Elizabeth Noyce (' Bottomley; October 7, 1930 – September 18, 1996) was an American philanthropist, and former wife of

Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument by the " traitorous eight" who defected from Shockley Semi ...

general manager and a founder of

Intel Corporation Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer components such as central processing ...

, Robert Noyce.

Biography

Noyce was born Elizabeth Bottomley in

Auburn, Massachusetts Auburn is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 16,889 at the 2020 census. History The Auburn area was first settled in 1714. On April 10, 1778, parts of Worcester, Sutton, Leicester and Oxford, Massac ...

, United States, the daughter of Frank Bottomley and Helen McLaren. She was a 1951 graduate of

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

, located in the Boston suburb of Medford. In the early 1950s,

Robert Noyce Robert Norton Noyce (December 12, 1927 – June 3, 1990), nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley", was an American physicist and entrepreneur who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel Corporation in 1968. He was also credited w ...

was working on his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

, in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

near Boston. The couple married in 1953, the year Robert received his PhD. Several years later the Noyces moved to California, where

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

William Shockley William Bradford Shockley ( ; February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American solid-state physicist, electrical engineer, and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brat ...

had started

Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, later known as Shockley Transistor Corporation, was a pioneering semiconductor developer founded by William Shockley, and funded by Beckman Instruments, Inc., in 1955. It was the first high technology compan ...

in Mountain View in 1956. Robert was one of the "

traitorous eight The traitorous eight was a group of eight employees who left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1957 to found Fairchild Semiconductor. William Shockley had in 1956 recruited a group of young Ph.D. graduates with the goal to develop and produce ...

" who left Shockley in 1957 and started

. He and

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

Jack Kilby Jack St. Clair Kilby (November 8, 1923 – June 20, 2005) was an American electrical engineer who took part, along with Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor, in the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instrumen ...

are credited with inventing the

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

. In 1968, Noyce and

Gordon Moore Gordon Earle Moore (January 3, 1929 – March 24, 2023) was an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and emeritus chairman of Intel Corporation. He proposed Moore's law which makes the observation that the number of transistors i ...

started

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

in Mountain View. Intel developed the first commercially available

dynamic RAM Dynamics (from Greek δυναμικός ''dynamikos'' "powerful", from δύναμις ''dynamis'' " power") or dynamic may refer to: Physics and engineering * Dynamics (mechanics), the study of forces and their effect on motion Brands and ente ...

(i1103),

EPROM An EPROM (rarely EROM), or erasable programmable read-only memory, is a type of programmable read-only memory (PROM) integrated circuit, chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. Computer memory that can retrieve stored d ...

(i1702), and commercially available

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

(i4004), becoming a huge financial success. During this time, the couple lived in Los Altos. They had four children: William B., Pendred, Priscilla, and Margaret. Elizabeth loved

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

, so the family acquired a 50-acre coastal summer home in

Bremen, Maine Bremen ( ) is a small New England town, town in Lincoln County, Maine, Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 823 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located on Muscongus Bay and the Gulf of Maine, it includes the vil ...

. She and the children would summer there. Robert would visit during breaks from Intel. He also started an extramarital affair with a 28-year-old Intel mask designer, Barbara Maness, conducted as an "open secret" at Intel. Elizabeth learned of it and the marriage ended in divorce in 1975. Under

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

community property Community property (United States) also called community of property (South Africa) is a marital property regime whereby property acquired during a marriage is considered to be owned by both spouses and subject to division between them in the e ...

law she received half of the couple's assets. Robert later married Ann Bowers, Intel's head of personnel. Elizabeth then took up full residence in Bremen. She became the area's leading philanthropist and art collector. Among other major gifts, she established the

Libra Foundation The Libra Foundation is among the largest charitable organizations in the state of Maine. Major projects include Pineland Farms, the Maine Winter Sports Center, and The MaineHealth Raising Readers program. The October Corporation is an affiliate ...

. Noyce, a smoker, developed

emphysema Emphysema is any air-filled enlargement in the body's tissues. Most commonly emphysema refers to the permanent enlargement of air spaces (alveoli) in the lungs, and is also known as pulmonary emphysema. Emphysema is a lower respiratory tract di ...

, and died from a heart attack on September 18, 1996, aged 65, at her home.

References

External links

Sarasota Herald-Tribune 27 September 1996Eugene Register-Guard 27 September 1996State Bids Goodbye to 'Best Friend': Elizabeth Noyce is praised for her Generosity to Maine at a Portland Memorial Service, John Richardson Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald (ME), September 24, 1996. About 1200 people, including school children and four Maine governors, attended. Governor Angus King spoke.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Noyce, Elizabeth 1930 births 1996 deaths People from Auburn, Massachusetts Tufts University alumni Deaths from emphysema Philanthropists from Maine People from Bremen, Maine 20th-century American philanthropists