SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Intel Corp. co-founder Gordon Moore here on Thursday officially retired and stepped down from the company's board. The semiconductor legend will continue to serve as chairman emeritus and director emeritus for Santa Clara-based Intel.
Speaking to reporters after Intel's annual shareholders meeting on Thursday, Moore said he has no plans to slow down after a long and brilliant career in the semiconductor industry.
Moore recently formed a non-profit foundation that will fund companies in the biotechnology, education, electronics and related fields. He will continue to attend Intel's board meetings, but will not have a voting role in the company.
Still, the chip executive leaves a strong legacy. He is widely known for devising one of the guiding principles in the semiconductor industry. Known as "Moore's Law," the axiom predicts that the number of transistors in a processor would double every 18 months or so.
Moore, Andrew Grove, and Robert Noyce also founded Intel on July 18, 1968. The three executives formed Intel shortly after leaving Fairchild Semiconductor. Noyce, the co-inventor of the semiconductor, died of a heart attack in 1990. Grove is currently the chairman of Intel.
In 1968, Moore served as executive vice president at Intel. He became president and CEO in 1975, and held that post until elected chairman and CEO in 1979. He remained CEO until 1987 and was named chairman emeritus in 1997.
After the shareholders event, Moore fielded questions from reporters in a staged setting. When asked about the future of the computer and semiconductor industries, Moore hinted that "Moore's Law" is still alive and well.
Looking into his crystal ball, Moore predicted that critical applications like DNA research, voice and language recognition, and others will require processors running at speeds of 10-GHz and beyond, which may appear by the end of the decade.
"Those applications will dramatically change the way that computer are used," Moore said. "There are a lot of applications that will benefit from higher-performance computers," he added.
Until those applications appear, the computer will fundamentally remain the same. "I think we see more of the same," he said.
In fact, the chip executive said he even gets frustrated with current state of the PC architecture. "Sure, I get frustrated," he said. "I get frustrated every time my computer crashes."
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