Silicon Valley

Belarusian National Technical University

English Language Department №1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silicon Valley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Performed by:

Supervisor:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minsk 2012

 

Contents

1 Origin of the term

2 History

3 Social roots of information technology revolution

3.1 Roots in radio and military technology

3.2 Stanford Industrial Park

3.3 Silicon transistor and birth of the Silicon Valley

3.4 Law firms

3.5 Venture capital firms

3.6 The rise of software

3.7 Internet bubble

4 Economy

4.1 Notable companies

4.2 Notable government facilities

5 Universities and colleges

6 Cities

7 The Silicon Valley of India

8 PHT in Belarus

9 References

 

 

 

 

 

 

Origin of the term

The term Silicon Valley was coined by Ralph Vaerst, a successful 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

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.[4] Some examples include the work of Lee De Forest with his invention of a pioneering vacuum tube called the Audion and the oscilloscopes of Hewlett-Packard.

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.[5]

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 (now SRI International), operated one of the four original nodes that comprised ARPANET, predecessor to the Internet.[6]

 

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. The region employs 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.[7]

Roots in radio and military technology

The San Francisco Bay Area had long been a major site of United States 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 Navy in 1912.[3]

In 1933, Air Base Sunnyvale, California, was commissioned by the United States Government for use as a Naval Air Station (NAS) to house the airship USS Macon in Hangar One. The station was renamed NAS Moffett Field, and between 1933 and 1947, U.S. Navy blimps were based there.[8] A number of technology firms had set up shop in the area around Moffett Field to serve the Navy. When the Navy gave up its airship ambitions and moved most of its west coast operations to San Diego, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, forerunner of NASA) took over portions of Moffett Field 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.[9]

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 of Shockley's abusive management style, eight engineers left the company to form Fairchild Semiconductor, Shockley referred to these eight engineers as the "Traitorous Eight." Two of the original employees of Fairchild Semiconductor, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, would go on to found Intel.[10] [11]

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 United States 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.[12] Cisco's impetus stemmed from the need to route a variety of protocols over Stanford's campus Ethernet.

Internet bubble Silicon

Valley is generally considered to have been the center of the dot-com bubble which started from the mid-1990s and collapsed after the NASDAQ stock market began to decline dramatically in April 2000. During the bubble era, real estate prices reached unprecedented levels. For a brief time, Sand Hill Road was home to the most expensive commercial real estate in the world, and the booming economy resulted in severe traffic congestion.

 

Even after the dot-com crash, Silicon Valley continues to maintain its status as one of the top research and development centers in the world. A 2006 The Wall Street Journal story found that 12 of the 20 most inventive towns in America were in California, and 10 of those were in Silicon Valley.[13] San Jose led the list with 3,867 utility patents filed in 2005, and number two was Sunnyvale, at 1,881 utility patents.[14]΄΄

Economy

According to a 2008 study by AeA in 2006, Silicon Valley was the third largest high-tech center (cybercity) 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 387,000 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.[15] Largely a result of the high technology sector, the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area has the most millionaires and the most billionaires in the United States per capita.[16]

The region is the biggest high-tech manufacturing center in the United States.[17][18] The unemployment rate of the region was 9.4% in January 2009, up from 7.8% in the previous month.[19]

Notable companies

Thousands of high technology companies are headquartered in Silicon Valley. Among those, the following are in the Fortune 1000:

Adobe Systems

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

Apple Inc.

Cisco Systems

eBay

Facebook

Google

Hewlett-Packard

Intel

Intuit

Nvidia

Oracle

Sun Microsystems

VMware

Yahoo!

YouTubeAdobe Systems

Advanced Micro Devices

Agilent Technologies

Apple Inc.

Applied Materials

Cisco Systems

eBay

Google

Hewlett-Packard

Intel

Intuit

Juniper Networks

KLA Tencor

LSI Logic

Marvell Semiconductors

Maxim Integrated Products

National Semiconductor

NetApp

Nvidia

Oracle Corporation

Salesforce.com

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)

A10 Networks

Actel

Actuate Corporation

Adaptec

Aeria Games and Entertainment

Akamai Technologies (HQ in Cambridge, Massachusetts)

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)

E*TRADE (headquartered in New York, NY)

Facebook

Fairchild Semiconductor

Force10

Foundry Networks

Fujitsu (headquartered in Tokyo, Japan)

Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

IBM Almaden Research Center (headquartered in Armonk, New York)

IDEO

Intuitive Surgical

LinkedIn

Logitech

LynuxWorks

Maxtor (acquired by Seagate)

McAfee (acquired by Intel)

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

Playdom

PlayPhone

Qualcomm, Inc. (HQ in San Diego, CA)

Quanta Computer

Quantcast

Rambus

Riverbed Technology

ROBLOX

RSA (acquired by EMC)

Redback Networks (acquired by Ericsson)

Salesforce.com

SAP AG (headquartered in Walldorf, Germany)

Siemens (headquartered in Berlin and Munich, Germany)

Silicon Graphics

Silicon Image

Solectron (acquired by Flextronics)

Sony (headquartered in Tokyo, Japan)

Sony Ericsson

SRI International

Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle Corporation)

SunPower

Tata Consultancy Services

Tibco Software

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

Vocera

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 collegesSan José State University

San Francisco State University

Stanford University

Santa Clara University

John F. Kennedy University Campbell Campus

University of California, Berkeley Extension

University of California, Santa Cruz Extension

Hult International Business School

Carnegie Mellon University (Silicon Valley campus)

Golden Gate University Silicon Valley Campus

Silicon Valley University

CSU 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

Ohlone College

CogswellPolytechnical College

The Art Institute of California – Sunnyvale

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

Morgan Hill

Mountain View

Palo Alto

San Jose

Santa Clara

Saratoga

Sunnyvale

 

Where is located the Silicon Valley of India?

