, the self-proclaimed "Capital of Silicon Valley"]]
Silicon Valley is in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations. The term originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the American high-tech sector. Despite the development of other high-tech economic centers throughout the United States and the world, Silicon Valley continues to be the leading hub for high-tech innovation and development, accounting for 1/3 of all of the venture capital investment in the United States. Geographically, the Silicon Valley encompasses all of the Santa Clara Valley including the city of San Jose (and adjacent communities), the southern Peninsula, and the southern East Bay.
Origin of the term
The term
Silicon Valley was coined by
Ralph Vaerst, a Central California entrepreneur. Its first published use is credited to
Don Hoefler, a friend of Vaerst's, who used the phrase as the title of a series of articles in the weekly trade
newspaper Electronic News. The series, entitled "Silicon Valley in the USA," began in the paper's issue dated January 11, 1971.
Valley refers to the
Santa Clara Valley, located at the southern end of
San Francisco Bay, while
Silicon refers to the high concentration of companies involved in the
semiconductor (
silicon is used to create most semiconductors commercially) and
computer industries that were concentrated in the area. These firms slowly replaced the
orchards which gave the area its initial nickname, the Valley of Heart's Delight.
History
}}
(downtown is at far left) and other parts of Silicon Valley]]
Since the early twentieth century, Silicon Valley has been home to an electronics industry. The industry began through experimentation and innovation in the fields of radio, television, and military electronics. Stanford University, its affiliates, and graduates have played a major role in the development of this area.
A powerful sense of regional solidarity accompanied the rise of Silicon Valley. From the 1890s, Stanford University's leaders saw its mission as service to the West and shaped the school accordingly. At the same time, the perceived exploitation of the West at the hands of eastern interests fueled booster-like attempts to build self-sufficient indigenous local industry. Thus, regionalism helped align Stanford's interests with those of the area's high-tech firms for the first fifty years of Silicon Valley's development.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Frederick Terman, as Stanford's dean of engineering and provost, encouraged faculty and graduates to start their own companies. He is credited with nurturing Hewlett-Packard, Varian Associates, and other high-tech firms, until what would become Silicon Valley grew up around the Stanford campus. Terman is often called "the father of Silicon Valley."
During 1955-85, solid state technology research and development at Stanford University followed three waves of industrial innovation made possible by support from private corporations, mainly Bell Telephone Laboratories, Shockley Semiconductor, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Xerox PARC. In 1969 the Stanford Research Institute operated one of the four original nodes that comprised ARPANET, predecessor to the Internet.
Social roots of information technology revolution
It was in Silicon Valley that the silicon-based integrated circuit, the
microprocessor, the microcomputer, among other key technologies, were developed, and has been the site of electronic innovation for over four decades, sustained by about a quarter of a million
information technology workers. Silicon Valley was formed as a milieu of innovations by the convergence on one site of new technological knowledge; a large pool of skilled engineers and scientists from major universities in the area; generous funding from an assured market with the Defense Department; the development of an efficient network of venture capital firms; and, in the very early stage, the institutional leadership of
Stanford University.
Roots in radio and military technology
The San Francisco Bay Area had long been a major site of
U.S. Navy research and technology. In 1909,
Charles Herrold started the first
radio station in the United States with regularly scheduled programming in
San Jose. Later that year,
Stanford University graduate
Cyril Elwell purchased the U.S. patents for
Poulsen arc radio transmission technology and founded the
Federal Telegraph Corporation (FTC) in
Palo Alto. Over the next decade, the FTC created the world's first global radio communication system, and signed a contract with the U.S. Navy in 1912. A number of technology firms had set up shop in the area around Moffett to serve the Navy. When the Navy gave up its airship ambitions and moved most of its West Coast operations to
San Diego,
NACA (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, forerunner of
NASA) took over portions of Moffett for
aeronautics research. Many of the original companies stayed, while new ones moved in. The immediate area was soon filled with
aerospace firms such as
Lockheed.
