It will house the papers and electronic archive of Professor Stephen Hawking, including an early draft of his best-selling book A Brief History Of Time.

The university already holds the papers of scientists including Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

Dr Gordon Moore: $12.5m donation

Dr Moore, joint founder of the microchip company Intel, and his wife Betty have pledged $12.5m (�7.5m) to the university's development office in the United States.

He is not the first American to make a significant donation to Cambridge - Microsoft's billionaire owner, Bill Gates, has already made a multi-million pound donation to the university.

Dr Moore said: "The University of Cambridge has a long history of doing leading research into some of the most fundamental questions that mankind can ask.

"I find this exciting and uplifting and am pleased to contribute where I can."

The university's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Alec Broers, said: "Gordon and Betty Moore's gift is a remarkable act of personal philanthropy."

The university says the new library will combine the old with the new to provide state-of-the-art electronic retrieval services, as well as more traditional reference materials.