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Christophe Lécuyer

Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970 (Inside Technology) Paperback – Illustrated, August 24, 2007

by Christophe Lecuyer (Author)

4.8 13 ratings

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In Making Silicon Valley, Christophe Lécuyer shows that the explosive growth of the personal computer industry in Silicon Valley was the culmination of decades of growth and innovation in the San Francisco-area electronics industry. Using the tools of science and technology studies, he explores the formation of Silicon Valley as an industrial district, from its beginnings as the home of a few radio enterprises that operated in the shadow of RCA and other East Coast firms through its establishment as a center of the electronics industry and a leading producer of power grid tubes, microwave tubes, and semiconductors. He traces the emergence of the innovative practices that made this growth possible by following key groups of engineers and entrepreneurs. He examines the forces outside Silicon Valley that shaped the industry—in particular the effect of military patronage and procurement on the growth of the industry and on the development of technologies—and considers the influence of Stanford University and other local institutions of higher learning.

Lécuyer argues that Silicon Valley's emergence and its growth were made possible by the development of unique competencies in manufacturing, in product engineering, and in management. Entrepreneurs learned to integrate invention, design, manufacturing, and sales logistics, and they developed incentives to attract and retain a skilled and motivated workforce. The largest Silicon Valley firms—including Eitel-McCullough (Eimac), Litton Industries, Varian Associates, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Intel—dominated the American markets for advanced tubes and semiconductors and, because of their innovations in manufacturing, design, and management, served as models and incubators for other electronics ventures in the area.

Print length

406 pages
Language

English
Publisher

MIT Press
Publication date

August 24, 2007
Dimensions

6 x 0.92 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0262622114
ISBN-13

978-0262622110
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Editorial Reviews

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Making Silicon Valley is meatier than its contemporaries. Dense and replete with footnotes, it's an expert book written for experts-readers who already know Robert Noyce from Gordon Moore. For them, it's a detailed and nuanced discussion of how and why Silicon Valley emerged as a center of manufacturing, product engineering, and management.—HBS Working Knowledge—

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Silicon Valley wannabes search for the Valley's secrets of success. Lécuyer's impressively informed response reminds them that God is in the manufacturing details.

―Thomas P. Hughes, author of Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ MIT Press; Illustrated edition (August 24, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 406 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262622114
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262622110
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.92 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #745,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #417 in Computers & Technology Industry
- #1,218 in Company Business Profiles (Books)
- #12,843 in U.S. State & Local History

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4.8 13 ratings

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Border Mom

Excellent!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 30, 2018

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Excellent history of the development of the area and the expertise in making electronic parts.

One person found this helpful

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Shane

Great Read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 15, 2010

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This books does a wonderful job mixing history with technical content. The author's ideas are well supported through evidence and good logic. Anyone involved in the technical sector of the San Francisco peninsula should read this book to understand the footsteps they are walking in.

One person found this helpful

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Garcia Moreira Rafael

Very good historicakl review

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 5, 2013

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I enjoyed particularly the decades fronm 1930 to 1970. very useful to understand the role of Stanford Univ. and the DOF in the development of SV.

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arpard fazakas

the pre-Apple days

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 1, 2011

This is a solid, scholarly review of the history of Silicon Valley from its beginning making electronic components through the era of Intel and integrated solid-state circuits. It serves as an excellent foundation for understanding the subsequent development of Silicon Valley as the birthplace of the personal computer revolution. In chronological order the book discusses Eitel-McCullough, a major manufacturer of vacuum tubes; Litton Engineering, which made tools for the manufacturing of vacuum tubes, and its spinoff Litton Industries, which became the premiere manufacturer of tubes for radio and radar; Varian Associates, which specialized in klystrons, a very high frequency radio tube used for radar and atomic bomb fuses; Fairchild Semiconductor, Amelco, and Signetics, which manufactured semiconductor components; and Intel, Interstil, and National Semiconductor, makers of integrated semiconductor circuits. The author describes in detail the major forces which shaped the development of these companies: radio hobbyists; academia, especially Stanford University; competition with East Coast firms; and military procurement. He illuminates the origin of business practices such as collaborative approaches and stock options which became a hallmark of Silicon Valley. Particularly interesting is the Introduction in which the author discusses various social and economic interpretations of the Silicon Valley phenomenon; this section is an excellent starting point for those interested in learning more about these intriguing topics.

I found the level of this book to be just right: a solid scholarly tone but not overly technical or erudite. It is definitely not a popular history in the sense of revolving around individual personalities and amusing anecdotes, although it is of course impossible not to tell this story without referring to some remarkable personalities. I was particularly impressed by Charles Litton, who brought a remarkable blend of hands-on mechanical skills, physical intuition, engineering prowess, and business acumen to bear on the difficult problems of designing and manufacturing reliable, high-frequency, high-power radio tubes.

This book will be of great interest to anyone interested in the history of technology, electronics, and computers, as well the political, social, and economic forces which have shaped Silicon Valley, the computer industry, California, and the United States as a whole.

3 people found this helpful

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History of Technology Fan

An excellent historical contribution that is also a good read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 30, 2005

Lecuyer provides a compelling new perspective on the development of Silicon Valley, grounded in the evolution of a unique electronics manufacturing capability in the region. The centrality of manufacturing is traced through the growth both of an ecosystem of high-technology firms across four decades and of the novel business and management practices that were created. With this manufacturing perspective, Lecuyer shows how sucessive waves of high technology industries, from tubes to semiconductors to software, grew on the business, social, and technological innovations and capacities of the preceeding waves on the Peninsula.

