硅谷一词于1971年首次出现在《每周商业》报纸电子新闻系列文章的题目──美国硅谷。它是全球电子行业青年心驰神往的圣地，是世界各国留学生的竞技场和淘金场，也已成为各国高科技企业聚 集区的代名词。自80年代后，世界各国有不少科技较发达地区，为了更快地促进地方经济，都试图建立起自己的硅谷，如美国波士顿的“第二硅谷”、“日本硅 谷”、“韩国硅谷”等。中国也不例外，有北京中关村硅谷、上海浦东硅谷(位于浦东张江)和广东深圳硅谷， 浙江杭州也有一个“天堂硅谷”。但硅谷多了就不称其为“硅谷”了，美国有一个著名科学家曾经说过这样一句话：“硅谷是不能复制的，硅谷只有一个！”
下文是美国一位工程师(也许曾在硅谷工作过)在TI收购NS以后，有感而发写下的。其他工程师评价说“谁说工程师没有感性的一面？”中国也有很多出色的工程师去了或者曾经在那工作，或许你也有关于硅谷的美好回忆与大家分享？
当德州仪器(TI)宣布收购美国国家半导体(NS)时，仿佛有一部分的硅谷也随之死去。让我们从头检视始于1950年代的半导体辉煌世代，当时，Santa Clara山谷中的许多果园都被半导体取代，美国国家半导体也从东岸迁到了Santa Clara。
经 过一代又一代，美国国家半导体日益茁壮，周围的社区都受益于美国国家半导体缴纳的税款，这些钱用来修建公路、学校和下水道系统；数千名员工在当地建立了社 区和学校，催生并支持当地的商业开发。附近还有很多类似故事：英特尔(Intel)、超微(AMD)、凌力尔特(Linear Technology)，他们都是硅谷光荣榜上的先驱(电子工程专辑版权所有，谢绝转载)。
美 国国家半导体在90年代攀上了高峰；这家公司甚至挺过了Gil Amelio当政的混乱时代(当时究竟是怎么一回事？)，并试图与英特尔短兵相接(Brian Hallaeventually终于在错误的策略中看到了一线希望)；无论如何，这家公司及其员工们一直代表着硅谷的基石。
而今，这一切都被德州人的数十亿美元给冲掉了。接下来几个月，你可能会听到一些有关合作优势、相互依存关系、可扩展性和企业杠杆操作的乐观言论──还有其他一切你所能想像到的空洞、无意义的谈话。
随 着几百个工作机会消失，这些冠冕堂皇的言语终将失色，就像樱花花瓣一样，Kifer路1152号会变成众多办公室之一而非权力中心。不要惊讶，五年后若你 开车经过它，也许它看起来就像摩托罗拉SPS的在凤凰城北56街的旧办公室一样，一栋闪闪发光的白色的的建筑物，提醒着我们已消逝的辉煌。那时，想必这里 的业务也南下搬到了德州。
让 我们回到硅谷。去年，积极拓展模拟业务的Microsemi买下了硅谷的FPGA开发先驱Actel。裁员传言甚嚣尘上，确实，部分人失去了工作，而其他 人则被迫南下，搬到南加州，搬到并购者的总部，到……，总之一个除了硅谷之外的地方(电子工程专辑版权所有，谢绝转载)。
我们哀悼逝去的美好。
然后，我们继续前进。
我们继续前进，因为在褪色的遥远温馨记忆中，家家户户都会开着旧卡车或嘎嘎作响的旅行车，到Mt.Hamilton野餐，或是在春天去爬Santa Cruz山，惊叹于漫山遍野的果树盛开的花朵在下方山谷中交织出的美景。
曾经的果园
一切都消失了。
取而代之的是出自大批设计师和建筑师之手的高速公路和数以千计的建筑物。
我 们继续前进，因为难以想像的创造性破坏(creative destruction)──创新、财富、乐观──带动的经济发展取代了原有的良田，美国国家半导体、英特尔、AMD应运而生，之后还有赛灵思 (Xilinx)、Altera、Actel、Linear和其他数十家公司(电子工程专辑版权所有，谢绝转载)。
我 们继续前进，因为带来创造性破坏的公司，就像美国国家半导体，已经尽情享受了它的青春，我们继续前进，因为硅谷将永远是创新的摇篮。芯片公司之后，就轮到 系统公司；而现在，软件公司，Google，Facebook，Twitter都来了。他们都站在美国国家半导体和其他硅谷先驱的肩膀上。
举杯，让我们共同哀悼逝去的岁月！
硅谷已死！硅谷却也将长存！
Requiem for an era
Brian Fuller
Part of the Silicon Valley died this week when National Semiconductor got bought by Texas Instruments. It was another box checked off on the long slow autopsy of the golden era of semiconductors, an era begun in the 1950s when companies starting supplanting fruit orchards in the Santa Clara Valley; when National fled the East Coast for Santa Clara to be where the action was.
For generations, National invented and grew, and the communities around it benefited when National paid taxes that helped build roads, schools and sewer systems, employed thousands who built communities and nurtured schools and spawned and supported local businesses. Nearby a similar story: Intel, AMD, Linear, and so on down the storied honor roll of Silicon Valley pioneers.
Even as National seemed to peak in the 1990s; even as it wobbled through the Gil Amelio regime (what the heck was that all about??) and tried going toe to toe with Intel (Brian Halla eventually saw the light on the strategic error), the company and its people were always a cornerstone of the Valley.
And they had fun. Bernie Cole writes about faux charges up San Juan Hill; Paul Rako has a fantastic look back at National and Valley history, through the eyes of the late Bob Widlar (two of the outstanding photos in that post tell you exactly what Widlar would think of the merger).
It’s all washing away now in a warm shower of billions of dollars from the Texans. There will be optimistic talk in the coming months about synergy and strengths and mutual dependencies, of scalability and leverage and every other vacuous, meaningless messaging mantra you can conceive of.
The words will fade as hundreds of jobs fall, like cherry blossoms, and 1152 Kifer Road becomes a satellite office rather than a power center. Don’t be surprised in five years if you drive past it and it looks just like Motorola SPS’s old power center on North 56th St. in Phoenix—today, a gleaming… white… and completely empty reminder of a vanished time. There, too, the operations moved south to Texas.
Back to the Valley. Last year, MicroSemi, an aggressively expanding analog house, snapped up Actel, one of the Valley’s FPGA pioneers. Lots of talk about minimal redundancies and so on, but scores of people have lost their jobs and those remaining are being pressured to move south, to Southern California, to the headquarters of the winning team, to the… Not-Silicon Valley.
So, we mourn the dead.
And then we move on.
We move on because, in the distant warm memories of a fading few, families packed picnics and piled into old trucks and station wagons and rattled up Mt. Hamilton or into the Santa Cruz Mountains at springtime to marvel at the impossibly vast vista of blossoming fruit trees carpeting the Valley below.
All gone.
Replaced by vast tangled freeways and thousands of bland buildings stamped out by armies of architects and builders who, long before, abandoned the notion of excelling at their craft.
We move on because what replaced the farms was an economy of unimaginable innovation, wealth, optimism and embrace of creative destruction… an economy of National, Intel, AMD and, later, Xilinx, Altera, Actel, Linear and scores more.
We move on because of the same creative destruction that companies like National feasted on in their youth; we move on because the Valley will always be the cradle of innovation. After the silicon guys came the systems guys; now, the software guys—Google. Facebook. Twitter. They all stand on the shoulders of National Semiconductor and other Silicon Valley pioneers.
Mourn the dead, and raise your glass.
The Valley is dead. Long live the Valley.
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