How
Silicon,Si, an element used in manufacture of transistors, inspired Silicon Valley:
Over 90% of the Earth's crust is composed of silicate minerals, making silicon the second most abundant element in the earth's crust (about 28% by mass) after oxygen.
in a
Silicon memory chip, the small current turns the transistor on or off. Since the transistor can be in two distinct states, a computer can use it to store two different numbers, zero and one. With lots of transistors, a computer can store lots of billions of zeros and ones and use them to represent ordinary numbers and letters.
In a modern computer chip, the size of a fingernail, you'll probably find between 500 million and two billion separate
Silicon transistors.
Quote:Normally, a Silicon junction transistor is "off" when there is no base current and switches to "on" when the base current flows. That means it takes an electric current to switch the transistor on or off. But transistors like this can be hooked up with logic gates so their output connections feed back into their inputs. The transistor then stays on even when the base current is removed. Each time a new base current flows, the transistor "flips" on or off. It remains in one of those stable states (either on or off) until another current comes along and flips it the other way. This kind of arrangement is known as a flip-flop and it turns a Silicon transistor into a simple memory device that stores a zero (when it's off) or a one (when it's on). Flip-flops are the basic technology behind computer memory chips.
http://www.explainthatst...howtransistorswork.html
Quote:The 1960s
HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of Silicon Valley, although it did not actively investigate semiconductor devices until a few years after the "Traitorous Eight" had abandoned William Shockley to create Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. Hewlett-Packard's HP Associates division, established around 1960, developed semiconductor devices primarily for internal use. Instruments and calculators were some of the products using these devices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewlett-Packard
William Shockley:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley
Quote:Shockley set up his own transistor-making company and helped to inspire the modern-day phenomenon that is "Silicon Valley" (the prosperous area around Palo Alto, California where electronics corporations have congregated). Two of his employees, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, went on to found Intel, the world's biggest micro-chip manufacturer.
HP and Intel broke out from William Shockley to become the Giants they are currently.
As Iron Sharpens Iron, So one Man Sharpens Another.