Gordon Moore: How I came up with the Law

What are you thoughts on nanotechnology?
I'm a sceptic when it comes to ideas about nanotechnology replacing the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit technology is the result of an accumulated research and development budget of well over $100bn. Nanotechnology is a broad field with many applications but I am sceptical whether it will replace the more standard silicon technology. There is a huge difference between making one tiny transistor and connecting a billion of them to do something useful.

What do you think will happen in the next 40 years?
I think the technologies that will develop in that period will be mind-boggling. You just have to look back at how things were in the mid-60s and compare with today to get some idea. I don't think anything will be slowing down in that time period.

I re-read my 1965 article a year or so ago and in it I predicted home computers, but had no idea what they would look like. When I was chief executive at Intel I remember one engineer coming along saying we could build home computer. I said gee that's nice but what would you use it for? All he could think of was housewives putting recipes on it, which I didn't see at the time as reason enough to do it.

What is your take on computer interfaces?
I would like a much simpler interface though don't know what it would look like. The capability of computers keeps growing and the number of applications running keeps increasing. The people building the interface keep growing the complexity of that. It's not for lack of effort but the software people are losing ground

Is the race between chip makers to compete on speeds constructive?
I'm sure we have much more capable chips today because of the competition than we would have had if there had only been one company working on them all this time. Competition over all is very effective for making progress rapid.

Intel is now headed for the first time by a man without a PhD. Will that change the company?
No. I have often quipped about Andy Grove when he became a management guru that he had finally gotten over his PhD. Paul Otellini — I've been mispronouncing his name for 30 years I found out recently — has really got into the technology. You do pick up a lot through osmosis.

How close is Intel to device yields of 100 percent?
We have got amazingly close to 100 percent yields. I have a wafer in my cubicle at Intel that is labelled as Intel's first 100 percent wafer. Yields, which were a tremendous problem in the early days, is something that has become fairly tractable now.