Some names are deeply connected to the history of technology, and Gordon Moore is undoubtedly one of them. You may recall that just a week ago for Father’s Day, we published a list of some of the major fathers of computing. as a result, I started preparing another one that I will publish soon, dedicated to a group of absolutely essential people in the past of technology, who are considered the parents of Silicon Valley. I am speaking, of course, of the Eight Traitors, and at the beginning of that as-yet-unpublished article I mentioned that only two of them are still alive, a text which I will have to correct after the departure of more than eight recognizable names, from Gordon Moore died on March 24th..

Gordon Moore was born on January 3, 1929 in San Francisco, California and showed an interest in chemistry and electronics as a child, building his own home laboratory. He studied chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and received his doctorate in physics and chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1954, an exciting time in the development of electronics and automatic information processing.

Your professional career started by none other than William Shockley, the inventor of probably the most important electronic device in history, the transistor, and with it the advent of modern electronics. In those years, Shockley was quite an institution and set out to recruit the best scientists and engineers he could find to work in his semiconductor lab.

It’s easy to imagine a young Gordon Moore excited about working with Shockley, but the truth is that the experience was far from ideal. As some people stated at the time, Father Transistor’s behavior left something to be desired. He was an overly authoritarian boss, inflexible and not at all open to the ideas of otherswhich acted as an important brake on the innovations that would come from the hands of its young workers.

Moore, along with seven colleagues, organized a “coup d’état” in the company with the intention of removing Shockley from leadership, but the plan did not go well, and as a result, the eight people, known as the Eight Traitors, left Shockley’s laboratory to found Fairchild Semiconductors, thanks to the financial support of Sherman Fairchild (yes, hence the name). I will not go into this story now, as we will talk about it in the article dedicated to Moore and his seven companions in the next article dedicated to them.

However, we must fix our gaze for a moment on 1965, when Gordon Moore declared that the number of transistors per square inch in integrated circuits would double every year for at least ten years (ten years later, in 1975, the deadline was extended by two years) . I’m talking, of course, about Moore’s Law, a rule that has accompanied us for decades in the development of technology and proves that Moore was a true visionary.

Three years later, in 1968, Gordon Moore decided to leave Fairchild Semiconductors and together with the other “traitor” Robert Noyce, he founded his own company, Intel Corporation. Moore has held various management positions at Intel, from executive vice president to president and chief executive officer. He retired in 1997 but remained an emeritus board member until his death. Under his leadership, Intel constantly innovated and launched flagship products such as the Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, or the Intel 8080, the brain of the first personal computer.

In addition to his business aspect, Gordon Moore he was a prominent philanthropist and patron. Together with his wife Betty, he founded the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which is dedicated to supporting projects and initiatives in the fields of science, medicine, education and the environment. Among his most generous gifts is the one he gave to Caltech in 2001: $600 million, the largest contribution ever made to an educational institution.

Moore received numerous recognitions and honors during his lifetime, including the National Medal for Technology and Innovation (1990), the Prince of Asturias Prize for Scientific and Technical Research (2001) or the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2002). He was a member of various scientific academies and received honorary doctorates from various universities.

That’s why we say goodbye to an essential figure who knew how to see the future where many others saw only science fiction. Rest in peace Gordon Moore and thanks for everything.

More information