Some people  suggest that  the Silicon Valley of India is a nickname of the Indian city of Bangalore. That's correct but not substantially, because main part of India's Silicon Valley located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Of the total number of engineers and scientists in the [San Francisco Bay Area] valley, 28 percent comes from India, up from 20 percent a decade ago  (Statistics offer glimpses into how Silicon Valley lives. By Scott Herhold, San Jose Mercury News).

The process of transforming San Francisco Bay Area to the India's Silicon Valley will continue, because significantly more English speaking IT engineers graduates in the India than in any other countries.

Indians have founded more engineering and technology companies [in US] during that past decade than immigrants from Britain, China, Taiwan, and Japan combined. 

Belarus is going to attempt to create a mini Silicon Valley - a hi-tech park in Minsk for Belarusian offshore programming firms, hardware manufacturers and research facilities. There will be considerable tax breaks (5% tax on profit) apparently. But how stable this will be when surrounded by socialism? Can Belarus pull the same trick as China did? The hope is that this will stop young Belarusian brains from running away to the West and create conditions for domestic hi-tech growth.

History:

During the USSR times Belarus semiconductor industry was taking care of the mass manufacturing of main-stream semiconductor elements, ICs and computer chips. While the most sophisticated chips were manufactured in Zelenograd (in suburban Moscow) Belarusian enterprises were mostly oriented on consumer electronics and mid-level ICs. The main Belarusian semiconductor consortium - Research and Production Corporation "Integral" - is in fact the largest in Eastern Europe semiconductor company. Many of the ICs manufactured in USSR are reverse engineered or even direct copies of Western ICs. There are even conversion tables of Western to Russian types of chips and ICs. Last year Integral has sold about 100 million US$ worth memory chips to Japan.

What is HTP?

During the last years the ICT sector in Belarus receives strong governmental support and is one of the top-priority economic sectors to develop. Thus, by the special Law, issued in 2005 Belarus Hi-Tech Park was established with the main goal to support software industry. HTP Belarus provides special business environment for IT business with incentives unprecedented for European countries. Any company operating in the sphere of computer-based technologies can apply for residency within the HTP and benefit from tax-incentives and other advantages it provides.

First residents were registered in 2006. Currently 106 companies are registered as the Park's residents. Half of Belarus HTP resident-companies are foreign companies and joint ventures. By the origin of investments attracted to the sphere of new and high technologies:

53% HTP residents were set up by Belarusian investors,

47% HTP resident was set up with foreign investors participation:

20% – joint ventures

27% – enterprises with 100% foreign investments.

 

The export share in the total production volume is 80 per cent. The resident companies are successful on North American and European hi-tech markets. Today they have customers in more than 50 countries around the globe. Today world leading corporations, such as Peugeot, Mitsubishi, British Petroleum, Gazprom, Reuters, British Telecom, London Stock Exchange, World Bank, Coca-Cola, etc. are among major consumers of Belarusian software developed in Belarus Hi-Tech Park.

The first building was put into operation in June 2009. The building hosts the Administration of Belarus Hi-Tech Park, offices of HTP resident-companies, IT-Academy and business-incubator.

Why HTP?

HTP Belarus provides special business environment for IT business with incentives unprecedented for European countries.

Due to the legislative initiative of the Belarus government, IT companies are exempt from all corporate taxes, including VAT, profit, real estate and land taxes. Individual income tax has a fixed rate of 9% for the employees of HTP companies.

HTP attractiveness is based not on tax benefits and costs alone, but on knowledge, innovation and highly qualified human resources. Belarusian programmers get trained at the training centers of IBM, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and other world IT leaders. Another distinctive feature of Belarus developers is that on top of professional skill set, they also have deep knowledge in mathematics, engineering, physics, and other sciences.

Where is HTP?

HTP territory is located close to the main transportation network of the city: the central Minsk avenue, Minsk ring road, main road to the National Airport of Belarus (distance to the airport is 40 km), railway route Berlin-Minsk-Moscow. The territory is perfectly accessible by public transport.

Belarus HTP uses an exterritorial principle of residents’  registration. Nevertheless according to the law a 50-hectar territory was allocated to construct the physical infrastructure of the Hi-Tech Park territory.

According to the master plan the future physical Hi-Tech Park will embody the idea of a hi-tech city where people would comfortably work, live and rest – it will have the science and production area, the residential area, the business & education as well as the public & sport areas.

The Science and Production area includes a complex of scientific and production premises for IT companies, their production facilities.

The Residential area includes residential housing, with high density multiple dwellings for IT companies’ specialists, a kindergarten and a school.

The Business & Education area includes a public and business center, which will host IT companies, a hostel for IT Academy students and a hotel.

The Public & Sport Area consists of a public and sporting center, which includes multifunctional sport gyms, a swimming-pool, sauna, fitness center, "health path", restaurant and a healthcare center.

HTP administration