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Silicon Valley
Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California is Silicon Valley, world’s largest hub of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers. The cities that are considered a part of Silicon Valley include the southern parts of San Francisco Peninsula, East Bay, and northern part of Santa Clara Valley, San Mateo, San Jose, Fremont, Sunnyvale, Livermore and Pleasanton. Silicon Valley is considered as the leading high-tech economic center in the United States owing to the large concentration of engineers and venture capitalists.
The term “Silicon Valley” was coined by Ralph Vaerst, who was a California-based entrepreneur. Silicon Valley had to make a long journey before turning into a vibrant electronics center. The initial experimentations and research were conducted in the areas of radio, television and military electronics with the support of graduates from Stanford University.
Federal Telegraph Corporation (FTC) and Naval Air Station Moffett Field are the two major leaders in the field of Radio and Telecommunications who have their base in Silicon Valley. Technological development in Silicon Valley only occurred after World War II, when Stanford Research Park was established. One company that was able to reap the benefits of growing technology and venture capitalists in Stanford Park was Hewlett Packard, founded by Stanford graduates William Hewlett and David Packard. With the advent of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, research in Silicon Valley shifted to semiconductors. William Shockley, who had earlier quit Bell Labs, went on to create the Intel Corp. along with his friends.
Discovery of semiconductors paved the way for the development of information technology sector. Silicon Valley houses some of the biggest firms in the field of computer operating systems, software, internet service and user interfaces. Popular among these include Xerox, 3Com, Adobe Systems, Apple Inc, Cisco and Microsoft.
Located in the vicinity of the area are some of the world’s famous educational and research institutions including the Stanford University, San Jose State University, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Davis, Carnegie-Mellon University, Santa Clara University and the California State University. These universities are the unlimited source of human resources for the thousands of companies in Silicon Valley.
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