Biography of Gordon Moore

Gordon Moore ( born January 3, 1929 ) is the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation and the author of Moore's Law. Under Gordon Moore, Intel introduced the world's first single-chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004 invented by Intel engineers.

Gordon Moore - The Co-Founding of Intel

In 1968, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore were two unhappy engineers working for the Fairchild Semiconductor Company who decided to quit and create their own company at a time when many Fairchild employees were leaving to create start-ups. People like Noyce and Moore were nicknamed the "Fairchildren".

Robert Noyce typed himself a one-page idea of what he wanted to do with his new company, and that was enough to convince San Francisco venture capitalist Art Rock to back Noyce's and Moore's new venture. Rock raised $2.5 million dollars in less than 2 days.

Moore's Law

Gordon Moore is widely known for "Moore's Law," in which he predicted that the number of transistors 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 of thumb in 1965, it has become the guiding principle for the industry to deliver ever-more-powerful semiconductor chips at proportionate decreases in cost.

Gordon Moore - Biography

Gordon Moore earned a bachelor's in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1950 and a Ph.D. in chemistry and physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1954. He was born in San Francisco on Jan. 3, 1929.

He is a director of Gilead Sciences Inc., a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Engineers. Moore also serves on the board of trustees of the California Institute of Technology. He received the National Medal of Technology in 1990 and the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from George W. Bush in 2002.