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Lesson 10 |
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Silicon valley |
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What does the computer industry thrive on apart from anarchy? |
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Technology trends may push Silicon Valley back to the future. |
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Carver Mead, a pioneer in integrated circuits and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology, |
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notes there are now workstations that enable engineers to design, |
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test and produce chips right on their desks, |
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much the way and editor creates a newsletter on a Macintosh. |
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As the time and cost of making a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars, |
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engineers may soon be free to let their imaginations soar without being penalized by expensive failures. |
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Mead predicts that inventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend at the office -- |
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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. |
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'We've got more garages with smart people,' Mead observes. |
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'We really thrive on anarchy.' |
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And on Asians.Already,orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering staffs at many Valley firms. |
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And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from California's colleges. |
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As the heads of next-generation start-ups, |
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these Asian innovators can draw on customs and languages to forge tighter links with crucial Pacific Rim markets. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Before it becomes a retirement village, |
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Silicon Valley may prove a classroom for building a global business. |