Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel and a pioneer in the semiconductor industry, passed away on January 2, 2022, at the age of 92. Moore helped start the microchip revolution that transformed the modern world by co-founding Intel in 1968 with Robert Noyce and Andrew Grove. Moore’s Law, named after him, postulates that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every 18 to 24 months. The prediction has remained accurate for over half a century and has driven much of the semiconductor industry’s growth. Mr. Moore remained humble throughout his life and was known for his simplicity and modesty. After retiring from Intel in 1997, he focused on philanthropy and created the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation with his wife. They donated $5 billion to various causes over the years. Mr. Moore will be remembered as one of the most significant figures in the history of the semiconductor industry, and his contributions continue to impact the world today.
Gordon E. Moore: The Intel Co-Founder and Visionary Behind Moore’s Law Passes Away at 94.
Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder and former chairman of Intel Corporation, passed away at his home in Hawaii at the age of 94. Along with a handful of colleagues, Moore was responsible for bringing laptop computers to hundreds of millions of people, and embedding microprocessors into various electronic devices from bathroom scales, toasters, and toy fire engines to cellphones, cars, and jets.
Moore’s brilliance, leadership, charisma, and contacts, as well as that of his partner and Intel co-founder, Robert Noyce, helped to assemble a group widely regarded as among the boldest and most creative technicians of the high-tech age. This was the group that advocated the use of the thumbnail-thin chips of silicon, a highly polished, chemically treated sandy substance because of what turned out to be silicon’s amazing hospitality in housing smaller and smaller electronic circuitry that could work at higher and higher speeds.
Moore is renowned for his prediction in 1965, which became known as Moore’s Law. He predicted that the number of transistors that could be placed on a silicon chip would double at regular intervals for the foreseeable future, thus increasing the data-processing power of computers exponentially. Moore’s Law held up for decades, and he added two corollaries later: The evolving technology would make computers more and more expensive to build, yet consumers would be charged less and less for them because so many would be sold.
Moore was an accidental entrepreneur because he became a billionaire as a result of an initial $500 investment in the fledgling microchip business, which turned electronics into one of the world’s largest industries. He wanted to be a teacher but could not get a job in education. He saw the future and charted a course for the age of high tech.
Intel Corporation helped give Silicon Valley its name and achieved the kind of industrial dominance once held by the giant American railroad or steel companies of another age. Gordon E. Moore will be remembered as a visionary and pioneer who transformed the world of computing and electronics.
Gordon E. Moore: The Co-Founder of Intel and Visionary Behind Moore’s Law
Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel, the California semiconductor chip maker, passed away at the age of 94 at his home in Hawaii. Much of Intel’s success can be attributed to Moore’s vision and leadership as the company’s CEO from 1975 to 1987 and as the chairman until 1997. Under his watch, Intel was able to place its microprocessors in 80 percent of the computers worldwide, enabling American manufacturers to regain the lead in the computer data-processing field from their Japanese competitors.
Moore’s technical expertise and vision for the future of electronics revolutionized the industry. His prediction in 1965, known as Moore’s Law, that the number of transistors that could be placed on a silicon chip would double at regular intervals for the foreseeable future, proved to be incredibly precise, leading technology firms to base their product strategy on the assumption that Moore’s Law would hold. This prediction helped make electronics cheaper and more accessible to everyone.
Despite his immense success, Moore remained humble about his achievements. He saw the future and believed that semiconductor devices were the way electronics would become cheap, which proved to be an accurate prediction. Moore was an accidental entrepreneur who became a billionaire as a result of an initial $500 investment in the fledgling microchip business, which turned electronics into one of the world’s largest industries.
Moore was also a major figure in philanthropy, creating the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in 2001 with a donation of 175 million Intel shares. The foundation’s assets currently exceed $8 billion, and it has given away more than $5 billion since its founding. In 2001, he and his wife donated $600 million to the California Institute of Technology, the largest single gift to an institution of higher learning at the time.
Born on January 3, 1929, in San Francisco, Moore grew up in Pescadero, a small coastal town south of San Francisco. He enrolled at San Jose State College, where he met Betty Whitaker, a journalism student. They married in 1950. That same year, he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in chemistry. In 1954, he received his doctorate, also in chemistry, from Caltech.
Moore’s legacy extends far beyond Intel and the Moore Foundation. He will be remembered for his contributions to the world of computing and electronics, as well as his significant impact on philanthropy. Moore’s Law, which has become a staple in the technology industry, will continue to shape the future of computing and electronics for years to come.
Gordon E. Moore: The Co-Founder of Intel
Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel, was a man with a vision for the future of technology. In the 1950s, he worked with William Shockley, a co-inventor of the transistor, at a West Coast division of Bell Laboratories, where he helped develop a cheap silicon transistor. However, Shockley Semiconductor, the company they worked for, foundered under Dr. Shockley’s poor leadership. Mr. Moore and Robert Noyce, one of the eight defectors from Shockley Semiconductor, left to form Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, a pioneer in manufacturing integrated circuits.
In 1968, Mr. Moore and Mr. Noyce decided to form their own company, Intel, focusing on semiconductor memory. With only a very general business plan, they were able to secure $2.5 million in capital and called their startup Integrated Electronics Corporation, which they later shortened to Intel. The third employee was Andrew Grove, a young Hungarian immigrant who had worked under Mr. Moore at Fairchild.
The company initially had trouble deciding on what technology to focus on, but they eventually settled on a new version of MOS technology called silicon-gate MOS. This technology allowed for multiple transistors to be interconnected on a single piece of silicon, creating an integrated circuit.
Intel’s breakthrough came in the early 1970s with the release of their 4000 series “computer on a chip,” which started the revolution in personal computers. However, the company itself missed the opportunity to manufacture a PC, partly due to Mr. Moore’s shortsightedness. One of their engineers suggested that Intel build a computer for the home, but Mr. Moore couldn’t see the potential at the time.
Mr. Moore’s legacy extends far beyond his work with Intel. He was a man who saw the future and believed that semiconductor devices were the way electronics would become cheap, a prediction that proved to be incredibly accurate. Mr. Moore and his wife were also major figures in philanthropy, creating the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in 2001 with a donation of 175 million Intel shares.
Throughout his life, Mr. Moore remained humble about his achievements. Despite his technical expertise and vision for the future of electronics, he was characteristically humble about his contributions to the industry. Mr. Moore’s name will always be synonymous with Moore’s Law, the prediction he made in 1965 that the number of transistors that could be placed on a silicon chip would double at regular intervals for the foreseeable future, enabling the data-processing power of computers to increase exponentially.
Gordon Moore is best known for his contributions to the development of the silicon microchip and his prediction, known as Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors on a chip would double roughly every two years, leading to a corresponding increase in computing power. By the 1990s, 80% of computers being produced worldwide contained Intel microprocessors. Mr. Moore was CEO of Intel from 1975 to 1987 and remained chairman until 1997. In 2001, he and his wife created the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which has assets exceeding $8 billion and has donated over $5 billion since its founding.
Mr. Moore’s journey to become the founder of Intel and an industry pioneer began at Shockley Semiconductor, where he and seven others left to create Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. He went on to co-found Intel in 1968 with Robert Noyce and Andrew Grove. Intel’s revolutionary “computer on a chip” product line, based on MOS technology, and the subsequent evolution of the personal computer industry helped establish the company as a global tech leader.
Mr. Moore’s legacy is marked by his humble nature, technical innovations, and prediction of the exponential growth in computing power, and his life was spent seeking ways to make technology more accessible and affordable. Despite being estimated to be worth $7 billion by Forbes in 2014, Mr. Moore was known for his unassuming manner, preferring to wear old shirts and khakis and shop at Costco.
However, Mr. Moore also predicted that Moore’s Law would eventually come to an end as the cost and physical limitations of building factories for the next level of miniaturization are encountered. The pace of miniaturization has slowed in recent years. But his contributions to the tech industry, philanthropy, and his legacy as an innovator and a visionary are secure.
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