Silicon Valley

The Silicon Valley [ ˌ sɪlɪkn̩ Väli ] (English for Silicon Valley ) is the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, the metropolitan area around the cities of San Francisco and San Jose. The Silicon Valley includes the Santa Clara Valley and the southern half of the peninsula of San Francisco, ranging from San Mateo to San Jose. Sunnyvale is located approximately in the center of Silicon Valley. It is one of the most important locations of the IT and high tech industries.

The economic development of the region began in 1951 with the establishment of the Stanford Industrial Park, a research and industrial area next to Stanford University. Gradually, founded by former employees of electronics companies as well as graduates of universities and small businesses with new ideas and products. With the proliferation of computer technology in the 1960s and 1970s settled increasingly in Silicon Valley companies in the high technology. Over time, therefore many companies in the IT and high -tech industry emerged in the region. Among the best known include Apple, Intel, Google, AMD, Adobe, Symantec, Yahoo, eBay, Nvidia, Hewlett -Packard, Oracle, Cisco Systems, Facebook Inc, amazon.com and Dell.

Term

The name part silicone ( " silicon " ) is due to the high concentration of the industry which produces the semiconductor and computer. Valley ( Valley ') stands for the Santa Clara Valley.

The already occasionally, mostly by easterners, used for the Santa Clara Valley designation Silicon Valley in 1971 coined the term, as they art - journalist Don C. Hoefler on a proposal of the entrepreneur Ralph Vaerst in the title of a series of articles about the semiconductor industry in the weekly newspaper Electronic News first published.

The label can now be applied to the surrounding areas, as many companies have expanded. The name Silicon Valley ' is colloquially regardless of their location for the U.S. electronics and computer industries.

Panorama

History

The concentration of the computer industry of the valley is mainly due to two men, Frederick Terman and William B. Shockley.

As a basis applies the Moffett Federal Airfield, which was the central military airfield in the region during the Second World War and then as Naval Air Station. To the airport, several companies in the aviation industry settled, including Lockheed. They served as a springboard for the high- tech industry.

Establishment of the Stanford Industrial Park

Terman, Dean at Stanford University, said that the large unused areas of land belonging to the University, are perfect for the settlement of property and businesses. He called up a program to which students should be encouraged to stay in the area by asking them capital. Back in 1939, Terman had supported the students William Hewlett and David Packard in founding an electronics company, which posted strong gains during the Second World War. Hewlett -Packard was the first major high-tech company in the environment that was not directly related to NASA or the U.S. Navy.

1952, the program was expanded again by creating the Stanford Industrial Park. A number of small industrial building was rented at very low cost in technology companies. The area was soon well established so that new electronics companies along the 101 Freeway towards San Jose settled. In 1954, the Honors Cooperative Program to nowadays known as the co-op, which full-time employees of the companies allowed to study part-time at the University. The mid-1950s, the infrastructure of the future Silicon Valley has developed excellent thanks to Terman's efforts.

The facilities at the Stanford Park were subject to strict building codes. The new industrial center, beside the university campus should act clean, no smokestacks or liquid tanks were allowed to disturb the impression. This design became the model for all industrial parks in Silicon Valley.

Knowledge transfer by William B. Shockley in the Silicon Valley

Because of this atmosphere of awakening William B. Shockley decided who had made ​​significant contributions to the invention of the transistor and it was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to move into this area. He had 1955 Bell Laboratories leave due to personal differences. To attain After divorcing his wife and an unsuccessful attempt at the established electronics companies on the east coast support to develop the transistor technology to series production maturity, he returned to the California Institute of Technology, where he had made his Bachelor of Science. In 1956, he moved to Mountain View, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to establish as part of Beckman Instruments and to live closer to his aging mother.

Based bipolar transistors with three layers, where he started on the currently used semiconductor material silicon to develop; at that time, bipolar transistors were still made ​​of the semiconductor germanium. Next he developed special four -layer diode, but which gained no substantial importance. The theory of the four-layer diode was promising, but the preparation was much more complicated than that of conventional transistors. When the project was threatened, Shockley became increasingly paranoid. He demanded lie detector tests by the staff who published their salaries and angered his fellow men. On the basis of these operations in 1957 eight of his most talented employees left him; these " Traitorous Eight" founded Fairchild Semiconductor. Shockley also spoke out against the research of silicon for the development of the present-day integrated circuits.

Founding of Fairchild offshoots

In the next few years, similar processes should repeat. Scientists lost control of companies they founded to external managers left their firms and founded companies again. AMD, Signetics, National Semiconductor, Intel, and the venture capitalist Kleiner Perkins were all written as such foundations former Fairchild employees.

Environmental impact

The first generation of Silicon Valley companies produced electronic components locally. The production is associated with major environmental risks, in particular the production of printed circuit boards requires the handling of huge amounts of corrosive materials and liquids, as well as particularly aggressive solvents. 1981 noticed that the subterranean because of building regulations tanks of Fairchild Semiconductor and IBM were apparently leaking for decades, had contaminated the soil and groundwater at risk. Further investigation revealed similar charges at Advanced Micro Devices and others. Until 2004, it was determined that 75 of 96 tanks, some of long- abandoned factories and in the soil remained, licked and endangered the water. The Environmental Protection Agency declared the locations to danger areas and took them on in their list of with the utmost priority contaminated sites to be remediated, the so-called Super Funds. Santa Clara County is the County sites in the U.S. with the most Superfund.

