Archive for Intel

R.I.P. Gordon Moore (1929-2023)

Posted in Open Access, R.I.P., The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on March 25, 2023 by telescoper
Gordon Moore, photographed in 1981. Picture credit: Intel corporation.

I was saddened this morning to see news of the passing of scientist, inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Gordon Moore at the age of 94. Moore was a co-founder in 1968 of semiconductor company Intel, which has an enormous manufacturing facility at Leixlip, just a few miles from Maynooth, which employs almost 5000 people and contributes hugely to the local economy.

Gordon Moore also gave his name to Moore’s Law which relates to the rate of growth of transistors in integrated circuits and hence to the growth of computing power that gave rise to microprocessors, personal computers and supercomputers. I had reason to refer to Moore’s Law on this blog just a couple of days ago.

Moore made a huge personal fortune from business, and in 2000, he and his wife Betty established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, with a gift worth about $5 billion. Through the Foundation, and as individuals, they have funded projects in science in fields as diverse as materials science and physics to genomics, data science and astronomy, in particular they have funded including the Thirty Metre Telescope project.

I have personal reasons for being grateful for the generosity of Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. When we were try to set up the Open Journal of Astrophysics some years ago we were awarded a small grant from them. It wasn’t a large amount of money but it was essential in allowing us to develop the idea into the working journal it is today. The Open Journal of Astrophysics is just one of many projects that would not have been possible without philanthropic giving of this sort.

I send my condolences to Betty (whom he married in 1950) and to the rest of his family, as well as all his friends and colleagues.

Rest in peace Gordon Moore (1929-2023)

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Intel, Leixlip and Maynooth

Posted in Maynooth with tags , , , on March 26, 2021 by telescoper

With all the doom and gloom going around I thought I’d just pass on some local news that’s good for Maynooth!

Intel’s Leixlip campus – the new construction is at the top end of the image, where the cranes are.

The giant multinational silicon chip manufacturer Intel has announced that it will be creating 1600 permanent high-tech jobs when construction is completed at its enormous new campus in Leixlip. Most of these will be graduate jobs and a sizeable fraction will go to physics graduates.  Many of Maynooth’s physics graduates and postgraduates go there already of course, but this will boost their employment prospects even further. Leixlip is on the border between County Dublin and County Kildare, and is just 5 miles away from Maynooth. The construction is expected to be completed by 2023.

Incidentally, `Leixlip’ is a name of Norse origin – it means ‘Salmon’s Leap’. Apparently there was a viking settlement there, positioned because of the abundance of salmon in the River Liffey which flows through on the way to Dublin. `Leix’ is similar to, e.g., the Danish `Laks’, meaning salmon, and ‘leap’ is similar to many words in modern European languages derived from proto-Germanic sources.

Another item of good news came through my door this morning. Preliminary works have started on the extension of the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transport) system to the West of Dublin as far as Maynooth. Currently the DART runs North-South between Malahide and Greystones:

The new DART line to Maynooth will run along the existing commuter route but will use overhead electrification so new structures will have to be built beside the track. The note I received this morning concerns preliminary ground investigations for the design phase. My house is reasonably close to the line, but not close enough for me to be disturbed by the noise from trains or other work. Of course this is all preliminary and it will take several years to complete but it’s good to see it started. When finished it should make it even easier to travel from Maynooth to Dublin and back!

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