Stanford Industrial Park
After World War II, universities were experiencing enormous demand due to returning students. To address the financial demands of Stanford's growth requirements, and to provide local employment opportunities for graduating students,
Frederick Terman proposed the leasing of Stanford's lands for use as an office park, named the
Stanford Industrial Park (later
Stanford Research Park). Leases were limited to high technology companies. Its first tenant was
Varian Associates, founded by Stanford alumni in the 1930s to build military radar components. However, Terman also found
venture capital for civilian technology start-ups . One of the major success stories was
Hewlett-Packard. Founded in
Packard's garage by Stanford graduates
William Hewlett and
David Packard, Hewlett-Packard moved its offices into the Stanford Research Park slightly after 1953. In 1954, Stanford created the
Honors Cooperative Program to allow full-time employees of the companies to pursue graduate degrees from the University on a part-time basis. The initial companies signed five-year agreements in which they would pay double the tuition for each student in order to cover the costs. Hewlett-Packard has become the largest personal computer manufacturer in the world, and transformed the home printing market when it released the first
ink jet printer in 1984. In addition, the tenancy of
Eastman Kodak and
General Electric made Stanford Industrial Park a center of technology in the mid-1990s.
Silicon transistor and birth of the Silicon Valley
In 1953,
William Shockley left
Bell Labs in a disagreement over the handling of the invention of the
transistor. After returning to
California Institute of Technology for a short while, Shockley moved to
Mountain View, California in 1956, and founded
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. Unlike many other researchers who used
germanium as the semiconductor material, Shockley believed that
silicon was the better material for making transistors. Shockley intended to replace the current transistor with a new three-element design (today known as the
Shockley diode), but the design was considerably more difficult to build than the "simple" transistor. In 1957, Shockley decided to end research on the silicon transistor. As a result,
eight engineers left the company to form
Fairchild Semiconductor. Two of the original employees of Fairchild Semiconductor,
Robert Noyce and
Gordon Moore, would go on to found
Intel.
Law firms
The rise of Silicon Valley was also bolstered by the development of appropriate legal infrastructure to support the rapid formation, funding, and expansion of high-tech companies, as well as the development of a critical mass of litigators and judges experienced in resolving disputes between such firms. From the early 1980s onward, many national (and later international)
law firms opened offices in San Francisco and Palo Alto in order to provide Silicon Valley startups with legal services. Furthermore,
California law has a number of quirks which help entrepreneurs establish startups at the expense of established firms, such as a nearly absolute ban on
non-compete clauses in employment agreements.
Venture capital firms
By the early 1970s there were many
semiconductor companies in the area,
computer firms using their devices, and programming and service companies serving both. Industrial space was plentiful and housing was still inexpensive. The growth was fueled by the emergence of the
venture capital industry on
Sand Hill Road, beginning with
Kleiner Perkins in 1972; the availability of venture capital exploded after the successful $1.3 billion
IPO of
Apple Computer in December 1980.
The rise of software
Although semiconductors are still a major component of the area's economy, Silicon Valley has been most famous in recent years for innovations in software and
Internet services. Silicon Valley has significantly influenced computer operating systems,
software, and user interfaces.
Using money from NASA and the U.S. Air Force, Doug Engelbart invented the mouse and hypertext-based collaboration tools in the mid-1960s, while at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International). When Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center declined in influence due to personal conflicts and the loss of government funding, Xerox hired some of Engelbart's best researchers. In turn, in the 1970s and 1980s, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) played a pivotal role in object-oriented programming, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), Ethernet, PostScript, and laser printers.
While Xerox marketed equipment using its technologies, for the most part its technologies flourished elsewhere. The diaspora of Xerox inventions led directly to 3Com and Adobe Systems, and indirectly to Cisco, Apple Computer and Microsoft. Apple's Macintosh GUI was largely a result of Steve Jobs' visit to PARC and the subsequent hiring of key personnel. Cisco's impetus stemmed from the need to route a variety of protocols over Stanford's campus Ethernet.
San Jose State University
Although Stanford University provides the historical basis for high-technology growth in the
South Bay, and remains at the center of high-technology academic research in Silicon Valley,
San Jose State University has emerged as the largest supplier of working engineers to high-technology companies in the region.
In this light, SJSU engineering, business and computer science graduates often are viewed as the workhorses that power Silicon Valley from day to day. Included among those companies founded or co-founded by former SJSU students and SJSU alumni are Intel Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Quantum Corporation, Seagate Technology, and Atmel Corporation.
