Noyce was born in
Burlington, Iowa to Ralf and Harriet Noyce. He graduated with a BA in
physics from
Grinnell College in
1949 and a Ph.D. in physics from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
1953.
While a student at
Grinnell College, Noyce stole a
pig from a nearby farmer for a college
luau and then slaughtered it in Clark Hall. Confessing to the prank and offering to pay for the pig nearly earned him expulsion, if not for the intervention of
Grant O. Gale, a physics professor at the time.
He joined
William Shockley at the
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory division of
Beckman Instruments, but left with the "
Traitorous Eight" to create the influential
Fairchild Semiconductor corporation.
Robert Noyce and
Gordon E. Moore (a chemist and physicist) founded Intel in 1968 when they left Fairchild Semiconductor. It is widely known that Noyce was disliked by one-time
Intel CEO Andy Grove, who became the company's president in 1979. Grove is notorious for his directness in finding fault. He thought Noyce's "nice guy" attitude irritating and felt it was ineffectual.
Intel's headquarters building, the
Robert Noyce Building, in
Santa Clara, California is named in his honor, as is the Robert N. Noyce '49 Science Center, which houses the science division of
Grinnell College, as is the conference room of the
Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico .
Noyce was awarded the
IEEE Medal of Honor in
1978 "for his contributions to the silicon integrated circuit, a cornerstone of modern electronics."
In his last interview , Noyce was asked what he would do if
he were “emperor” of the United States. He said that he would, among
other things, “make sure we are preparing our next generation to flourish
in a high-tech age. And that means education of the lowest and the poorest,
as well as at the graduate school level.”
Noyce died from
heart failure in
1990, aged 62.
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