Moore’s Law

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This is a great biography of Gordon Moore and explanation of how Moore’s Law really worked. Below are my highlights from the book.

Chapter 1: The Moores of Pescadero

They simply did not know what to do with complex feelings, turning instead to physical pursuits. p. 24

When there language for dealing with grief and strong emotions, things may come out sideways or turn inward, to great advantage or to great cost. p. 25

Self-containment was all, but the corollary was an inability to openly connect with others on the plane of feeling. p. 26

Charles Jones described people who have lived in Pescadero all their lives in his book A Separate Place (1974). “They don’t need change for the sake of change. That is not their character. They are not for or against change; they are simply indifferent to it.” p. 32

Indeed, Gordon’s eventual life as the silicon revolution’s most important thinker and critical entrepreneur echoed the pioneer creed: “Do not follow where the paths may lead, but rather lead where there is no path, and leave a trail for others.” p. 33

Chapter 2: The Chemistry of Romance

This was classic Gordon: quiet assurance, a dash of humor, then a big bang. p. 57

“Most people who knew me then would have described me as quiet, except for the bombs.” p. 57

Chapter 3: Chemical Apprentice

His deep-rooted pattern of avoidant behavior loaded the decision with tension, uncertainty, and internal conflict. p. 85

Gordon’s sequence of behavior – procrastination, a low-key proposal, no engagement ring, ducking the wedding preparations, and being unavailable in the run up – display in extreme form certain classic male behaviors and speak volumes of his suppressed anxieties and need for control. p. 86

“Long aware that “Gordon never gets very emotional,” late in life [Betty] reflected that “Gordon doesn’t even like to go to movies, because he doesn’t like human emotions.” p. 108

“Other people hoot and holler when they’re happy; that’s not us. We don’t show much emotion overall, especially my father [Gordon].” p. 109

“I spent most of my time in the subbasement, churning out data.” This was where happiness lay. He was tackling fresh problems and generating publications. He desired to achieve the goal of scientific work – original publication – as quickly and efficiently as possible. He drove himself hard. p. 112

Chapter 4: Science, Shockley, and Silicon

True success came from finding genus and letting it run. p. 139

Chapter 5: Launch

“During the preliminary banter before the presentation began, I discovered that they had omitted the percentage sign in the request for proposal. My carefully calculated plan missed their requirements by one hundred times! That was a short presentation.” p. 199

[Bob] Noyce has a brainstorm: why not leave the transistors together in the wafer? p. 201

“He always says he’s worked at least eleven hours a day, day in, day out, for his whole career; it’s true. My father [Gordon Moore] was always working.” p. 211

Chapter 6: Emerging Realities

At the start of the decade [1950], 9 percent of households had a television set. In 1960 87 percent did. That rise was unprecedented. No other electronic technology, prior or since, had achieved as sudden and complete an adoption. p. 234

Chapter 7: The Invention of Intel

“People had been dumping nitric or hydrochloric acid down there for a long time! Nobody had engineered the fact that quantities would increase more than a hundredfold. I’m appalled at some of the things we did in the beginning, as an industry.” p. 284

“If silicon gate had been harder, we m might have run out of money. If much easier, we would have had competition sooner. Luck was extremely important and helped us off to a great start.” p. 315

Chapter 8: The Real Revolutionary

[The EPROM] was itself amazingly profitable. The fact that the two devices “came along the same year” was, says Moore, “marvellous serendipity.” The microprocessor required software customization, and the EPROM provided a way to customize it. p. 353

Chapter 9: The Great Cost-Reduction Machine

Noyce often went out to eat, and Grove bought tomato juice from the vending machine to combine with a container of cottage cheese. p. 391

Chapter 10: Revolution, Sturm Und Drang

Gordon found [Bill] Gates “a very bright guy, but very aggressive, too. We were both used to having our own way, and our objectives were somewhat different. He used to say, ‘You guys cook sand. We’ll do the software.’ He wasn’t an easy person to deal with.” p. 404

“Andy came up with his ‘125 percent solution.’ Everybody should put in 25 percent more effort than they had done previously!” Intel’s professional staff was requested to work ten extra hours per week, with no extra pay. pp. 419–420

Chapter 11: Onward and Outward

The first huge batches of the Pentium contained a “floating point error” that, occasionally, resulted in incorrect mathematical calculations. […] Intel delivered hundreds of thousands of Pentium chips before its own engineers discovered the flaw in May 1994. p. 456

“In semiconductors we never see a price go up; in the drug business, they never see one go down.” p. 466

Remarkably, he [Gordon] was the only one to have donated more to philanthropy than the total of his remaining net worth. p. 474

Gordon, by thinking in broad strategic and quantitative terms, was learning that – in philanthropy at least – no good deed goes unpunished. p. 482

“You buy one, you keep it” is Gordon’s lifelong maxim. p. 488

Coda

As the machine grinds on, and the promise of Moore’s Law begins to dissolve, there is a sense of loss. “This isn’t something that we’re going to just find a way around […]. The old way – the old promise – of a perpetually improving technology stretching into infinity? That’s gone.” p. 508