Cupertino DailyInvention of a humble silicon chip or integrated circuit
The Silicon Valley went from being called “The Valley of
hearts Delight” in its orchard days, to being called “The Silicon valley”
because of the invention of a humble silicon chip or integrated circuit
using silicon crystal as the basic raw material. This chip’s size was 7/16 by 1/16
inches in size revolutionized our valley.
by Donna Austin
There are two men considered co-inventors of the integrated curcuit.
One was Jack Kilby working with Texas Instruments in Texas
in July 1958
and the other was Robert Noyce one of the founders of Fairchild in
California in January 1959. Both Kirby and Noyce filed for patents within 6
months of each other. Robert Noyce later left Fairchild with 8 others to found
Intel. He was considered by many as the mayor of Silicon Valley.
The term Silicon Valley was first attributed to Ralph
Vaerst. He had a journalist friend named Don Hoefler who first published the
term in January 1971 in a series of articles called “Silicon Valley, USA”
A Wall Street Journal story found that 13 out of 20 most
inventive towns in American were in California and that 10 of those towns were
in Silicon Valley. Towns in Silicon Valley are not necessarily in the Santa
Clara Valley although most of them are.
Here is a list in alphabetical order: Campbell, Cupertino,
East Palo Alto, Fremont, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Menlo Park,
Milpitas, Mountain View, Newark, Palo Alto, San Jose, Santa Clara, Saratoga,
Sunnyvale.
Other cities outside Santa Clara County are
Redwood City (home of Oracle)
Livermore/Pleasanton
San Mateo
Scotts Valley/Santa Cruz
One of the first major tech companies in the region was
Hewlett-Packard, founded in a Silicon Valley garage in the 1930’s. When semiconductor firms moved into the
region to start manufacturing, the area became forever associated with
computers, software and the tech industry.
T.J. Rogers, founder of Cypress semiconductor spoke about
the history of innovation in the valley and innovation in silicon chips. He
said, “Silicon Valley is to innovation what Wall Street is to finance.
…The DNA of Silicon Valley…are basic American freedoms and
free market capitalism.”
Tags: local history
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