2. Contents
• Acknowledgement
• Introduction
• History And Its Beginning
• IT Companies
• The Growth Of It Industry
• Background
• The PC Revolution
• Why It’s Named Silicon Valley?
• Factors and Recent Trends
• Conclusion
3. Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my family
members help and constant
support in doing this
project. I would like to
thank my Geography
Teacher , Tr. Sanchita Ghosh
for giving us this project. I
came to know many other
things from this project was
indeed helpful for me in
gaining knowledge.
4. Introduction
• Silicon Valley is a nickname for the southern portion of the San
Francisco Bay Area in the United States. It is home to many of the
world's largest high-tech corporations, as well as thousands of
tech startup companies. The region occupies roughly the same
area as the Santa Clara Valley where it is centered, including San
Jose and surrounding cities and towns. The term originally
referred to the large number of silicon chip innovators and
manufacturers in the region, but eventually came to refer to
all high tech businesses in the area, and is now generally used as
a metonym for the American high-technology economic sector.
• Silicon Valley is a leading hub and startup ecosystem for high-tech
innovation and development, accounting for one-third of all of
the venture capital investment in the United States.
Geographically, Silicon Valley is generally thought to encompass all
of the Santa Clara Valley, the southern half of the Peninsula, and
southern portions of the East Bay.
5. History and its Beginning
Professor Frederick Terman, who is called the ‘Father of
Silicon Valley’ , played an important role in the
development of the local high-tech industry. Large Scale
migration of graduates to the East Coast for jobs led him
to encourage students such as William Hewlett and
David Packard to start companies near Stanford
University. Today, Hewlett Packard is a multinational
company that produces computers, electronic
measuring devices and equipment worth billions of
dollars of annual revenue and has more than 100,000
employees worldwide. In 1951, the standard Industrial
Park was founded, which was a centre of high-
technology industries located close to the Stanford
University.
6. IT Companies
Thousands of high
technology companies
are headquartered in
Silicon Valley. Among
those, the following are in
the Fortune 1000 are :
1) Ebay
2) Yahoo
3) Intel
4) Apple
5) Dell
7. The Growth Of IT Industry
During the 1950s,the semiconductor industry came up
that used silicon as a semiconductor. Mass
manufacturing of silicon chips began in the
semiconductor industry and it was this industry that
later gave rise to the name Silicon Valley. In 1973, Intel
introduced the standard CPU (Central Processing Unit or
microprocessor).These CPU’s formed the basis of a
computer’s operation. Eventually, Japanese companies
started dominating the market because they were able
to ensure production at cheaper rates and according to
customer preferences. Much of the production facilities
of the semi-conductor industry of Silicon Valley were
shifted to countries where cheap labor was available.
8. Background
• Stanford University, its affiliates, and graduates have played a major role in the development of
this area.[2] 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 very 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.[3]
• 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".[4]
In 1956 William Shockley, the creator of the transistor, moved from New Jersey to Mountain View,
California to start Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to live closer to his ailing mother in Palo
Alto, California. Shockley's work served as the basis for many electronic developments for
decades.
9. The PC Revolution
In 1976, the first personal computer, Apple I was
released and in the very next year Apple II was
introduced. That was the beginning of a successful
multinational company- Apple Computer. Hewlett-
Packard launched its first PC in 1980. In 1982
International Business Machines (IBM) launched a
personal computer which had a disk operating
system-DOS-developed by Microsoft.
Microprocessors gradually improved and a host of
computer peripherals flooded the market.
10. Why it’s named Silicon Valley?
The term Silicon Valley is attributed to Ralph Vaerst, a local
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
January 11, 1971, issue. The term gained widespread use in the
early 1980s, at the time of the introduction of the IBM PC and
numerous related hardware and software products to the
consumer market. The Silicon part of the name refers to the high
concentration of companies involved in the making
of semiconductors (silicon is used to create most semiconductors
commercially) and computer industries that were concentrated in
the area. These firms slowly replaced the orchards and related
agriculture and food production companies which gave the area its
initial nickname — the "Valley of Heart's Delight."
11. Factors and Recent Trends
Factors-
A huge capital base, technically skilled personnel, power
facilities, governmental support and a pleasant climate
have favored the growth and development of the IT
Industry in the Silicon Valley.
Recent Trends-
The Internet has changed the world of Information
Communication Technology. Silicon Valley has emerged
triumphant from this recent IT Revolution. There are
more than 4,000 IT and related companies located in
this region and some of the giants include Intel, Sun ,
Apple Computers, Hewlett- Packard and IBM.
12. Conclusion
I would like to sincerely
thank my Geography
Teacher ,Tr. Sanchita
Ghosh for her help and
constant support and also
for giving us this
opportunity of making
the project. I came to
know about many things
about the Silicon Valley. I
would again thank my
dear teacher for giving us
this project.