Silicon valley

硅谷

What does the computer industry thrive on apart from anarchy?

Technology trends may push Silicon Valley back to the future. Carver Mead, a pioneer in integrated circuits and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology, notes there are now work-stations that enable engineers to design, test and produce chips right on their desks, much the way an editor creates a newsletter on a Macintosh. As the time and cost of making a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars, engineers may soon be free to let their imaginations soar without being penalized by expensive failures. Mead predicts that inventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend at the office -- spawning a new generation of garage start-ups and giving the U.S. a jump on its foreign rivals in getting new products to market fast. 'We're got more garages with smart people,' Mead observes. 'We really thrive on anarchy.'

And on Asians. Already, orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering staffs at many Valley firms. And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from California's colleges. As the heads of next-generation start-ups, these Asian innovators can draw on customs and languages to forge righter links with crucial Pacific Rim markets. For instance, Alex Au, a Stanford Ph. D. from Hong Kong, has set up a Taiwan factory to challenge Japan's near lock on the memory-chip market. India-born N.Damodar Reddy's tiny California company reopened an AT & T chip plant in Kansas City last spring with financing from the state of Missouri. Before it becomes a retirement village, Silicon Valley may prove a classroom for building a global business.

技術(shù)的發(fā)展趨勢(shì)有可能把硅谷重新推向未來(lái)�？ǜ�.米德 -- 集成電路的一位先驅(qū)，加州理工學(xué)院的計(jì)算機(jī)教授 -- 注意到，現(xiàn)在有些計(jì)算機(jī)工作站使工程技術(shù)人員可以在他們的辦公桌上設(shè)計(jì)、試驗(yàn)和生產(chǎn)芯片，就像一位編輯在蘋果機(jī)上編出一份時(shí)事通訊一樣。由于制造一塊芯片的時(shí)間已縮短至幾天，費(fèi)用也只有幾百美元，因此，工程技術(shù)人員可能很塊就可充分發(fā)揮他們的想像力，而不會(huì)因失敗而造成經(jīng)濟(jì)上的損失。米德預(yù)言發(fā)明者可以在辦公室用一個(gè)周末的時(shí)間生產(chǎn)了完美的、功能很強(qiáng)的、按客戶需求設(shè)計(jì)的芯片 -- 造就新一代從汽車間起家的技術(shù)人員，在把產(chǎn)品推向市場(chǎng)方面使美國(guó)把它的外國(guó)對(duì)手們打個(gè)措手不及。 “我們有更多的汽車間，那里有許多聰明人，”米德說(shuō)。“我們確實(shí)是靠這種無(wú)政府狀態(tài)發(fā)展起來(lái)的。” 靠的是亞洲人。硅谷許多公司中工程技術(shù)人員的大多數(shù)是東方人和亞裔美國(guó)人。中國(guó)、韓國(guó)、菲律賓和印度的工程師一批批地從加州的大學(xué)畢業(yè)。作為新掘起一代的帶頭人，亞裔發(fā)明家可以憑借他們?cè)诹?xí)慣和語(yǔ)言上的優(yōu)勢(shì)，與關(guān)鍵的太平洋沿岸市場(chǎng)建立起更加牢固的聯(lián)系。比如說(shuō)，亞歷克斯.奧，一位來(lái)自香港的斯坦福大學(xué)博士，已經(jīng)在臺(tái)灣建廠，對(duì)日本在內(nèi)存條市場(chǎng)上近似壟斷的局面提出了挑戰(zhàn)。印度出生的N.達(dá)莫達(dá).雷迪經(jīng)營(yíng)的小小的加州公司在堪薩斯城重新啟用了美國(guó)電話電報(bào)公司的一家芯片工廠，并從密蘇里州獲取了財(cái)政上的支持。在硅谷變成一個(gè)退休村之前，它很可能成為建立全球商業(yè)的一個(gè)教學(xué)場(chǎng)地。