1.3.Match the words with their definitions:

1.pattern	1. the strongly attractive quality of a person or thing
2. semiconductor	2. to recommend something strongly
3.to urge	3. a solid substance that has a conductivity between that of an insulator and that of most metals
4. increasingly	4.to an increasing extent; more and more
5.lure	5. a business enterprise involving considerable risk
6. layoff	6. to organize and carry out
7. venture	7. an arrangement or design regularly found in comparable objects
8. bilateral	8. happening in a short time or at a fast pace
9. rapid	9. involving two parties, usually countries.
10.to conduct	10. a discharge, especially temporary, of a worker or workers

II. Reading

Located around Santa Clara and San Jose in California, Silicon Valley is the home of many key U.S. corporations that specialize in advanced electronic and information technologies. First called «Silicon Valley» in 1971 by a local newsletter writer, Donald C. Hoefler, the Valley became the center of newly developing technologies that many believed would revolutionize computers, telecommunications, manufacturing procedures, warfare, and even U.S. society itself. The Silicon part of the name refers to the high concentration of companies involved in the making of semiconductors (silicon is used to create most semiconductors commercially) and computer industries that were concentrated in the area. The location of such high-tech research, development, and manufacturing in a formerly agricultural area grew mainly from its proximity to Stanford University in nearby Palo Alto. Stanford, a research-oriented institution with active departments in engineering and electronics, decided in 1951 to establish a «research park», a place where companies could build facilities and conduct research in cooperation with the university, the first such enterprise in the country.

If there was a single founder of Silicon Valley it was William Shockley, an English-born physicist who worked on early concepts of the transistor at Bell Laboratories before World War II and who went on to become the director of Bell’s Transistor Physics Research Group. In 1955 he founded Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories just south of Palo Alto in the north end of Silicon Valley. Shockley’s business acumen did not equal his skills in science and engineering, however, and in 1957 eight of his engineers defected to create Fairchild Semiconductor, supported by Fairchild Camera and Instrument.

Their departure established a pattern of job mobility that came to characterize careers in Silicon Valley in particular and in the electronics companies in general, with employees shunning ties of corporate loyalty in favor of personal fulfillment and financial reward. Reinforcing this pattern, Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andrew Grove left Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968 to establish Intel. Another Fairchild employee, W. J. Sanders III, founded Advanced Micro Devices soon thereafter. In the early 1970s one survey found forty-one companies in Silicon Valley headed by former Fairchild employees. This pattern continued into the 1980s with such companies as National Semiconductor, Atari, Apple Computer, LSI Logic, and Cypress Semiconductor having all or part of their origins in Silicon Valley.

The moderate climate of Silicon Valley, combined with the educated talent from California universities and a largely nonunion workforce, attracted investors and corporations alike.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, much of the valley relied on military contracts, but this dependence declined as commercial and then personal markets for computers emerged. Investors hoping for a very high rate of return increasingly were willing to risk supporting the new electronics companies even though as many as 25 percent of them failed within a few years. By the late 1980s companies estimated that they needed as much as $1 billion to establish a manufacturing facility for the latest generation of semiconductors. Silicon Valley’s success attracted such states as Oregon, Michigan, Texas, Colorado, New York, and Minnesota to invite or promote advanced electronic firms. In the 1990s, companies in Silicon Valley remained the major indicator of the health of the industry.

Foreign competition, especially from Japan, caused perhaps the greatest problems for Silicon Valley. Business and political leaders debated whether or not trade policy needed to defend the interests of U.S. electronics firms more aggressively and whether U.S. companies should receive government funding to make them more competitive in the international market. Silicon Valley had begun to worry about Japanese competition by the late 1970s. In 1981, U.S. companies controlled 51.4 percent of the world’s semiconductor market; Japan’s share was 35.5 percent. Within seven years the figures had virtually reversed themselves, with Japan at 51 percent and the United States 36.5 percent. U.S. companies charged their Japanese counterparts with dumping semiconductors onto the U.S. market at low prices to undercut U.S. manufacturers while Japan kept much of its home market closed. The Semiconductor Industry Association, which represented many companies in Silicon Valley, urged bilateral agreements to open Japan’s market. By the early 1990s it appeared that U.S. industry had started to recover some of the ground lost to Japan. A boom cycle began in the mid-1990s with the emergence of the Internet and electronic commerce leading to the rapid rise of new businesses in the software and electronics industries.

Several factors reduced the lure of Silicon Valley as the center of the electronics and computer industry, among them new technologies, the ascent of successful electronic-component manufacturing elsewhere in the United States, and foreign competition. People learned that the manufacturing of electronic components was not as environmentally clean or safe as some thought, and the growth of the Valley led to traffic congestion and air pollution. However, Silicon Valley continues to maintain its status as one of the top research and development centers in the world. It is also home to a significant number of «Unicorn» ventures, referring to startup companies whose valuation has exceeded $1 billion dollars.

Many more jobs (400 000 during the period 2010 to 2015) are created in Silicon Valley. Thousands of high technology companies are headquartered in Silicon Valley. Among them there are the following:

Adobe Systems

Apple Inc.

eBay

Facebook

Google

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Intel

Tesla Motors

Visa Inc.

Western Digital Corporation

Yahoo!

Twitter

YouTube

Logitech

National Semiconductor

NetApp

Netflix

Nvidia