Concurrent with the tremendous growth in the computer industry that has occurred over the past 25 years, certain areas of the country have become synonymous with computer products and electronics. Silicon Valley is one of these places. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay area, this California location is known for its large concentration of silicon chip production companies. This region of California comprises the northern part of the Santa Clara Valley.

Notable Companies

Silicon Valley is the home of many computer related companies as well as universities that specialize in technological education. Some of the more well-known companies that have called Silicon Valley home are Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Cisco Systems, eBay, Electronic Arts, Google, Intel, Yahoo!, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems, to name some of the more familiar.

Area Colleges

Some of the area’s more notable educational institutions include Stanford, Santa Clara University, San Jose State University, and Carnegie Mellon University. The close proximity to such excellent colleges provides Silicon Valley with a steady supply of talented young individuals who are becoming some of the leading minds behind the technologies and companies that are formed in the region.

Cities

The cities that make up Silicon Valley are important to the economy of the region’s companies and supply the companies with a workforce of competent individuals who strive to make Silicon Valley the success it has become. The cities that are considered to be within the Silicon Valley region are Union City, Sunnyvale, Saratoga, Santa Clara, San Jose, Fremont, Cupertino, Campbell, and Palo Alto. The towns of Newark, Milpitas, Mountain View, Menlo Park, Los Gatos, and Los Altos round out the rest of the cities that make up the Silicon Valley region.

History

The area that is now Silicon Valley was once used extensively by both the Navy and NASA. Despite the area’s former use for government technology, there were few publicly owned companies dedicated to technology. This relative lack of promising jobs resulted in many people moving away from the area after graduation from one of the Valley’s top universities. The problem was remedied by the vision of Stanford professor, Frederick Terman. It was Terman who set up a program that aimed to help new graduates obtain the necessary venture capital to start their dotcom businesses which, in turn, lead to the growth of the area and has caused Silicon Valley to become what it is today.