SJSU alumni also have risen to the level of CEO and/or senior vice president at numerous high-technology firms in the region including ROLM Corporation, Cisco Systems, IBM, Google and Solectron Corporation. Additionally, Ray Dolby and Charles Ginsburg are two Silicon Valley luminaries with close ties to San Jose State. San Jose led the list with 3,867 utility patents filed in 2005, and number two was Sunnyvale, at 1,881 utility patents.
Economy
According to a 2008- study by
AeA in 2006 Silicon Valley was the third largest (cybercity) high-tech center in the United States, behind the
New York metropolitan area and
Washington metropolitan area, with 225,300 high-tech jobs. The Bay Area as a whole however, of which Silicon Valley is a part, would rank first with 386,000 high-tech jobs. Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of high-tech workers of any metropolitan area, with 285.9 out of every 1,000 private-sector workers. Silicon Valley has the highest average high-tech salary at $144,800.
The region is the biggest high-tech manufacturing center in the United States. The unemployment rate of the region was 9.4% in January 2009, up from 7.8% in the previous month.
Notable companies
Thousands of high technology companies are headquartered in Silicon Valley; among those, the following are in the Fortune 1000:
(AMD)]]
Adobe Systems
Advanced Micro Devices
Agilent Technologies
Apple Inc.
Applied Materials
Cisco Systems
eBay
Facebook
Google
Hewlett-Packard
Intel
Intuit
Intuitive Surgical
Juniper Networks
KLA Tencor
LSI Logic
Maxim Integrated Products
National Semiconductor
NetApp
Nvidia
Oracle Corporation
SanDisk
Sanmina-SCI
Symantec
Yahoo!
Additional notable companies headquartered (or with a significant presence) in Silicon Valley include (some defunct or subsumed):
3Com (acquired by HP)
Actel
Actuate Corporation
Adaptec
Aeria Games and Entertainment
Altera
Amazon.com's A9.com
Amazon.com's Lab126.com
Amdahl
Ampex
Antibody Solutions
Aricent
Asus
Atari
Atmel
Broadcom
Brocade Communications Systems
BEA Systems (acquired by Oracle Corporation)
Business Objects (acquired by SAP)
Cypress Semiconductor
Electronic Arts
EMC Corporation (headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts)
Fairchild Semiconductor
Force10
Foundry Networks
Fujitsu (headquartered in Tokyo, Japan)
Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
IBM Almaden Research Center
IDEO
Logitech
LynuxWorks
Maxtor (acquired by Seagate)
McAfee
Memorex (acquired by Imation and moved to Cerritos, California)
Micron Technology (headquartered in Boise, Idaho)
Microsoft (headquartered in Redmond, Washington)
Mozilla Foundation
Nokia (headquartered in Espoo, Finland)
Netflix
Netscape (acquired by AOL)
NeXT Computer, Inc. (acquired by Apple)
Ning
NXP Semiconductors
Olivetti (headquartered in Ivrea, Italy)
Opera Software (headquartered in Oslo, Norway)
OPPO
Palm, Inc. (acquired by HP)
PalmSource, Inc. (acquired by ACCESS)
PayPal (now part of eBay)
Philips Lumileds Lighting Company
PlayPhone
Rambus
ROBLOX
RSA (acquired by EMC)
Redback Networks (acquired by Ericsson)
SAP AG (headquartered in Walldorf, Germany)
Siemens (headquartered in Berlin and Munich, Germany)
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Image
Solectron (acquired by Flextronics)
Sony
Sony Ericsson
SRI International
Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle Corporation)
SunPower
Tesla Motors
TWiT
Tellme Networks (acquired by Microsoft)
TiVo
VA Software (Slashdot)
WebEx (acquired by Cisco Systems)
Western Digital
VeriSign
Veritas Software (acquired by Symantec)
VMware
Xilinx
YouTube (acquired by Google)
Zoran Corporation
Silicon Valley is also home to the high-tech superstore retail chain Fry's Electronics.
