Moore's Law: The Life of Gordon Moore, Silicon Valley's Quiet Revolutionary

This is a very detailed book explaining Gordon Moore's contributions to integrated electronics. It is well written and covers much of the early history of the Semiconductor Industry. As I am a career semiconductor designer who has known who Gordon Moore was since the 1970s I found this book very interesting and it explained quite a bit of things I did not know about. Moore was the most reticent of the Intel founders and generally much less has really been known about him than his more outgoing co-founders Andy Grove and Robert Noyce. The book begins with an extensive section explaining the earlier history of the Moore Family going back to 1845. This shows that the Moore family has been in California since before the Gold rush, and it traces where the family began (the Santa Cruz area) and how they evolved to the small Hamlet of Pescadero. I've been to Pescadero (population 400) and have always been amazed that the founder of Intel hailed from such a hamlet. The book shows where Gordon's interest in Chemistry came from, a neighbor who taught him some pyrotechnics with a chemistry set, and shows how this lead to his academic training in Chemistry at Berkeley and Caltech. The book also shows how he came to get involved with William Shockley and why Shockley was looking for chemists. I found the section on his 18 months with Shockley to be one of the most interesting sections of the book. Much has been written about this period but this is the most detailed account of what was going on inside that organization I have ever seen and I've read several other accounts. This one is by far the most explanatory. There is also a very interesting section on the founding of Fairchild semiconductor, the first really successful silicon valley startup in the chip industry and one which generated dozens of break away companies, due to a great extent to the Fairchild senior management back east's refusal to sanction stock options. Fairchild became a very disorganized company and it is explained here how much of that developed, via great turnover and very rapid growth. The reasons for Noyce and Moore's exit is well explained. There are a number of details in here that are new to me, for example I did not realize that Sherman Fairchild was chairman of the Board of IBM and their largest shareholder. The book then moves on to describe the rise of Intel from startup to Juggernaut. The internal dynamics of the leading trioka Moore, Noyce and Grove is very well explained. Andy Grove is explained to have been Gordon's "enforcer" and the dynamics of this group are very well explained. The details of their struggle to make the first dynamic Ram yield are extensively described and the strategy for why this product was the focus is also explained. New devices are also discussed such as the Non volatile memory. The struggles with certain product prices and yield issues is well explained. The naivete of the management in some forays into consumer products such as electronic watches is also described. This book is very detailed and really not that difficult of a read. There is really great information about the Shockley Lab, the early days of Fairchild and the development of Intel in here. There have been other books that cover some of these subjects such as the excellent book by Leslie Berlin on Robert Noyce, but that book has the limitation that it was written after Noyce's death and so it did not have the benefit of the core information coming from interviews with the central subject This book has that advantage as clearly Gordon Moore was extensively interviewed.This is an invaluable addition to the early history of the semiconductor industry and fills in a number of gaps in what has been previously published.

“Moore’s Law” by Thackray, Brock, and Jones, Basic Books is an authorized biography without the right of review or oversight. Thackray offers numerous details of Moore's management actions leading to technological breakthroughs, which many will find interesting. More significant though were Moore's technical hints and decisions and encouragement of others credited with creating major breakthroughs in semiconductor manufacturing, processes, and products which became entire industries. Moore did much more than any of us recognize or appreciate, and this work is a major step in correcting this oversight. As the world we live in stands on the benefits of Moore’s Law applied, Thackray gives the credit to Gordon, his ability and personality and leadership. It is fitting that Gordon’s biography follows those of many others and “inventors” within the semiconductor industry, as this book is an illumination of the one who eschewed the limelight and the spotlight, but perhaps more than anyone we know, was the shoulders upon which the “giants” stood. This book will be considered to be a masterpiece about a master.

I was thinking this was a book just about Gordon Moore but it provides a much broader story about the history of his ancestors, his child hood including his discovery of chemistry, his passion for chemistry, and how that drove his work at Shockley, Fairchild, and his drive for continuous improvement at Intel. I have read the stories of Robert Noyce and Andy Grove but I think I enjoyed this book even more than those.

Moore's law is an integral part of computer science and the tech industry in general. The author started at the movement of the Moore family to California during the gold rush and ended with asking about the possible end of Moore's law today. That's a REALLY big time frame which took me a REALLY long time to read. Gordon Moore has a big influence on our lives which may excuse the length of the book, but wow did it feel like a long read.

I always wanted to know what role Gordon Moore played next to Robert Noyce. This book clearly answers this. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of the semiconductor industry.

loved every page

Excellent current history--very deeply researched with a richly textured portrait of Gordon Moore and his colleagues, family and his place in the world of Silicon Valley.

Too much family background

Came in a very good condition , the book had no scratches no dents