Silicon+Valley

=Silicon Valley=

toc Silicon Valley is the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The term originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually became a metaphor for all high tech businesses in the area. (Definition courtesy of: [|Wikipedia])


 * [[image:http://www.sfbayquakes.org/closeups/USLetter/M_sillvall_faults.jpg width="309" height="193"]]**

=About Silicon Valley=

Silicon Valley began as real-estate development in the Santa Clara Valley of California, USA to attract graduate students to the West coast. Today, Silicon Valley is not only the base of various high tech businesses but has become a technical headquarter for the tech economy. As part of the tech economy, Silicon Valley has moved online and is the center for all the tech news in the business world. For more information on tech news, visit [|SiliconValley.com].

=**History**=

The term “Silicon Valley” was devised in 1971 in an article by [|Don Hoefler] in the Electronic News. Silicon Valley consists of two terms: //Silicon// and //Valley//. The term //Silicon// refers to the fact that Silicon Valley houses a variety of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers as well as computer-related industries and semiconductors. The term //Valley// refers to the fact that Silicon Valley is located in the Santa Clara Valley.

Before the development of Silicon Valley, the surrounding area was the site of several NASA and U.S. Navy research facilities and firms. In the beginning, Silicon Valley did not house any high-tech firms. Universities in the California area found that many of their graduate students moved to the East Coast to start their careers instead of staying where they were educated. To keep graduate students in the West Coast, Frederick Terman, a professor at Stanford University, thought that unused Sanford University land could be used as real-estate development. He set up a program in the Valley that involved grants of venture capital to graduates. Through this program, two students named William Hewlett and David Packard moved into the area and devised Hewlett-Packard in 1939. Hewlett-Packard was the first high-tech firm in the Valley that was separate from NASA and the U.S. Navy.

The creation of the [|Stanford Research Park] in 1951 played a large role in the development and success of Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley expanded to house a variety of technical companies who rented small industrial buildings. Many of the companies in Silicon Valley were devised as a result of the break-up of engineers working at larger companies. These engineers founded various local semiconductor companies, adding to the technical aura of the area.

=Why is Silicon Valley such a success?=

Silicon Valley became a success due to the fact that it attracted a lot of technical students, which in turn worked at the many small technical firms that were founded in the area.

Silicon Valley was a rare success that has not been replicated in any other part of the world. Although there have been many attempts to clone it, the Valley remains a unique technical niche. It has expanded over the years into the technical area that it is today. It was not only hard work but good luck that caused the success of Silicon Valley.

=Forbes 500 Companies Headquartered in Silicon Valley:=


 * [|Adobe Systems]
 * [|Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)]
 * [|Agilent Technologies]
 * [|Altera]
 * [|Apple Computer]
 * [|Applied Materials]
 * [|BEA Systems]
 * [|Cadence Design Systems]
 * [|Cisco Systems]
 * [|DreamWorks Animation]
 * [|eBay]
 * [|Electronic Arts]
 * Google
 * [|Hewlett-Packard]
 * [|Intel]
 * [|Intuit]
 * [|Juniper Networks]
 * [|Maxtor]
 * [|National Semiconductor]
 * [|Network Appliance]
 * [|NVIDIA Corporation]
 * [|Oracle Corporation]
 * [|Siebel Systems]
 * [|Sun Microsystems]
 * [|Symantec Labs]
 * [|Synopsys]
 * [|Varian Medical Systems]
 * [|Xilinx]
 * [|Yahoo!]

=Works Cited=

Gromov, Gregory (1998). “A Few Quotes From…Silicon Valley History.” Online at: , consulted on: February 7, 2006. “Silicon Valley (2006).” __Wikipedia.__ Online at: , consulted on: February 7, 2006. Trei, Lisa (2001). “Other regions face limitations in replicating Silicon Valley's success, experts say.” __Stanford Report__. April 11, 2001. Online at: , consulted on: February 7, 2006.

Images
Map of Silicon Valley - http://www.sfbayquakes.org/closeups/USLetter/M_sillvall_faults.jpg