Gordon Moore To Receive IEEE Medal Of Honor

On Sep. 20, 2008, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) will stage its prestigious annual Honors Ceremony. Most notable among the award recipients is Intel co-founder Gordon Moore.

According to the IEEE press release, Moore is receiving the IEEE Medal of Honor "for pioneering technical roles in integrated-circuit processing, and leadership in the development of MOS memory, the microprocessor computer and the semiconductor industry." The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition that an individual can receive from the institute, which is given for an outstanding contribution to, or career in, the IEEE fields of interest.

Gordon Moore is probably best known for his 1965 Electronics Magazine publication "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits," where he detailed his original observation that the number of components that can be fit on an integrated circuit at minimum cost per component doubled every year. Dubbed "Moore’s Law" by Dr. Carver Mead at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), this observation was refined in 1975 so that the law stated that the number of components doubled every two years.

Misconception ensued when a former workmate stated that computer performance would double every 18 months, because the transistors were becoming faster. This is sometimes confused with Moore’s law, however, as Moore explained in an interview transcript (PDF warning) published on the Intel website in 2005, he never mentioned an 18 month time period in his observations.

Other notable events with which Moore was involved include co-founding the largest semiconductor company in the world, Intel, of which he is now Chairman Emeritus. Moore and his wife also donated $600 million to Caltech in 2001 for research funding and a further $200 million in 2007 to Caltech and the University of California to build the world’s largest optical telescope.