Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel and creator of Moore’s Law, has passed away

Gordon Moore passed away at the age of 94. He founded Intel in 1968 with Robert Noyce, where he remained until 2006. He also famously predicted that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every year, also known as Moore’s Law.

Before Gordon Moore started Intel in 1968 and devised Moore’s Law in 1965, he co-founded the semiconductor company Fairchild Semiconductor with seven other former employees of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. That company became a pioneer in the development of integrated circuits and a breeding ground for the emergence of other tech companies, including AMD.

While working for that company, he made a prediction that would come to be known as Moore’s Law. He expected that the number of transistors on chips would double every year. Ten years later, he revised his prediction, making it ‘every two years’. The law endured for decades, although it has been declared dead several times in recent years.

In July 1968, with Fairchild colleague Robert Noyce, he founded the Integrated Electronics Company, Intel for short, to focus on the production of memory for semiconductors. Later the focus shifted to making microprocessors. He served as executive vice president until 1975. That year, Noyce left the company, leaving Moore to become president. He held this position until 1979, when he was named chairman and CEO. Eight years later, he stepped down as CEO, but remained chairman until 1997. He then stepped down as emeritus chairman, a position he held until his retirement in 2006.

According to Intel In recent years, Moore has engaged in philanthropy as president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. This foundation focuses, among other things, on environmental conservation, scientific research and improvements in patient care. The tech pioneer is said to have died peacefully at his home in Hawaii on Friday. A cause of death has not been disclosed.