Silicon Gorge is a region in

South West England South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities and ...

in which several

high-tech High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...

and research companies are based, specifically the triangle of

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...

and

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

. It is ranked fifth of such areas in Europe, and is named after the

Avon Gorge The Avon Gorge () is a 1.5-mile (2.5-kilometre) long gorge on the River Avon in Bristol, England. The gorge runs south to north through a limestone ridge west of Bristol city centre, and about 3 miles (5 km) from the mouth of the r ...

Cities

Bath

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

is home to a number of high-tech companies ranging from fabless semiconductor designers to eCommerce retailers. Many companies have been started by ex-employees of companies such as

Future Publishing Future plc is an international multimedia company established in the United Kingdom in 1985. The company has over 220 brands that span magazines, newsletters, websites, and events in fields such as video games, technology, films, music, photogr ...

and

IPL The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...

, two long standing employers in the area.

Microelectronic companies in Bath

PicoChip Picochip was a venture-backed fabless semiconductor company based in Bath, England, founded in 2000. In January 2012 Picochip was acquired by Mindspeed Technologies, Inc and subsequently by Intel. The company was active in two areas, with two disti ...

Ventures

Lovehoney Lovehoney is a British business that sells sex toys, lingerie and erotic gifts on the Internet. Their tagline is "the sexual happiness people". In addition to retailing, Lovehoney has over 400 own brand products and does development and publicit ...

uk sex-toy retailer. *

The Filter The Filter's TV personalisation products increase viewing, loyalty and revenue. Their data science underpins the business decisions of the world’s most forward thinking broadcasters. Founded in 2004, it has ties to musician Peter Gabriel and ...

media recommendation service. *

Netcraft Netcraft is an Internet services company based in Bath, Somerset, England. The company provides cybercrime disruption services across a range of industries. History Netcraft was founded by Mike Prettejohn. The company provides web server and ...

Internet Research and Security

Bristol

is part of the Silicon Gorge, along with

and

and hosts a number of

and creative industries including research group

HP Labs HP Labs is the exploratory and advanced research group for HP Inc. HP Labs' headquarters is in Palo Alto, California and the group has research and development facilities in Bristol, UK. The development of programmable desktop calculators, ink ...

and animation studio

Aardman Animations Aardman Animations Limited (also known as Aardman Studios, simply Aardman or Aardman Animation and stylised as AARDMAN as of 2022) is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England. It is known for films made using stop-motion and clay an ...

. The cluster of high-tech electronics industries began when

Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of int ...

located a design office in Bristol in 1972.

also has the strongest digital media supply chain in England, outside London and has been pinpointed as a "hot spring" for innovation on the McKinsey/World Economic Forum innovation map.

Microelectronics companies in Bristol

* Blu Wireless *

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...

Cray Cray Inc., a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is an American supercomputer manufacturer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It also manufactures systems for data storage and analytics. Several Cray supercomputer systems are listed ...

Supercomputers *

Graphcore Graphcore is a British semiconductor company that develops accelerators for AI and machine learning. It aims to make a massively parallel Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) that holds the complete machine learning model inside the processor. Hi ...

AI accelerators *

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...

Imagination Technologies Imagination Technologies Limited is a British semiconductor and software design company owned by Canyon Bridge Capital Partners, a private equity fund based in Beijing that is ultimately owned by the Chinese government. With its global headquar ...

Infineon Infineon Technologies AG is a German semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1999, when the semiconductor operations of the former parent company Siemens AG were spun off. Infineon has about 50,280 employees and is one of the ten largest semicond ...

Nordic Semiconductor Nordic Semiconductor (formerly Nordic VLSI) is a fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, and focused on low-power wireless communications devices. Overview The company specializes in ultra-low-power performance wireless ...

* Sondrel *

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...

* UltraSoC *

XMOS XMOS is a fabless semiconductor company that develops audio products and multicore microcontrollers. Company history XMOS was founded in July 2005 by Ali Dixon, James Foster, Noel Hurley, David May, and Hitesh Mehta. It received seed funding ...

Tech companies in Bristol

Blackmagic Design Blackmagic Design Pty Ltd. is an Australian digital cinema company and hardware manufacturer based in Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It designs and manufactures broadcast and cinema hardware, most notably high-end digital-movie cameras, ...

Just Eat Just Eat (formerly known legally as Just Eat plc) is an online food order and delivery brand of Netherlands-based Just Eat Takeaway.com, and a former food delivery company. Just Eat was founded as a separate company in 2001 in Kolding, Denmark ...

Open Bionics Open Bionics is a UK-based company that develops low-cost, 3D printed bionic arms for amputees with below elbow amputations. Their bionic arms are fully functional, with lights, bio feedback vibrations, and different functions that allow the us ...

* Zap Map

Business incubators

* Bristol Robotics Laboratory Hardware Incubato

*

SETsquared The SETsquared Partnership, usually known simply as SETsquared, is a business incubation network run by five universities in Southern England. SETsquared stands for Southern England Technology Triangle. The partnership was formed in 2002, betwee ...

* Spike Design

Support organisations

Media Sandbox
by

Watershed Media Centre Watershed opened in June 1982 as the United Kingdom's first dedicated media centre. Based in former warehouses on the harbourside at Bristol, it hosts three cinemas, a café/bar, events/conferencing spaces, the Pervasive Media Studio, and offi ...

Networks

* Bristol Media

Ventures

Dyson Dyson may refer to: * Dyson (surname), people with the surname Dyson * Dyson (company), a Singaporean multinational home appliances company founded by James Dyson * Dyson (crater), a crater on the Moon * Dyson (operating system), a Unix general-pur ...

Gresham Technologies plc Gresham Technologies plc, known as Gresham Tech and formerly known as Gresham Computing plc, is a software and services company that specialises in providing real-time transaction control and enterprise data integrity solutions. Listed on the mai ...

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Renishaw plc Renishaw plc is a British engineering company based in Wotton-under-Edge, England. The company's products include coordinate-measuring machines and machine tool products. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE ...

* Viral Ad Network

Other cities

Cities sometimes associated with the region: *

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

Academic Institutions

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

University of the West of England The University of the West of England (also known as UWE Bristol) is a public research university, located in and around Bristol, England. The institution was know as the Bristol Polytechnic in 1970; it received university status in 1992 and ...

University of Bath (Virgil, Georgics II) , mottoeng = Learn the culture proper to each after its kind , established = 1886 (Merchant Venturers Technical College) 1960 (Bristol College of Science and Technology) 1966 (Bath University of Technology) 1971 (univ ...

University of Exeter The University of Exeter is a public university , public research university in Exeter, Devon, England, United Kingdom. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of Min ...

Bath Spa University Bath Spa University is a public university in Bath, England, with its main campus at Newton Park, about west of the centre of the city. The university has other campuses in the city of Bath, and one at Corsham Court in Wiltshire. The instit ...

References

High-technology business districts in the United Kingdom Information technology places Science and technology in Bristol Science and technology in Gloucestershire Science and technology in Wiltshire {{Wiltshire-geo-stub

Cities

Bath

Microelectronic companies in Bath

Ventures

Bristol

Microelectronics companies in Bristol

Tech companies in Bristol

Business incubators

Support organisations

Networks

Ventures

Other cities

Academic Institutions

See also

References