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“ANYTHING BUT MOORE’S LAW”: Semiconductor pioneer Gordon E. Moore hopes his philanthropic work will have an enduring impact.

Gordon E. Moore, cofounder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corp., the world’s 288th ­richest man, and the eponymous soothsayer of one of ­technology’s most famous “laws,” sits across from me, eating a turkey sandwich.

He’s been interviewed hundreds, maybe ­thousands of times by the likes of me. So I’m kind of at a loss for questions that won’t bore him. “What would you like your legacy to the world to be?” I finally ask.

“Anything,” he says, shaking his head ruefully, “but Moore’s Law.”

I don’t have the heart to tell him how unlikely that’s going to be. People who couldn’t tell you exactly what DRAM does have heard of Moore’s Law.

Moore was a 36-year-old research physicist at Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. when he wrote his famous forecast, in the 35th anniversary issue of Electronics magazine. He predicted that the number of transistors manufacturers would be able to put on a chip would double every year. At the time, a state-of-the-art chip had about 50 transistors. In 1975, Moore revised the doubling period to two years, thinking that the pattern would last at most a decade longer. To his surprise, it still holds true today, as a new Intel chip, code-named Tukwila, hits the market with 2 billion transistors.

He’s not entirely averse to the renown the brash prediction has conferred, mind you. “I have to admit,” he says with a sheepish grin, “a while back I Googled Murphy’s Law and Moore’s Law, and Moore’s has twice as many references as Murphy’s.”

Nevertheless, he’d prefer to be remembered as one of the people who started the semiconductor industry, a niche business when he got involved, now generating some US $300 billion in annual sales worldwide. There’s no disputing his important roles. He helped develop early silicon transistors at Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, cofounded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, leading the team that produced the first high-­frequency silicon transistor, supervised the development of the metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) process, and created Intel in 1968 with Robert Noyce, building it into an empire with profits of $7 billion a year by the time he retired.

He also helped train an entire cadre of people now running vast parts of the industry. “Gordon was the only boss I ever had,” says Andy Grove, to whom Moore turned over Intel’s chairmanship in 1997. “He’s one of the very few people who shaped my knowledge and understanding and approach as a scientist and a manager. Without Gordon, I would not be me.”

It’s for all those accomplishments, and more, that he’s receiving this year’s IEEE Medal of Honor.

But since his retirement from a day-to-day role at Intel, he has been spending his billions in a carefully crafted program of technology- and science-­oriented philanthropy that is creating a legacy of its own. As he did half a century ago in ­electronics, Moore is focusing on big problems. Through the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, he and his wife of 57 years are trying to preserve the world’s bio­diversity, reinvent engineering education, and uncover the secrets of the galaxies.

“When history looks back,” says his son Kenneth, “my dad’s most important legacy will probably be the foundation. Because while Fairchild and Intel were exceptional companies and important for their time, the foundation may be what really helps the world.”

Moore didn’t select the foundation’s goals haphazardly. He famously calls himself an “accidental entrepreneur,” explaining that, had he not been repulsed by William Shockley’s abrasive behavior, he would have remained contentedly in the laboratories of Shockley Semiconductor instead of plunging into the stress and risk of managing the start-up Fairchild. Moore’s steps into philanthropy, however, have been far more deliberately planned and tie into deep passions.