Not many people have a law named after them. Gordon Moore’s eponymous prediction that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every 18 months is familiar to everyone in the technology business. But as co-founder of chip giant Intel, Moore has more on his resume than just a tech truism.
A native of San Francisco, Moore’s interest in science was stimulated by a chemistry set a neighbor received for Christmas when he was about 11 years old. Moore spent two years at San Jose State College before transferring to the University of California in Berkeley, where he received his bachelor of science degree in chemistry in 1950, followed by a Ph.D. in chemistry and physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1954.
In 1953, he joined the technical staff of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, where he did basic research in chemical physics. He joined Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1956 shortly after it was established by Dr. William Shockley, one of the inventors of the transistor. In 1957, Moore and seven other engineers and scientists, the so-called “Traitorous Eight" left Shockley and founded Fairchild Semiconductor Corp.
At Fairchild, Dr. Robert Noyce developed the first integrated circuit. Soon after this development, Moore succeeded Noyce as director of R&D, becoming responsible for the realization of Noyce’s ideas. During his tenure at Fairchild, integrated circuit technology advanced rapidly and, in April 1965, Moore published an article entitled “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits" in Electronics magazine projecting chip advances expected in the next ten years and establishing “Moore’s Law." In 1975, he updated his prediction from doubling chip capacity every 18 months to once every two years.
In July 1968, Moore and Noyce left Fairchild to found Intel, a contraction of “integrated electronics.” The plan for the new company was to develop and market large scale integrated circuits (LSI) significantly more complex than anything being produced at that time. Moore wanted to empower employees to increase a sense of ownership in the company by encouraging risk-taking and concentrating on results. By 1971, Intel research into a general purpose computer architecture controlled by software had evolved into the 4004, a 4-bit microprocessor that started a new revolution in electronics. Intel shipped the first microprocessors in February 1971. Ten years later, IBM introduced its PC using the Intel 8088 microprocessor. In addition to Moore’s Law, Moore also developed a mathematical model to predict how many completely defect-free chips could be yielded from a silicon wafer, a formula Intel continues to use.
Moore initially served as executive vice president of Intel, becoming president and CEO in 1975 and chairman of the board and CEO in 1979. He served as CEO until 1987, when Andrew Grove took on the title. In 1990, he received the National Medal of Technology from President George H.W. Bush and, in 2002, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.
Moore remained Intel’s chairman of the board for several more years and is now chairman emeritus. Moore and his wife established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which supports programs with lasting positive impacts on the quality of life. Major areas of interest for the foundation are higher education, scientific research and world-wide conservation.