The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has announced the death of its co-founder, Gordon Moore, at the age of 94.

Born in San Francisco in 1929, Moore had a passion for the natural world, science, and experimentation from an early age. He and his wife, Betty, were married in 1950, the same year he earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley; he later earned a PhD in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology.

In 1956, Moore joined William Shockley, a co-inventor of the transistor, to work at a West Coast division of Bell Laboratories, a start-up unit whose aim was to make a cheap silicon transistor. In 1957, Moore and seven of his colleagues formed Fairchild Semiconductor, where, at the helm of research and development, he helped create and manufacture silicon transistors and eventually the world’s first microchip. In 1968, he helped establish what later was known as Intel, where he became president and CEO in 1975. Four years later, he was elected chairman and chief executive, became chairman emeritus in 1997, and retired in 2006.

In a 1965 Electronics magazine article on the future of electronics, Moore predicted that transistors’ cost would decrease at an exponential rate as the number on each silicon chip doubled annually. “I never expected my extrapolation to be very precise,” he said later. In 1975, Moore updated his prediction, which became known as “Moore’s Law,” anticipating that the doubling would happen every two years for the coming decade, and by 2015, Intel estimated that the pace of innovation engendered by Moore’s Law had ushered in some $3 trillion in additional value to the U.S. gross domestic product over the prior 20 years.

Moore received the National Medal of Technology from President George H.W. Bush in 1990, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in 2002. He and Betty signed the Giving Pledge in 2012.

In 2000, he and his wife created the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation “to create positive outcomes for future generations,” and in a Statement of Founders’ Intent, written in 2015, he wrote “Betty and I established the foundation because we believe it can make a significant and positive impact in the world. We want the foundation to tackle large, important issues at a scale where it can achieve significant and measurable impacts.”

(Photo credit: Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation)