Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore founded Intel in 1968, making that the company's starting year in Silicon Valley's semiconductor culture.
Noyce and Moore left Fairchild Semiconductor and established the company originally named N M Electronics. Soon afterward, the business adopted the name Intel, derived from “integrated electronics.” Arthur Rock was an early investor and helped arrange financing for the new company. Intel first focused on semiconductor memory before becoming especially famous for microprocessors.
Intel's history is closely connected to Silicon Valley's culture of employee mobility and startup formation. Fairchild Semiconductor had already created a major engineering and management network, and several former employees later founded or joined influential companies. Gordon Moore also became known for Moore's law, his 1965 observation about the pace of integrated-circuit development. The company was not founded by Steve Jobs, despite Intel's later importance to many Apple computers.