Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel and the engineer behind Moore's Law, died on 24 March 2023 at his home in Hawaii, aged 94. Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced his death the same day. His 1965 prediction about how fast chip complexity would grow became the planning rhythm of the whole semiconductor industry for more than half a century.
This post was written on 25 March 2023, the day after the announcement, and is kept as a dated tribute. It sets out who he was, what Moore's Law actually said, and why it still matters to people who design chips.
Key takeaways
- Gordon Moore (1929 to 2023) co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968, both with Robert Noyce.
- Moore's Law began as an observation in a 1965 magazine article: the number of components on an integrated circuit was doubling every year. In 1975 he revised the rate to about every two years.
- It was never a law of physics. It was an economic forecast that the industry turned into a target and a roadmap.
- With his wife Betty he founded the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in 2000, which reported more than $5.1 billion in giving by 2023.
Who was Gordon Moore?
Gordon Moore's contributions to technology were immense, from co-founding Intel Corporation to formulating Moore's Law, which drove the exponential growth of computing power over the last several decades. He was a trailblazer whose legacy will be felt for generations to come.
He trained as a chemist, not an electrical engineer, earning a PhD in chemistry and physics from Caltech. That background mattered: much of the early progress in silicon came from process chemistry, diffusion and photolithography, the areas where he worked.
From Shockley to Fairchild to Intel
Before Intel, Moore and Robert Noyce worked under William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor and founder of Shockley Semiconductor, the first semiconductor company in what would become Silicon Valley. In 1957 they were among the eight engineers who left to found Fairchild Semiconductor, where they played central roles in the first commercial production of diffused silicon transistors and later the world's first commercially viable integrated circuits.
In July 1968 Moore and Noyce left Fairchild to start Intel, with Andy Grove joining soon after. Moore later served as Intel's chief executive from 1975 to 1987 and as chairman until 1997.
What Moore's Law actually says
Moore's Law comes from an article Moore wrote for Electronics magazine, published on 19 April 1965 under the title "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits". Looking at a handful of data points, he observed that the number of components on the most cost-effective chip had roughly doubled every year, and he projected that trend for another ten years.
In 1975 he revised the forecast to a doubling about every two years, and that is the version most people quote today. The original post said the law also states that the cost of computers is halved. That is a common paraphrase rather than what Moore wrote: his point was about the number of components at the lowest cost per component. Falling cost per transistor was the economic result, and the reason the trend was worth chasing.
A worked example of the doubling
Doubling every two years compounds quickly. Starting from an illustrative chip with 2,300 transistors (the commonly cited count for Intel's 4004 of 1971), fifty years of doubling every two years gives:
- 25 doublings in 50 years
- 225 is about 33.5 million
- 2,300 x 33.5 million is roughly 77 billion transistors
That is the same order of magnitude as the largest processors and GPUs shipping around 2021 to 2023, which is why the law held up as a rough guide for so long. The calculation is illustrative and ignores the faster early years and the slowdown in recent nodes.
Why it mattered so much
The law became a shared schedule. Process engineers, equipment makers, EDA vendors and chip architects all planned around the next node arriving on time. Smaller transistors meant more logic per chip and, for decades, lower cost and lower power per function, leading to smaller and more powerful devices from smartphones to supercomputers. It spurred competition among manufacturers to build faster, smaller and more efficient chips.
Today scaling is slower and more expensive, and much of the progress comes from new transistor structures, advanced packaging and chiplets rather than shrinking alone. The question the law posed, how to fit more useful function into each square millimetre for less money, is still the one the industry works on.
Philanthropy
During his lifetime Moore also dedicated his focus and energy to philanthropy, particularly environmental conservation, science and improvements in patient care. With Betty, his wife of 72 years, he established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which had donated more than $5.1 billion to charitable causes since its founding in 2000, as reported at the time of his death.
Tributes
"Though he never aspired to be a household name, Gordon's vision and his life's work enabled the phenomenal innovation and technological developments that shape our everyday lives," said foundation president Harvey Fineberg. "Yet those historic achievements are only part of his legacy. His and Betty's generosity as philanthropists will shape the world for generations to come."
Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO at the time, said: "Gordon Moore defined the technology industry through his insight and vision. He was instrumental in revealing the power of transistors, and inspired technologists and entrepreneurs across the decades. We at Intel remain inspired by Moore's Law and intend to pursue it until the periodic table is exhausted."
His legacy for chip designers
Intel's co-founding led to numerous breakthroughs in microchip design and manufacturing, making computing more accessible and affordable around the world. More than 50 years later, the semiconductor industry remains inspired by his work. For anyone in RTL, verification, physical design or process, the budgets we work to, the gate counts, the power targets and the schedules, all trace back to the expectation he set in 1965.
FAQ
When did Gordon Moore die?
He died on 24 March 2023 at his home in Hawaii, aged 94.
Is Moore's Law about speed?
No. It is about the number of components on a chip. Clock speed rose alongside it for many years, but that was a separate effect and it largely stopped in the mid-2000s because of power limits.
Did Moore's Law say every 18 months?
Moore said every year in 1965 and every two years in 1975. The 18-month figure is often attributed to others at Intel and usually refers to performance rather than component count.
Is Moore's Law dead?
Transistor density still rises, but more slowly and at higher cost per wafer. Many in the industry describe it as slowing rather than ended, with packaging and chiplets carrying part of the progress.
It is hard to lose someone who made such a significant impact on the world, but Gordon Moore's contributions will continue to shape the future of technology for years to come. May he rest in peace.
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