Intel Co-founder Moore Looks Back on a Legendary IT Career

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Intel co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Gordon E. Moore was a 30-year-old executive at Fairchild Camera & Instrument back in January 1959 when the theory behind the silicon integrated processor was published by colleague Robert Noyce.

Since that Eisenhower administration year, information technology has evolved a hundredfold. And much of that development is due to the successful implementation of squeezing down transistors, resistors and other elements into smaller and smaller processor forms onto silicon wafers.

Resource Library:

Dr. Moore, 80, and another Fairchild co-founder, Dr. Jay Last, have survived all these years to witness how the fruits of their development of the silicon-based processor have served mankind.

On May 8, both Moore and Last were honored at the 50th anniversary celebration of the same integrated chip that Noyce envisioned so long ago. The event was held at the Computer History Museum here before a standing-room-only crowd.

Moore, visiting with a small group of reporters before the evening's presentation, said that he had no way of knowing that what his company was working on back in the 1960s would turn out to be such an important development in the history of the world's business and communications.

"All you're thinking about at the time is the next product you're coming out with. You of course have no idea about how it's going to affect your customers, let alone the world!" Moore, who appears to be in excellent health, said.