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Intel offers $10,000 for Moore's Law article
Firm seeks pristine copy of founder's prescient words
Intel Corp. lives by Moore's Law, but it apparently doesn't have a copy of
the magazine in which the law was first laid down. The Santa Clara chip giant
has posted a $10,000 bounty on eBay for someone who can provide a pristine April
19, 1965, copy of Electronics magazine. That issue of the magazine contained
an article by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that described how the number of
components on integrated circuits was doubling every year. The article became
the foundation for his famed dictum. "We have photocopies of the article but
not the actual issue of the magazine," an Intel spokesman said. "Gordon
doesn't
have it and the Intel Museum doesn't either." Electronics magazine went out of
business several years ago. Intel turned to the online auction site on
Monday, posting a message on eBay's Want It Now page offering $10,000 for a copy of
the magazine in mint condition. (The company may buy more than one copy but at
a lower price. Intel employees and their families are ineligible.) Moore's
Law -- which has since been revised to estimate that the number of transistors
doubles every 18 months -- has been the cornerstone for the information
technology industry for decades as it has defined how products can simultaneously
drop in price while improving in performance. This has created a situation in
which users upgrade well before their equipment breaks, a boon for the industry.
Despite its historical significance, the article at the time wasn't considered
a monument. "I didn't think it would be especially accurate," Moore said in
a
recent interview. Moore, 76, was born in San Francisco and received a
bachelor's degree in chemistry from UC Berkeley. He was research director at the
Fairchild Semiconductor division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. when he
wrote the Electronics magazine article in 1965, and in 1968 he co-founded
Intel. Chronicle staff contributed to this report. Page D - 1
URL:
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