The technology companies consolidate their land partly in-house under the supervision of the EPA. They invest considerable sums of money and achieve the environmental objectives. 2013, the risk of hazards to groundwater was lifted, the floors still need to be rehabilitated. Some companies affected thereby developed new methods for the remediation of soil and groundwater, which are now being used in other places.

Important Companies

Thousands technology companies located in Silicon Valley. The most important are ( in alphabetical order):

Software companies:

Other international companies have set up branches there:

Universities and Colleges

A bilingual education program " from kindergarten through high school " offers

  • John F. Kennedy University Campbell Campus
  • University of California, Berkeley
  • University of California, Davis
  • University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Hult International Business School
  • Carnegie Mellon University ( Silicon Valley campus )
  • Golden Gate University 's Silicon Valley campus
  • Silicon Valley University
  • California State University, East Bay, Hayward
  • University of Phoenix San Jose Campus
  • University of San Francisco South Bay Campus
  • Lincoln Law School of San Jose
  • University of Silicon Valley Law School
  • San Jose City College
  • Menlo College
  • Evergreen Valley College
  • Foothill College
  • De Anza College
  • Chabot College
  • Peralta Colleges
  • Mission College
  • West Valley College
  • National Hispanic University
  • Notre Dame de Namur University
  • Ohlone College
  • Cogswell Polytechnical College
  • The Art Institute of California - Sunnyvale
  • German International School of Silicon Valley

Research institutions

  • NASA Ames, Moffett Field
  • Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto
  • Xerox PARC

Cities

The following cities are located in Silicon Valley ( in alphabetical order):

  • Alviso
  • Atherton
  • Cupertino
  • Fremont
  • Los Altos
  • Los Gatos
  • Menlo Park
  • Mountain View
  • Milpitas
  • Newark
  • Palo Alto
  • San José
  • San Francisco
  • Santa Clara
  • Saratoga
  • Sunnyvale
  • Union City

Comparison of leading ICT clusters worldwide

Scientists at the Technical University of Darmstadt compared in a study of the region on a world level, including IT clusters such as the IT Cluster Rhine -Main -Neckar ( Germany ), Oulu (Finland ), Bangalore (India) and the Silicon Valley.

Imitator

Hoping to repeat the success of the original Silicon Valley, many other regions have planned areas with high- tech companies and promoted. Are frequently performed in the unofficial name of " silicone " or " Valley " region, to establish a connection to the original. Some of the names were introduced by public institutions for marketing reasons, others were shaped by the media.

  • IT Cluster Rhine -Main -Neckar - The region around Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Mannheim, Karlsruhe and Heidelberg, also referred to as the "Silicon Valley of Europe", as it has been formed in the region's largest software cluster in Europe.
  • WISTA - Berlin (largest technology park in Europe ); the city of Berlin also synonymously as "Silicon Alley"
  • IT Lagoon - Stralsund - Greifswald and the Western Pomerania region, IT clusters between Hamburg and Berlin with a focus on the quality of life of the Baltic Sea Region
  • Biocon Valley - Initiative to promote research and development in the life sciences in Mecklenburg- Vorpommern
  • Isar Valley - Munich
  • Silicon Saxony - The region around Dresden in Saxony
  • Solar Valley - Thalheim
  • Medical Valley - The region of Erlangen in Bavaria
  • Silicon Woods - Kaiserslautern in Rhineland -Palatinate
  • CFK Valley - Stade
  • Measurement Valley - Göttingen
  • Silicon Alps - Carinthia, Austria
  • Biotech Valley - Basel, Switzerland
  • Nanotech Valley - Neuchâtel- Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Inovallée (formerly ZIRST ) - Rhone -Alpes, France
  • Etna Valley - Catania, Italy
  • Silicon Sentier - France
  • Silicon Glen - Scotland
  • Taguspark - Portugal
  • Skolkovo Innovation Center - Moscow Oblast, Russia
  • Silicon Wadi - Haifa, Tel Aviv, Israel
  • Brazilian Silicon Valley - Campinas, Brazil
  • Mexican Silicon Valley - Jalisco, Mexico
  • Silicon Alley - New York, USA
  • Research Triangle - North Carolina, USA
  • Route 128 - Massachusetts, United States ( known as the "Silicon Valley of the East Coast " )
  • Silicon Forest - Portland, Oregon, USA
  • Silicon Prairie - The area around Schaumburg, Illinois, and Dallas, Texas, and Ames, Iowa, USA
  • Silicon Hills - Austin, Texas, United States
  • Silicon Valley North - Kanata, Ontario, Canada and Ottawa, Canada
  • Indian Silicon Valley - Bangalore, India
  • Multimedia Super Corridor - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • Silicon Oasis - Dubai, United Arab Emirates
San Mateo, California Sunnyvale, California Hewlett-Packard Don Hoefler Mountain View, California Palo Alto, California William Shockley Lockheed Corporation Paranoia United States Environmental Protection Agency Brownfield status Santa Clara County, California Palm, Inc. Deutsche Telekom Ames Research Center Atherton, California Cupertino, California Fremont, California Los Altos, California Los Gatos, California Menlo Park, California Milpitas, California Newark, California Santa Clara, California Saratoga, California Union City, California Solar Valley (Germany) Portland (Oregon) Schaumburg (Illinois) Ames (Iowa) Austin (disambiguation) MSC Malaysia Manuel Castells Integrated Authority File
421270
de