Silicon Valley

                                 

Silicon Valley is a nickname for the southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area, which is located in part of the U.S. state ofCalifornia known as Northern California. It is home to many of the world's largest high-tech corporations, as well as thousands ofstartup companies. Geographically, it encompasses all of the Santa Clara Valley, the southern half of the San Francisco Peninsula, and southern portions of the East Bay. It includes parts or most of Santa Clara County, San Mateo County, andAlameda County.

The word "valley" refers to the Santa Clara Valley, where the region has traditionally been centered, which includes the city ofSan Jose and surrounding cities and towns. The word "silicon" originally referred to the large number of silicon chip innovatorsand manufacturers in the region. The term "Silicon Valley" eventually came to refer to all high tech businesses in the area, and is now generally used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. It 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.

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. It was in the Valley that the silicon-based integrated circuit, themicroprocessor, and the microcomputer, among other key technologies, were developed. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of a million information technologyworkers.

The first ship-to-shore wireless telegraph message to be received in the US was from the San Francisco lightship outside the Golden Gate, signaling the return of the American fleet from the Philippines after their victory in the Spanish–American War.^[when?] The ship had been outfitted with a wireless telegraph transmitter by a local newspaper, so that they could prepare a celebration on the return of the American sailors.^[4]

Local historian Clyde Arbuckle states in Clyde Arbuckle's History of San Jose^[5] that "California first heard the click of a telegraph key on September 11, 1853. It marked completion of an enterprise begun by a couple of San Francisco Merchants' Exchange members named George Sweeney and Theodore E. Baugh…" He says, "In 1849, the gentleman established a wigwag telegraph station a top a high hill overlooking Portsmouth Squares for signaling arriving ships… The operator at the first station caught these signals by telescope and relayed them to the Merchant's Echange for the waiting business community." Arbuckle points to the historic significance the Merchants Exchange Building (San Francisco) and Telegraph Hill, San Francisco when he goes on to say "The first station gave the name Telegraphto the hill on which it was located. Its was known as the Inner Station; the second, as the Outer Station. Both used their primitive mode of communication until Messrs. Sweeney and Baugh connected the Outer Station directly with the Merchants's Exchange by electric telegraph Wire."

According to Arbuckle (p. 380-381) Sweeney and Baugh's line was strictly an intra-city, San Francisco based service; that is until California State Telegraph Company enfranchised on May 3, 1852; whereas, O.E. Allen and C. Burnham led the way to "build a line from San Francisco to Marysville via San Jose, Stockton, and Sacramento." Delays to construction occurred until September 1853; but, "…San Jose became the first station on the line when the wire arrived here on October 15. The line was completed when [James] Gamble's northbound crew met a similar crew working southward from Marysville on October 24."

The 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.

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. 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.