Semiconductor maker Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who created a theory about the technological evolution of computer chips, died Friday at age 94, his former company said.
In 1968, the doctor of chemistry founded NM Electronics with the physicist Robert Noyce, nicknamed “Mayor of Silicon Valley” (Mayor of Silicon Valley).
A few months later, the two men purchased the Intel name for $15,000.
Gordon Moore was the CEO of the company from 1979 to 1987.
In 1971, Intel commercialized the first microprocessor, a programmable processor that contained several thousand transistors, quite a revolution.
Today, Intel is the largest semiconductor maker in the United States and the third largest in the world by revenue, behind South Korea’s Samsung and Taiwan’s TSMC.
In 1965, while working for another company, Fairchild Semiconductor, Gordon Moore predicted in an article in Electronics magazine that the density of transistors in microprocessors would double every year.
He modified the projection in 1975 to a doubling every two years. Another microprocessor pioneer, Carver Mead, called this prophecy Moore’s Law.
The evolution of microprocessor capabilities followed Moore’s Law for decades, multiplying the performance of electronics and computing while reducing their costs.
“The world has lost a giant, one of the founders of Silicon Valley and a true visionary who paved the way for the technological revolution,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote on Twitter.
Experts predict that Moore’s Law will soon cease to apply due to the physical limits of integrating transistors into a microprocessor.
Source: TSF
