Intel and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced on March 24, 2023, that company co-founder Gordon Moore passed away at the age of 94.
The foundation reported he died peacefully surrounded by family at his home in Hawaii.
Moore and his longtime colleague Robert Noyce founded Intel in July 1968. Moore initially served as executive vice president until 1975, when he became president. In 1979, Moore was named chairman of the board and chief executive officer, posts he held until 1987, when he gave up the CEO position and continued as chairman. In 1997, Moore became chairman emeritus, stepping down in 2006.
While Noyce, nicknamed the “Mayor of Silicon Valley,” is often credited with setting Intel’s early vision and much of its culture, Moore was the technology wizard who guided Intel’s early lead in silicon memory, the invention of the microprocessor, and the company’s shift from memory to microprocessors in the mid-1980s.
More than 50 years after Gordon Moore and Robert N. Noyce found success as co-founders of Intel Corporation, Cal Poly will now have the opportunity to provide faculty and students with resources for teaching and applied research after receiving a generous gift from the Robert N. Noyce Trust for the creation of The Noyce School of Applied Computing.
In the public eye, Moore is best known for Moore’s Law, the 1965 prediction that the number of transistors in a circuit would double every year. In 1975, Moore revised it to every two years, and it has since become shorthand for rapid technological change.
“It is because of the success Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce found through Intel, and their loyal focus on philanthropy, that generations of Cal Poly students will benefit through the interdisciplinary opportunities in The Noyce School of Applied Computing,” said Chris Lupo, founding director of the school. “I am grateful for the legacy Gordon is leaving.”
Learn more about Moore’s incredible impact at the Intel Newsroom.
Learn more about The Noyce School of Applied Computing.