Lecuyer's narrative is engaging, and populated by remarkable characters like the Varian brothers, Gordon Moore, Jean Hoerni, Robert Noyce, Andy Grove, and Apple Computer's "two Steves." The scholarship is deep and thorough.

Making Silicon Valley strikes me as an important contriubtion to the literature that would be of interest to many readers who are curious about the history of technology and business, well beyond the academic specialists for whom it will do doubt become standard fare.

13 people found this helpful

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Insights into Silicon Valley's high-tech evolution

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 5, 2009

In the mid-1970s, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, founders of a Silicon Valley startup named Apple, asked Intel retiree Mike Markkula to invest in their firm. Sensing that it could become a winner, he gave them $92,000 and, in 1977, went to work for the company. Three years later, Apple went public and Markkula made millions. Time and again over the decades, this amazing story has repeated itself on the San Francisco Peninsula now known as Silicon Valley. getAbstract finds that historian Christophe Lécuyer does a capable, intriguing, intricately researched job of taking readers behind the scenes to learn how Silicon Valley first developed, what makes it tick and what its high-tech mastery has accomplished. While some of the technical terms may require a learning curve, this is the place to learn about the center of technology in the U.S. before it came to create and dominate the high-tech industry.

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Allan D

Comprehensive look at the origins of Silicon Valley

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 3, 2022

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This is a history of the origins and development of silicon valley as a hub of electronics technology and industry. The story begins with the development of a small number of firms of producing vacuum tube in the 20s and 30s and continues as they become more numerous and skilled during the Second World War and companies building semiconductors start to appear in the late 40s and 50s becoming much more numerous and cutting edge by the 1960s. The book tries to trace the elements that lead to these developments by following developments at various firms such as Eitel-McCullough Inc. (a vacuum tube maker) and the Fairchild Semiconductor.

This is an academic history with lots of references to primary sources, such as company reports, correspondence from the time and lots of later communications and interviews with actors by the author and others. Lécuyer includes accounts of broader softer factors such as the role of ham operators (amateur radio enthusiasts) in building up technical skill in the area before large scale vacuum tube occurred. However harder and more direct factors are considered such as military procurement and research funding directives. The major focus of the narrative are the individual careers of various engineers who founded companies and pursued innovation or production of vacuum tubes, later transistors and integrated circuits.

The role of the vacuum tube industry as building competencies later used in the semi-conductor industry and also providing a business model for west coast firms is emphasized. The role of larger more established east coast firms tends to be dealt with more tangentially in the narrative. While some technical discussion occurs about how certain technologies work much is left un discussed and this can be a bit disorienting. I am still not quite clear on what a power vacuum tube is or what its specialized role in electronics is. The focus is almost exclusively on the actual component technology and the applications such as radar gets much less discussion, computers are barely described in any detail. The story is framed by rise of Apple after the period of the narrative as something that the stage was set for in this earlier period and that has some key resonances with it.

Dr. Peter Meier

Bevor Silicon Valley Silicon Valley wurde

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on August 5, 2020

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Aus der Retrospektive, in den 80ern (Zeitalter der frühen Digitalisierung) an der University of California in Berkeley Postdoc gemacht zu haben und danach in einem Silicon Valley Unternehmen in Palo Alto gearbeitet zu haben, ist diese auf noch frühere Zeiten bezogene Beschreibung der Entstehung des Silicon Valley höchst interessant. Sie bezieht sich auf die Periode prä-Silicon bis early-Silicon. Zusammen mit der Standford University entwickelten Unternehmen Radar-, Mikrowellen- und weitere elektromagnetische Hochfrequenz-Technologien zur Anwendung für militärische Zwecke. Zunächst noch nach analogen Konzepten. Nach dem II. Weltkrieg und nach dem Koreakrieg erfolgte dann ein Transfer für zivile Anwendungen. Zusammen mit Computern wurde Instrumente der Medizin- und der Physiktechnik die neuen Produkte. Ein Beispiel, welches das Buch herausarbeitet ist das physikalisch Phänomen NMR, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, welche Grundlage der entsprechenden Spektroskopie zur Aufklärung der Struktur chemischer Verbindungen und der entsprechenden Tomographie zur medizinisch-diagnostischen Bildgebung wurde.

Dieses early-Silicon Valley hat noch nichts mit dem Silicon Valley seit 1980 zu tun, welches nach der Silikonisierung durch Transistoren, Integrierten Schaltungen und Halbleiterspeichern, die Technologie der Digitalisierung mit Computern und Netzwerken zusammen brachte, um Software ergänzte und Produkte für informative und soziale Techniken entwickelte, welche die Welt verändern.

Definitiv eine Empfehlung für Interessierte an Wissenschaft, Technologie, Technik, Produkte, Business und dem entsprechenden Transfer.

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d'arco

perspective historique et sociale de l'innovation

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on August 19, 2013

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Mise en perspective historique sur une période assez longue pour comprendre les interactions entre les universités, le monde industriels dans la compétition pour la créativité et le rôle gouvernemental à travers les armées comme stimulateur de la production, mais également comme source de stress par coupe budgétaire conduisant à une sursaut d'adaptation des entreprises.Les aspects sociaux et manegeriaux ne sont pas oubliés.

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