On Sept. 14, Gordon Moore, Ph.D., accepted the 2006 Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest at the Potiker Theatre, part of La Jolla Playhouse on the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus. Following a short presentation by Charles Kennel, former director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD Chancellor Mary Anne Fox and Tony Haymet, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Nico Nierenberg introduced the award-winner and his talk, “Behind the Ubiquitous Microchip.”
This award was named for William Nierenberg, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1965 to 1986. Among other achievements, Nierenberg was known for his expertise in fields of underwater warfare, particularly low-energy nuclear physics. His vision was that this award be given to “luminaries that helped bring science adventure and the excitement of science into the public interest,” Fox said in her introductory remarks.
Moore was chosen for his multidimensional contributions to the semiconductor industry and the impact of these contributions on society. Nico Nierenberg, son of William Nierenberg, described Moore as a scientist, engineer, inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. After Moore finished his doctorate at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), he became part of a team that developed the first practical integrated circuit. Then, under his leadership at Intel Corporation, the first microprocessor was developed.
“Our lives would be very different and much less rich and rewarding without them,” Nico Nierenberg said in his speech.
In addition to accelerating the pace at which science is done, these microprocessors are the basis of the Internet. The Internet allows scientists to share information and collaborate in a way that was previously impossible, since it enables peers to work together at any distance.
“So it doesn’t have to be the guy next door anymore ” it can be the guy across the world,” Nico Nierenberg said.
Moore founded both Fairchild Semiconductor ” the genesis of the Silicon Valley ” and Intel Corporation. At Intel, he served as executive vice president and then as chief executive officer for 12 years.
Moore’s law is probably his most famous achievement to the public. This law predicted that the capability of the integrated circuit at a given cost would double every year. However, as the defects of the circuits were eliminated, the wasted space diminished and the process slowed slightly. In 1975, Moore redefined the law to state that the capability would double every two years. This prediction holds true today ” a remarkable forecast to make back then, according to Nico Nierenberg.
Upon his appointment as chairman emeritus at Intel, Moore decided to focus on philanthropy. Among other substantial gifts, he gave $600 million to Caltech and established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, worth $5 billion. Moore is the recipient of many prestigious awards and medals, including the national medal of technology, 1990, awarded by President George H. W. Bush.
Fox, Kennel, Haymet and Nico Nierenberg presented Moore with the award, a plaque with a golden ornament and a check for $25,000. Then Moore took the podium to deliver his victory speech.
“I’d like to explain what makes the industry tick,” he said in one of his introductory statements.
He quipped, “Twenty to 30 percent decrease in price per year is what we call constant pricing,” referring to the trend in electronics prices over the years.
“Integrated circuits/microchips have permeated all walks of life ” computers, cell phones, automobiles, appliances and even implants for identification in household pets ” [they are] changing the way we do things,” he said.
To begin his explanation of the evolution of the microprocessor, Moore started with an explanation of the first planar transistor. With his overhead slides, he showed increasingly shrinking dimensions of the parts that make up what we now know as a microprocessor. The inch-long “wafers” (made of many connected transistors) of the 1960s are now only 300 millimeters thick and allow engineers to continue to make bigger and bigger chips at a lower and lower cost. The wafers are made by layering silicon. A silicon layer “sliced out of a single crystal like slices of pepperoni to go on a pizza” is polished and then subject to processing that places impurities on the silicon in a pattern. The basic technology that allows this to occur is called lithography. This layering process with silicon and impurities builds up a complex three-dimensional structure of several different materials.
To develop this technology further, a longtime friend of Moore’s figured out a way to eliminate some of the processing to make the system more efficient. This process refinement made the first integrated circuit. Modern chips are now above one billion transistors per chip ” a size that truly attests to the changes this industry has seen over the last 50 years.
Current challenges involve how to connect one billion transistors into a useful structure. Increasingly, interconnections have become the new focus of the industry.
“So, what we have here is a very sophisticated technology that is still rapidly evolving “¦ This is the basic technology of the information age, and it still has quite a way to go,” Moore stated to conclude his speech.