Gordon Moore
Gordon Earle Moore (January 3, 1929 – March 24, 2023) was an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and emeritus chairman of Intel Corporation. He proposed Moore's law which makes the observation that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years.[4][5][6][7][8]
For other people named Gordon Moore, see Gordon Moore (disambiguation).
Gordon Moore
March 24, 2023 (aged 94)
- National Medal of Technology (1990)
- John Fritz Medal (1993)
- IEEE Founders Medal (1997)
- Computer History Museum Fellow (1998)[1]
- Othmer Gold Medal (2001)
- Presidential Medal of Freedom (2002)
- Perkin Medal (2004)[2]
- Nierenberg Prize (2006)
- IEEE Medal of Honor (2008)
- Entrepreneur
- Electrical engineering
Early life and education[edit]
Gordon Moore was born in 1929 as the second son of Walter Harold Moore (a county sheriff stationed in San Mateo County) and Florence Almira "Mira" Williamson (a homemaker).[9] When Moore started school in 1935, the faculty noted his introverted personality.[10] His father accepted a promotion to deputy sheriff in 1938 and moved the family to Redwood City, California.[11] In 1940, Moore received a chemistry set as a Christmas gift, which inspired him to become a chemist.[12] From 1942 to 1946, Moore studied at Sequoia High School, where he was involved in athletic activities.[13] From 1946 to 1947, Moore attended San José State College (now San José State University), studying chemistry.[14] He transferred to University of California, Berkeley in 1948, taking courses from Glenn Seaborg, Melvin Calvin, and William Giauque. He graduated in 1950 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry.[15][16]
In September 1950, Moore enrolled at the California Institute of Technology ("Caltech"), where he would ultimately receive a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1954.[17][16][18][19] Moore conducted postdoctoral research at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University from 1953 to 1956.[16]
Philanthropy[edit]
As of February 2023, Moore's net worth was reported to be $7 billion.[28]
In 2000, Moore and his wife established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, with a gift worth about $5 billion. Through the foundation, they initially targeted environmental conservation, science, and the San Francisco Bay Area.[29]
The foundation gives extensively in the area of environmental conservation, supporting major projects in the Andes–Amazon Basin, including Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Suriname, as well as the San Francisco Bay area.[30][31] Moore was a director of Conservation International for some years. In 2002, he and Conservation International senior vice president Claude Gascon received the Order of the Golden Ark from Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands for their outstanding contributions to nature conservation.[32]
Moore was a member of Caltech's board of trustees from 1983, chairing it from 1993 to 2000, and was a life trustee at the time of his death.[33][34][35] In 2001, Moore and his wife donated $600 million to Caltech, at the time the largest gift ever to an institution of higher education.[36] He said he wanted the gift to be used to keep Caltech at the forefront of research and technology.[29]
In December 2007, Moore and his wife donated $200 million to Caltech and the University of California for the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), expected to become the world's second largest optical telescope once it and the European Extremely Large Telescope are completed in the mid-2020s. The TMT will have a segmented mirror 30 meters across and be built on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. This mirror will be nearly three times the size of the current record holder, the Large Binocular Telescope.[37]
The Moores, as individuals and through their foundation, have also, in a series of gifts and grants beginning in the 1990s, given some $166 million to the University of California, Berkeley to fund initiatives ranging from materials science and physics to genomics and data science.[38][39][40]
In addition, through the foundation, his wife created the Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative, targeting nursing care in the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Sacramento.[29][41] In 2007, the foundation pledged $100 million over 11 years to establish a nursing school at the University of California, Davis.[38] The Moores have also been long-time benefactors of other Northern California institutions, including Stanford University (over $190 million as of 2022), University of California, San Francisco, and University of California, Santa Cruz.[38]
In 2009, the Moores received the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.[29][42]
Scientific awards and honors[edit]
Moore received many honors. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1976 for contributions to semiconductor devices from transistors to microprocessors.[43]
In 1990, Moore was with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President George H. W. Bush, "for his seminal leadership in bringing American industry the two major postwar innovations in microelectronics – large-scale integrated memory and the microprocessor – that have fueled the information revolution".[44]
In 1998, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his fundamental early work in the design and production of semiconductor devices as co-founder of Fairchild and Intel".[45]
In 2001, Moore received the Othmer Gold Medal for outstanding contributions to progress in chemistry and science.[46][47] Moore was also the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, as of 2002.[48] He received the award from President George W. Bush.[49] In 2002, Moore received the Bower Award for Business Leadership.[50]
In 2003 Moore was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2005.[51]
Moore was awarded the 2008 IEEE Medal of Honor for "pioneering technical roles in integrated-circuit processing, and leadership in the development of MOS memory, the microprocessor computer, and the semiconductor industry".[52] Moore was featured in the 2011 documentary film Something Ventured, in which he said about Intel's first business plan, "It was one page, double spaced. It had a lot of typos in it."[53]
In 2009, Moore was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He was awarded the 2010 Dan David Prize for his work in the areas of Computers and Telecommunications.[54]
The library at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge is named after him and his wife Betty,[55] as are the Moore Laboratories building (dedicated 1996) at Caltech and the Gordon and Betty Moore Materials Research Building at Stanford. The Electrochemical Society presents an award in Moore's name, the Gordon E. Moore Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Solid State Science and Technology, biennially to celebrate scientists' contributions to the field of solid-state science.[56] The Society of Chemical Industry (American Section) annually presents the Gordon E. Moore Medal, to recognize early career success in innovation in the chemical industries.[57][58]
Moore was awarded the UCSF medal in 2016.[59]