Moore, Gordon E. (1929 - )
Co-founder of Intel Corporation and author of Moore’s Law.
He was born in San Francisco, California on 3 January 1929.
In 1950, he received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Berkeley, and was admitted to the degree of doctor in chemistry and physics at the California Institute of Technology in 1954.
He worked at the Schockley Semiconductor Laboratory at Palo Alto for a time, where he was directed by the Nobel Prize in Physics, William Schockley, inventor of the transistor.
He soon left this job to set up the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation together with other researchers from the same laboratory. This company was very innovative at the time, developing the first integrated circuit at the same time a Texas Instruments and introducing photolithography techniques for transistor production.
In 1965, on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Electronics Magazine, he published an article in which he made this famous prediction about the evolution of electronic components, which later became known as Moore’s law:
“The number of transistors that industry should be able to place on a chip could double every two years”.
This idea, which was merely an extrapolation of Fairchild’s evolution, led the semiconductor industry to develop ever more powerful chips at lower prices.
In 1968, he left Fairchild and founded the Intel Corporation with Robert Noyce, where he held the position of executive vice president until 1975.
From 1975 until his retirement in 1997, he held the highest positions at Intel, where he still holds an emeritus post.
In 1990, he received, the National Medal of Technology, the highest honour for technological innovation in the United States, from President George Bush.