Interview: Gordon E. Moore

SEMI (the semiconductor manufacturing equipment trade group) reports: "Gordon Moore is the retired chairman and CEO of Intel Corporation, which he co-founded in 1968. He became president and CEO of Intel in 1975 and held that post until elected chairman and CEO in 1979. Moore remained CEO until 1987 and was named chairman emeritus in 1997. Prior to Intel, Moore co-founded of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and had started his career in the semiconductor industry at Shockley Labs in 1956. Moore is widely known for “Moore’s Law,” a 1965 prediction that the number of components on a computer chip would double every year. Moore earned a bachelor’s in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1950 and a Ph.D. in chemistry and physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1954. He received the National Medal of Technology in 1990 and the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, from George W. Bush in 2002."

This interview is part of an on-going oral history project at SEMI. If you would like to learn about early semiconductor history, you might enjoy reading this.