Notable government facilities
Moffett Federal Airfield
NASA Ames Research Center
Onizuka Air Force Station
Universities and colleges
San José State University
Stanford University
Santa Clara University
John F. Kennedy University Campbell Campus
University of California, Berkeley Extension
University of California, Santa Cruz Extension
* Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley
Golden Gate University Silicon Valley Campus
Silicon Valley University
University of Phoenix San Jose Campus
University of San Francisco South Bay Campus
University of Silicon Valley Law School
Menlo College
Foothill College
De Anza College
Mission College
West Valley College
National Hispanic University
Cities
A number of cities are located in Silicon Valley (in alphabetical order):
Campbell
Cupertino
Los Altos
Los Altos Hills
Los Gatos
Milpitas
Monte Sereno
Mountain View
Morgan Hill
Palo Alto
San Jose
Santa Clara
Saratoga
Sunnyvale
Cities sometimes associated with the region:
East Palo Alto (San Mateo County)
Foster City
Fremont (Alameda County)
Menlo Park (San Mateo County, location of some venture capital companies)
Newark (Alameda County)
Redwood City (San Mateo County, home to Oracle, Electronic Arts and PDI/DreamWorks)
Scotts Valley (Santa Cruz County, home to Seagate Technology among others)
See also
List of attractions in Silicon Valley
List of places with 'Silicon' names
List of research parks around the world
List of technology centers around the world
Microcomputer revolution
Pirates of Silicon Valley — Movie about the early development of Microsoft and Apple.
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition
Sustainable Silicon Valley (SSV)
San Fernando Valley, sometimes erroneously called "Silicon Valley"
Titanium Valley
Optics Valley
References
Further reading
Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930–1970 by Christophe Lécuyer, MIT Press (2006)
by Steven Levy, Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday (1984)
Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era, Dennis Hayes, London: Free Association Books (1989)
Silicon Valley, Inc.: Ruminations on the Demise of a Unique Culture, The San Jose Mercury News (1997)
Cultures@Silicon Valley, J. A. English-Lueck, Stanford: Stanford University Press (2002)
The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy, David Naguib Pellow and Lisa Sun-Hee Park, New York University Press (2003)
What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry, John Markoff, Viking (2005)
Silicon Follies: A Dot. Comedy, Thomas Scoville, Pocket Books (2000)
The Silicon Boys: And Their Valleys Of Dreams, David A. Kaplan, Harper Perinneal (April 2000), ISBN 0-688-17906-1
Cities of knowledge: Cold War science and the search for the next Silicon Valley, Margaret Pugh O’Mara, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, (2005)
Accidental Empires: How the boys of Silicon Valley make their millions, battle foreign competition, and still can't get a date, Robert X. Cringely, Addison-Wesley Publishing, (1992), ISBN 0-201-57032-7
Silicon Valley: 110 Year Renaissance, John McLaughlin, Leigh Weimers, Ward Winslow, Santa Clara Valley Historical Association (2008), ISBN 096492174X
Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger & Michael Swaine, McGraw-Hill (1984)
Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 by AnnaLee Saxenian, Harvard University Press (1996), ISBN 0674753402
Clusters of Creativity: Enduring Lessons on Innovation and Entrepreneurship from Silicon Valley and Europe's Silicon Fen by Rob Koepp, John Wiley (2002), ISBN 0471496049
The Nudist on the Late Shift: And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley by Po Bronson, Random House (1999), ISBN 0375502777
External links
California's Historic Silicon Valley
Growth of a Silicon Empire by Henry Norr published at the end of 1999 in the San Francisco Chronicle
Red tile roofs in Bangalore: Stanford's look copied in Silicon Valley and beyond from Stanford University
Stanford Linear Accelerator center
The Silicon Valley Cultures Project from San Jose State University
Silicon Valley Historical Association
Piero Scaruffi's History of Silicon Valley
A Weekend in Silicon Valley - slideshow by The New York Times
A Legal Bridge Spanning 100 Years: From the Gold Mines of El Dorado to the 'Golden' Startups of Silicon Valley by Gregory Gromov
Category:Economy of the San Francisco Bay Area
Category:Geography of Santa Clara County, California
Category:High-technology business districts
Category:Subregions of the San Francisco Bay Area
Category:Santa Clara County, California
Category:Valleys of California
Category:Venture capital
Category:Information Age
Category:Information technology places
