Intel co-founder Gordon Moore passed away at age 94 this week. Here’s why he’s one of the most important figures in the history of semiconductors.
I was saddened to hear about the passing of Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder and the engineer perhaps best know for his prediction that transistor density would double every two years, known as Moore’s Law.
A native of what would come to be known as Silicon Valley, Moore studied chemistry at UC Berkeley and CalTech. In 1956, he joined Shockley Semiconductor working under William Shockley, known as the co-inventor of the transistor. The following year, Moore was part of a group known as “the traitorous eight,” who left Shockley to form Fairchild Semiconductor.
Moore focused on processes for producing semiconductors, later working with Shockley alumni Jean Horeni, Jay Last, and Robert Noyce on various devices, including the first planar transistors and then the first integrated circuit or “chip.
