Silicon Valley's woes will continue for some time, Moore predicted. "It is absolutely true that the telecom business right now is just flat on its tail...We haven't seen a large resurgence in PCs either," Moore said. The Presidential Medal of Freedom wasn't Moore's first White House ceremony. Twelve years ago, he received the National Medal of Technology from the first President Bush. "Same room, different Bush," Moore quipped. Moore founded Intel with Robert Noyce in 1968 and served as its chief executive from 1975 to 1987. Since 1997, he has served as Chairman Emeritus of the company. While working for Fairchild Semiconductor in 1965, he coined the now famous Moore's Law as he was preparing an article for Electronics magazine. At that time, the law stated that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every year. In 1975, he amended it to say it doubles every two years. But not all of Moore's thoughts on technology have been as on the mark. "If you asked me in 1980, I would have missed the PC. I didn't see much future for it," Moore said last August at a party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the PC. "I thought automobiles would be a bigger market (for microprocessors). But the IBM PC kind of hit it off with the public." Moore didn't buy a home PC until the 386 processor came out, toward the late 1980s, he said.
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