Page 13 - DIRECTORY

Celebrating our History
Invention of a humble silicon chip or integrated circuit
The beauty of orchards blooming throughout Santa Clara Valley gave the area its name of “The Valley of Heart’s Delight.” With the invention of a small integrated circuit using a silicon crystal as the primary raw material “Silicon Valley” was born. This chip, 7/16 of an inch by 1/16 of an inch, revolutionized the valley and the world.
Two men are considered co-inventors of the integrated circuit. One was Jack Kilby, working out of Texas with Texas Instruments 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 six months of each other. Noyce later left Fairchild with eight 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.HehadajournalistfriendnamedDonHoefler 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 America were in California and that 10 of those towns were in Silicon Valley.
Towns in Silicon Valley are not necessarily in Santa Clara Valley although most are. Santa Clara County cities in alphabetical order: Campbell, Cupertino, East Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Menlo Park, Milpitas, Mountain View, Newark, Palo Alto, San Jose, Santa Clara, Saratoga, and Sunnyvale.
Other cities outside Santa Clara County are: Livermore, Pleasanton, Redwood City, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, Scotts Valley.
One of the first major tech companies in the region was Hewlett-Packard, founded in a Silicon Valley garage in the 1930s. 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.” Cupertino Historical Society & Museum archives have more information about innovative companies in Cupertino including Cali Bros, Kaiser, Apple, HP, Tandem, Varian, and Vallco to name a few.
Go to: 10185 N. Stelling Rd.
Call: (408) 973-1495
Visit: www.cupertinohistoricalsociety.org
Jack S. Kilby
Robert Noyce
408 252 7054 www.cupertino-chamber.org 13
History