Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel and creator of Moore’s Law – the mantra of boundless technological development that came to define the digital age – has died at the age of 94.
Moore died Friday at his home in Hawaii, according to the company and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
From humble roots as the son of the mayor of Pescadero, California, Moore went on to create Intel, one of the greatest technological powers of the 20th century.
Moore, who was trained as a chemist, was an early pioneer in the creation of integrated circuits, the silicon chips that came to form the backbone of modern technology.
He was among a small group of engineers and scientists, including Nobel laureate William Shockley, one of the co-inventors of the transistor, and Robert Noyce, the co-inventor of the integrated circuit, who put silicon into Silicon Valley.
But what set Moore apart from many of his legendary peers was that he also possessed a combination of skills that extended far beyond mere technique.
As Intel’s chairman, Moore has guided the company with the demeanor of a local and the spirit of a Las Vegas gambler.
Taking the risky path came naturally to him, though he always maintained that his risks were obvious choices to be made.
“This is a fast-moving business,” he once said in an interview. “Unless you are willing to take technical and financial risks, you are doomed. Things change so quickly, if you don’t, you die.”
Moore described himself as an “accidental entrepreneur”, although the success of Intel—and Moore’s status as one of the richest men in the country due to his Intel holdings—belied his modest assessment.
Although Moore’s co-founding of the microprocessor giant in 1968 cemented his place in the history of modern technology, he may be best known for what has come to be known as Moore’s Law.
In 1965, Moore made the simple observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit seemed to double every year.
The integrated circuit was invented just seven years ago, and the most anyone could etch on the thin silicon wafers that would fuel the growth of the electronics industry was about 50 transistors.
Looking at a graph of chip development, Moore stretched the line forward 10 years and predicted that by 1975 there would be 65,000 transistors on a single silicon chip. It seemed an oddly high number at the time, but Moore was right on target.
Moore modified his prediction several times during his life, eventually settling on the prediction that the number of transistors would double every 18 to 24 months rather than every year.
But even though the exact formula for Moore’s Law has changed, the spirit of rapid technological progress has remained constant. It became the dogma of the electronic world and a mantra for the Deguerati eagerly awaiting the next great thing.
Moore wrote in 1965: “Integrated circuits will do wonders as home computers – or at least terminals connected to a mainframe, automatic controllers for cars, and portable personal communications equipment.”
The descendants of the first raw chips Moore designed went on to power personal computers, cars, cell phones and even watches.
“It’s funny how Moore’s Law is what he’s best known for,” he said in a 1997 interview with Business Week. “It was just a relatively minor observation.”
The accuracy of Moore’s Law has become the cornerstone of business planning in the electronics industry.
Gordon Earl Moore almost fits the image of a prophet of the digital age. He was quiet and down-to-earth, an unassuming, slightly balding scholar who kept a little bit of his small-town roots in the midst of the pace of Silicon Valley.
Moore was born in San Francisco on January 3, 1929, to Walter and Florence Moore. The family eventually settled in Pescadero, about 30 miles south, where his father was the district’s deputy chief of police.
Moore seemed destined for an academic career after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, with a BA in Chemistry in 1950 and a PhD in Chemistry and Physics from Caltech in 1954.
After a short stint at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, he went to work in 1956 for Shockley, who had formed his own company, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, to develop the transistor. Shockley was a heavy-handed, moody and volatile manager. After working for only a year, Moore and most of Shockley’s top scientists revolted.
The “Traitorous Eight,” as Shockley called them, split off and started Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. The creation of Fairchild was one of the crucial turning points in the history of electronics, allowing Moore and others to pursue research that helped their partner, Robert Noyce, to devise a commercially viable process for miniaturizing circuits Complete on a silicon chip – integrated circuit.
Moore and Noyce left Fairchild in 1966 and two years later set up their own company to exploit integrated circuit development. They named their company Integrated Electronics but later shortened it to Intel.
With the help of Arthur Rock, Silicon Valley’s first horde of venture capitalists, Noyce and Moore easily raised $2.3 million and got in on the act. Noyce served as CEO of the new company with Rock as President and Moore as Executive Vice President.
Intel began manufacturing memory chips and rising to profitability by embracing the company’s strategy of innovating at a rapid pace so that it could command a premium for its products.
Moore took over as CEO of Intel in 1975, a few years before his company began being affected by the influx of cheap memory chips from Japanese manufacturers that had commoditized Intel’s flagship product.
Intel started losing money and laying off workers. By the mid-1980s, Intel was beginning to lag behind the very industry that had created it.
By 1985, even Moore was starting to look bleak. Moore told shareholders at the time that the economic downturn was “probably the greatest in the history of the semiconductor industry.”
“We’re taking the excesses out of the red-hot electronics industry,” he said. “What happened? Lady Fortune frowned. Intel should be well up and ready when Dame Fortune smiles again.”
In 1984 and 1985, Intel was still spending more than $1 billion on chip manufacturing equipment and facilities. It was all part of Moore’s belief that staying ahead of the curve was key to success and the company would eventually bounce back.
Moore and the company’s president, Andrew S. Grove, set about refocusing Intel away from cheap memory chips to high-margin microprocessors—the brains of the computer.
In 1987, Moore stepped down as CEO of Grove, though he remained active in directing the company as president.
Moore has also served himself as a member of the Caltech Board of Trustees and as a patriarch of the electronics industry.
In 1950, Moore married Betty Irene Whitaker, who survived him. Moore was also survived by sons Kenneth and Stephen and four grandchildren.
“Beer fan. Travel specialist. Amateur alcohol scholar. Bacon trailblazer. Music fanatic.”