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

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

Arnold Thackray, David Brock, and Rachel Jones. Basic, $35 (480p) ISBN 978-0-465-05564-7

Three writers%E2%80%94Thackray, CEO of the Chemical Heritage Foundation; Brock, a leading electronics expert; and Jones, a British journalist%E2%80%94closely examine the professional and private lives of Gordon Moore, a noted electrical engineer and entrepreneur who helped usher in the Information Age but whose name is rarely heard today. Following Moore's studies at Caltech in 1954, he was recruited by Nobel Prize winner William Shockley to work in his semiconductor research laboratory. Originally impressed by Shockley's methods, Moore later broke away from the bitter squabbles of the lab and resigned with several staff members to start a semiconductor division of military contractor Fairchild, developing a batch process capable of producing multiple transistors from a single silicon wafer. He developed "Moore's Law," describing the rapid pace of transistor miniaturization, while working at Fairchild. In 1968 Moore co-founded the groundbreaking microchip company Intel Corporation. Thackray, Brock, and Jones run through Moore's multifaceted life with a refreshing lack of tech talk or science jargon, revealing a man who realized his dreams while maintaining a stable, affirming personal life. Agent: Melissa Chinchillo, Fletcher & Company. (May)