’ and ‘University of California’. The second largest optical telescope of the world named ‘Thirty Meter Telescope’ was built with the donation provided by this distinguished scientist.

He has been involved in environmental conservation projects and in 2002 he was bestowed with the ‘Order of the Golden Ark’ by Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld for his contributions towards the conservation of the environment. He shared this honour with Claude Gascon, who is the Senior Vice President of the NGO ‘Conservation International’.

On 3rd January, 1929, Gordon Earle Moore was born in Francisco, California.

Gordon completed his schooling from ‘Sequoia High School’ located in Redwood City, and then enrolled at the 'San Jose State University'. He then joined the 'University of California', Berkeley, and in 1950, he completed his B.Sc. degree in chemistry.

Soon after he joined the ‘California Institute of Technology’ (Caltech) where he pursued PhD in chemistry with a minor in physics.

During 1953-56, Gordon was engaged in postdoctoral research which he conducted at the ‘Applied Physics Laboratory’ of ‘John Hopkins University’ located in Baltimore.

In 1954, he earned his PhD. from the ‘California Institute of Technology’ (Caltech).

He collaborated with physicist William Shockley and worked with him at the ‘Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory’ which was a section of the company ‘Beckman Instruments’.

However, in 1957, a group consisting eight people who were inducted into the laboratory by Shockley, parted ways with the laboratory and Moore was one of them. This group of eight talented PhD graduates were together termed as the ‘Traitorous eight’.

These traitorous eight received support from the American inventor and entrepreneur Sherman Fairchild. The ‘Fairchild Semiconductor’ company was formed and these eight people were engaged in the company.

Gordon was appointed as the director of the research and development (R&D) of ‘Fairchild Semiconductor’ in 1965. During the same time, he was interviewed by the magazine ‘Electronics’ and in an answer to a question regarding the future of semiconductor components, he made an observation which was popularized as the ‘Moore’s Law’.

This observation was published in the ‘Electronics’ magazine on 19th April, 1965. It said ‘the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented’. He also observed that the trend will continue to be the same for at least the next ten years.

He is a co-founder of the technology giant ‘Intel Corporation’ and has been instrumental in the various technological developments which the corporation has undertaken since its inception.

However, one of his most significant contribution to the world of technology is his observation popularly known as the ‘Moore’s Law’. The law which has a phenomenal impact on miniaturization of semiconductor industry forecasted that in an integrated circuit, the number of electronic components has been increasing twice in number in every two years.