Robert Noyce
Co-founder (former CEO, deceased)
Earned a Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1953. Joined Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1956 and was among the 'traitorous eight' engineers who left to co-found Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. At Fairchild, Noyce independently invented the monolithic integrated circuit in 1959 — a breakthrough parallel to Jack Kilby's at Texas Instruments — enabling circuits to be fabricated on a single silicon chip rather than assembled from discrete components. Co-founded Intel with Gordon Moore in 1968 and served as Intel's first CEO until 1975. Intel's subsequent invention of the microprocessor and development of DRAM established the modern semiconductor industry.
