Gordon Moore

Gordon Earle Moore, or simply known as Gordon Moore, was one of the American co-founders and Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation. He was also the biographer of an article, Moore’s Law, where it was issued on 19th April 1965 in the Electronics Magazine. His article had been an inspiration for the semi-conductor industry for over 40 years. As well as being a successful engineer, entrepreneur and manager, he is the membership in the ‘Traitorous Eight’.

Early Life 

During his early life, Moore was born on 3rd January 1929 in San Francisco, California. When he was a child, he has an attraction with Chemistry and Mathematics. He was a pleasant student during his high school, but his interest was more in playing sports than studying. When he got into his senior year, he became more serious about his scholars.

Moore and Betty

After graduating from Sequoia High School, Moore registered studying at San Jose State University and bacame the first member of his family to attend college. Two years later, he moved to the University of California at Berkeley where he took a degree in Chemistry. He then went on to get a doctorate in Physics and Chemistry at CalTech. In 1950, he married with her wife, Betty and gave birth to his two sons, Kenneth in 1953 and Steven in 1959 respectively.

Early Career

Earlier, Moore was working for the co-inventor transistor in 1947, William Shockley, in his company. Due to having issues with the company of William Shockley, Moore and staff members of seven had left Shcokley and built their own company together. They all were known as the ‘Traitorous Eight’ or ‘the Fairchild Eight’. Together, each of them had invested $500 and backing from Fairchild Camera and Instrument. In 1957, the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation was established.

Robert Noyce

At Fairchild, Moore and his fellow friends did a lot of inventing work, but by far the most important was the creation of the integrated circuit (IC), a thin slice of silicon that had been specially processed so that a tiny electric circuit was etched on its surface. The circuit can have many millions of microscopic individual elements, including transistors, resistors, and capacitors, all electrically connected in a particular way to perform some useful function. The IC was created by one of the Traitorous Eight members, Robert Noyce.

Moore’s Law

In 19th April 1965, he had issued an article in the Electronic Magazines about “Moore’s Law” which stating that he predicted the number of transistors of the industry would be able to place on a computer microchip would double every year. In 1995, he updated his prediction to once every two years. While originally intended as a rule in 1965, it has become the guiding principle for the industry to deliver more effective semiconductor chips at balanced decreases in cost.

Beginning of Intel Corporation

From 1968 to 2005 logo

2005 onward logo

Although the environment at Fairchild was a major improvement over working for Shockley, Moore was unhappy with the parent company’s management. He and Robert Noyce decided to branch out on their own to make semiconductors. By 18th July 1968, in Mountain View, California, Moore and Noyce had formed a new semiconductor company, which they called Integrated Electronics or well-known as Intel. But originally, the rights of the name ‘Intel’ had to be bought first from a company called ‘Intelco’. In 1971, the company had created the very first microprocessor, the 4004.  Intel also makes motherboards, chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Then 1972, Intel introduced the first 8-bit microprocessor the 8008. Later in 1974, the Intel 8080 microprocessor was introduced with ten times the power of the 8008.

In 1976, Intel introduced the first micro-controllers, the 8748 and 8048, a computer-on-a-chip optimized to control electronic devices. Since then, Intel has been the industry leader in producing ever-faster microprocessors. This is due to the use of Moore’s Law. The Intel Corporation is currently headquarted in Santa Clara, California.

Achievements and Awards

Moore has been richly honored for his hard work and risk taking and his current company became one of the largest manufacturers in the semiconductor industry. In 1990, he had received the National Medal of Technology from President George W. Bush and received the Marconi Society Lifetime Achievement Award in 4th November 2005. Other awards he had received are the Franklin Institute’s Bower Leadership Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Other than that, he is an IEEE Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Retirement

By the year of 1997, he retired as CEO from Intel Corporation and made ‘the Moore Foundation’ together with her wife, Betty in 2000.