Technology trends may push Silicon valley back to the future. Carver Mead, a pioneer in
integrated and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology,
notes there are now workstations that wannabe engineers to design, test and produce chips
right on their desks, much the way an editor creates a newsletter on a Macintosh. As the
time and the cost of making a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars, engineers
may soon be free to let their imaginations soar without being penalized by expensive failures.
Mead predicts that inventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend
at the office-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. 'We've got more garages with smart
people,' Mead observes. 'We really thrive on anarchy.'
And on Asians, Already, orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering
staffs at many Valley firms. And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating
in droves from customs and languages to forge tighter links with crucial Pacific Rim markets.
For instance, Alex Au, a Standford Ph.D. from Hong Kong, has set up a Taiwan factory to challenge
Japan's near lock on the memorychip market. India-born N.Damodar Reddy's tiny California company
reopened and AT&T chip plant in Kansas City last spring with financing from the state of
Missouri. Before it becomes a retirement village, Silicon Valley may prove a classroom for building
a global business.