Silicon Valley

**Silicon Valley** is a region in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. The area is home to many of the world's largest and influential technology companies, such as Adobe and Apple.

## Statistics

Silicon Valley corresponds roughly to the geographical Santa Clara Valley. San Jose (where Adobe is headquartered) is Silicon Valley's largest city, the third-largest in California, and the tenth-largest in the United States. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third-highest GDP per capita in the world (after Zurich, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway), according to the Brookings Institution.

## History of the term

The popularization of the name is credited to Don Hoefler. He first used it in the article "Silicon Valley USA", which appeared in the January 11, 1971 issue of the weekly trade newspaper *Electronic News*. However, it took about a decade before the term came into common use. The term gained widespread use in the early 1980s, at the time of the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer and numerous related hardware and software products to the consumer market.

The word "silicon" in the name originally referred to the large number of innovators and manufacturers in the region specializing in silicon-based MOS transistors and integrated circuit chips. The area is now home to many of the world's largest high-tech corporations, including the headquarters of more than 30 businesses in the Fortune 1000, and thousands of startup companies. Silicon Valley also accounts for one-third of all of the venture capital investment in the United States, which has helped it to become a leading hub and startup ecosystem for high-tech innovation and scientific development. It was in Silicon Valley that the silicon-based integrated circuit, the microprocessor, and the microcomputer, among other technologies, were developed. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of a million information technology workers.

As more high-tech companies were established across San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, and then north towards the Bay Area's two other major cities, San Francisco (where Macromedia was based) and Oakland, the term "Silicon Valley" has come to have two definitions: a narrower geographic one, referring to Santa Clara County and southeastern San Mateo County, and a metonymical definition referring to high-tech businesses in the entire Bay Area. The term Silicon Valley is often used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. The name also became a global synonym for leading high-tech research and enterprises, and thus inspired similar named locations, as well as research parks and technology centers with a comparable structure all around the world.

Due to the personal connection between people and computer technology, many headquarters of companies in Silicon Valley are a hotspot for tourism.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "The Valley of Heart's Delight: A Silicon Valley Notebook 1963 - 2001", John S. Wiley & Sons, 2002, p. xix. ISBN: 9780471201915. Retrieved on 28 July 2020.
2. ↑ "Silicon Valley, Women, and the California Dream: Gender, Class, and Opportunity in the Twentieth Century", Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 2. ISBN: 9780804741545.
3. ↑ "Silicon Valley", Arcadia Publishing, 2009, p. 8. ISBN: 9780738570938. Retrieved on 28 July 2020.
4. ↑ Silicon Valley Business Journal – San Jose Area has World's Third-Highest GDP Per Capita, Brookings Says.
5. ↑ Who named Silicon Valley? (January 7, 2015). Retrieved on October 16, 2018.
6. ↑ Monthly employment continues upward climb. Silicon Valley Index. Archived from the original on September 24, 2013. Retrieved on September 24, 2013.
7. ↑ Carson, Biz. 16 Silicon Valley landmarks you must visit on your next trip.
8. ↑ Tech Headquarters You Can Visit in Silicon Valley.
9. ↑ Sheng, Ellen (December 3, 2018). Why the headquarters of iconic tech companies are now among America's top tourist attractions.

## External links

* SiliconValley.com business news and commentary
* Silicon Valley at Visit California
* Silicon Valley at the Apple Wiki
* Silicon Valley at the Macromedia Wiki
* Silicon Valley at Wikipedia