Intel co-founder Gordon Moore dies at 94

Gordon Moore, co-founder and former CEO of Intel, has died. We owe him the famous Moore’s law.

Gordon Moore, co-founder and former CEO of Intel, has died at the age of 94. He was the last member of “Intel Trinity”along with fellow founder Robert Noyce and their first employee Andy Grove. Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce had previously worked with transistor co-inventor William Shockley before helping found Fairchild Semiconductor. In 1968, two friends founded their own company, NM Electronics, which later became Intel.

Gordon Moore, co-founder and former CEO of Intel, dies

A few years earlier, in 1965, Gordon Moore had written an article outlining his vision for the miniaturization of computers. Specifically, he predicted that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit would double each year, leading to the creation and production of ever smaller, higher performance chips, which in turn would lead to numerous technological advances. This prediction was quickly dubbed “Moore’s Law”and proved to be quite accurate for many years afterward. By 1975, he was correcting his estimate: the number of transistors was doubling every two years, and in recent years the major chip makers seem to disagree about whether Moore’s Law still holds.

We owe him the famous Moore’s Law

In 1979, Gordon Moore was named chairman and CEO of Intel before leaving this last post in 1987. He worked as an intermediary between Robert Noyce and Andy Grove, and it was Andy Grove and he who decided that Intel should focus on microprocessors and forget about their activities in the memory market. The rest, as they say, is history. Before Gordon Moore completely retired from the Intel business in 2006, he and his wife created the $5 billion Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Their foundation has served various environmental initiatives, primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has donated to many science and technology schools.