The departure of Gordon Moore, one of the founders of “Intel” and the author of the “Moore’s Law” theory
Gordon Moore, one of the founders of the “Intel” semiconductor industry, and the owner of a theory that bears his name on the development of computer chips, died Friday at the age of 94, according to what his previous company announced.
In 1968, Moore, who holds a Ph.D. in chemistry, founded NM Electronics with physicist Robert Noyce, the “mayor of Silicon Valley.” A few months later, the two men bought the name “Intel” for $15,000. Gordon Moore served as CEO of the company from 1979 to 1987.
In 1971, Intel introduced the first microprocessor, equivalent to the capacity of a computer on a chip, a programmable processor containing thousands of transistors, in a technical revolution at the time.
Today, Intel is the most important semiconductor manufacturer in the United States, and the third in the world in terms of turnover, after South Korea’s Samsung and Taiwanese TSMC.
In 1965, while working for another company, Fairchild Semiconductor, Gordon Moore predicted in an article published in Electronics magazine that the density of transistors in microprocessors would double every year. But in 1975 he revised his forecasts, expecting the number to double every two years. Another microchip pioneer, Carver Mead, called this theory “Moore’s Law.” The evolution of microprocessor capabilities has followed Moore’s Law for decades, increasing electronics and computing performance while lowering costs.
By many estimates, the cost of the transistor has fallen hundreds of millions of times since the early 1960’s. This development allowed the dissemination of computing and electronics technologies on a large scale, first through personal computers, then various devices, up to the mobile phone.
“The world has lost a giant with the passing of Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Silicon Valley and a true visionary who paved the way for the technological revolution,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in a tweet.
Specialists expect that Moore’s Law will soon cease to apply due to the physical limitations associated with integrating transistors into a microprocessor.
(AFP)