The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley

by Leslie Berlin

In one of the more shocking reversals, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove recommended to the Intel board of directors that the company leave the DRAM memory business altogether in 1985. A DRAM memory—the 1103—had been Intel’s first best-selling product. DRAMs had brought the firm from a two-man startup to the Fortune 500. But now the product line was acting as a net drain on profits from other areas of Intel’s business, particularly microprocessors, because Intel had to price the memories so cheaply. Andy Grove recalls “going to see Gordon [Moore] and asking him what a new management would do if we were replaced. The answer was clear: get out of DRAMs. So, I suggested to Gordon that we go through the revolving door, come back in, and just do it ourselves.”18