In the technology industry there is a paradox, the more famous is a minor character is his contribution. Yesterday, March 24, Gordon Moore died, one of the pioneers of microprocessors and probably very few know who we are talking about.
Known mainly for the law that bears his name, which quite accurately predicted how the capacity of semiconductors would grow, his contribution is not limited to this.
Gordon Moore died
In our series of articles on Bell Laboratories we tell how the search for more durable and efficient materials than vacuum tubes led to the invention of the transistor. When this was imposed, the new goal was to find materials less resistant to electricity.
William Shockley, one of those responsible for the invention of the transistor, founded a company called Shockley Semiconductor to commercialize silicon transistors. One of the young scientists he summoned was Gordon Moore.
Moore was born in California in 1929 and studied at the Technological Institute of that state where he specialized in physics and received a doctorate in chemistry. He then transferred to John Hopkins University at whose Applied Physics Laboratory he conducted post-doctoral research where he was recruited by Shockley.
"The Eight Traitors"
Disenchanted by Shockley's management style and lack of results, along with seven of his colleagues joined Fairchild Semiconductor what was described by him as a betrayal. Fairchild was one of the first companies to move to Silicon Valley in 1957.
Moore's Law
In his role as director of research and development at Fairchild, Moore would enunciate the law that would make his last name famous in the world of technology. Moore's law was first stated in an Electronics Magazine article published in 1965, which noted that the number of components that could be put into an integrated circuit had doubled every year, and that pace would continue. Ten years later he changed the term to two years.
In 1968 together with a colleague from Fairchild he founded NM Electronics, which would later be baptized as Intel Corporation where he would be vice president, president and chief executive officer.
Once retired he would dedicate himself to philanthropy supporting numerous environmental causes.