Gordon Moore, a co-founder and former chairman of Intel corporation passed away at his home in Hawaii on Friday 24th March, 2023.
His passing was announced by Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Moore was a philanthropist, businessman and engineer who invested in the microchip business which helped transform electronics into one of the world’s biggest industries and helped place Silicon Valley in the forefront of global industrial dominance.
Moore’s Law
Moore noted in an article in 1965 that, thanks to improvements in technology, the number of transistors on microchips had roughly doubled every year since integrated circuits were invented a few years before, thus increasing the data-processing power of computers exponentially.
Later, he added two repercussions: The evolving technology would make computers more and more expensive to build, yet consumers would be charged less and less for them because so many would be sold. Moore’s Law held up for decades.
This became known as “Moore’s Law” and it helped push chipmakers to actively target their research and development resources in order to significantly increase the processing power of their devices.
Arthur Rock, an early investor in Intel and friend of Mr. Moore’s, said: “That’s his legacy. It’s not Intel. It’s not the Moore Foundation. It’s that phrase: Moore’s Law.”
Leading the Microprocessor Frontier
Mr. Moore’s intellect, leadership, charisma, and connections, combined with those of his partner and Intel co-founder, Robert Noyce, resulted in a group generally regarded as among the most daring and innovative technicians of the high-tech era.
Intel’s silicon microprocessors, the brains of a computer, allowed American makers to retake the lead in the huge computer data-processing field from their formidable Japanese rivals in the mid-1980s. By the 1990s, Intel had positioned its microprocessors in 80% of the computers sold globally, making it the most profitable semiconductor firm in history.
Mr. Moore was present for much of this. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Intel from 1975 to 1987 and then as Chairman until 1997.
Philanthropy
As his wealth grew, Mr. Moore also became a major figure in philanthropy. He and his wife established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in 2001 with a donation of 175 million Intel shares. In 2001, they donated $600 million to the California Institute of Technology, the largest single gift to an institution of higher learning at the time. The foundation’s assets currently surpass $8 billion, and it has distributed more than $5 billion since its inception.
We owe our thanks to Moore and a handful of his colleagues for bringing laptop computers to hundreds of millions of people.
Even in death, his legacy and contributions to the technological industry live on, making his influence widespread.
By: Maame Nkrabea Cobbina