Silicon Glen is the nickname given to the

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

sector of

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, the name inspired by

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

in California. It is applied to the

Central Belt The Central Belt of Scotland is the Demographics of Scotland, area of highest population density within Scotland. Depending on the definition used, it has a population of between 2.4 and 4.2 million (the country's total was around 5.4 million in ...

triangle between

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

Inverclyde Inverclyde (, , , "mouth of the Clyde") is one of 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Together with the East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire council areas, Inverclyde forms part of the historic county of Renfrewshire, which ...

and

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, which includes

Fife Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...

, Glasgow and

Stirling Stirling (; ; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Central Belt, central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town#Scotland, market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the roya ...

; although electronics facilities outside this area may also be included in the term. The term has been in use since the 1980s. It does not technically represent a '' glen'' as it covers a much wider area than just one valley.

History

Origins

Silicon Glen had its origins in the

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

business with

Ferranti Ferranti International PLC or simply Ferranti was a UK-based electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century, from 1885 until its bankruptcy in 1993. At its peak, Ferranti was a significant player in power grid system ...

establishing a plant in

in 1943, relocating facilities from

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

during the Second World War. When Ferranti remained in Edinburgh, other defence electronics companies also established themselves in Scotland, including the

Marconi Company The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 which was a pioneer of wireless long distance communication and mass media broadcasting, eventually becoming on ...

and

Barr & Stroud Barr & Stroud Limited was a pioneering Glasgow optical engineering firm. They played a leading role in developing modern optics, including rangefinders, for the Royal Navy and other branches of British Armed Forces during the 20th century. There ...

. Major US companies followed in the late 1940s, including

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building automation, industrial automa ...

and

NCR Corporation NCR Voyix Corporation, previously known as NCR Corporation and National Cash Register, is a global software, consulting and technology company providing several professional services and Electronics, electronic products. It manufactured Self-c ...

, the latter setting up cash register and adding machine manufacturing in Dundee.

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

decided to establish a presence in the region in 1951, opening a manufacturing facility in

Greenock Greenock (; ; , ) is a town in Inverclyde, Scotland, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. The town is the administrative centre of Inverclyde Council. It is a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, and forms ...

in 1953. Indeed, this was typical of much of the early days of Silicon Glen, which were dominated by electronics manufacturing for foreign companies much more than research and development or the establishment of home grown companies.

Electronic dominance

The emphasis on electronics came about due to the decline in traditional Scottish heavy industries such as

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other Watercraft, floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation th ...

and mining. The government development agencies saw electronics manufacturing as being a positive replacement for people made redundant through

heavy industry Heavy industry is an industry that involves one or more characteristics such as large and heavy products; large and heavy equipment and facilities (such as heavy equipment, large machine tools, huge buildings and large-scale infrastructure); o ...

closures and the associated training and reskilling was relatively easy to achieve.

Semiconductors

Like the bedrock of

was in

semiconductors A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping levels ...

, Silicon Glen also had a significant influence in

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...

design and manufacturing starting in 1960 with

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace company, aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of the Hughes Tool Company. The company produced the Hughes ...

(now

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

) establishing its first facility outside the US in Glenrothes to manufacture

germanium Germanium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid or a nonmetal in the carbon group that is chemically ...

and

silicon Silicon is a chemical element; it has symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid (sometimes considered a non-metal) and semiconductor. It is a membe ...

diode A diode is a two-Terminal (electronics), terminal electronic component that conducts electric current primarily in One-way traffic, one direction (asymmetric electrical conductance, conductance). It has low (ideally zero) Electrical resistance ...

s. In 1965

Elliott Automation Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd was an early computer company of the 1950s and 1960s in the United Kingdom. It traced its descent from a firm of instrument makers founded by William Elliott in London around 1804. The research laboratories were o ...

established a production facility in Glenrothes followed by a MOS research laboratory in 1967. This was followed in 1969 by the establishment of wafer fabs by

General Instrument General Instrument (GI) was an American electronics manufacturer based in Horsham, Pennsylvania, specializing in semiconductors and cable television equipment. They formed in New York City in 1923 as an electronics manufacturer. During the 1950s ...

in Glenrothes,

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

(now

Freescale Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embedde ...

) in East Kilbride and

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor Corporation was an United States of America, American Semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturer, which specialized in analogue electronics, analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, ...

Signetics Signetics Corporation was an American electronics manufacturer specifically established to make integrated circuits. Founded in 1961, they went on to develop a number of early microprocessors and support chips, as well as the widely used 555 time ...

also opened a facility in

Linlithgow Linlithgow ( ; ; ) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland. It was historically West Lothian's county town, reflected in the county's historical name of Linlithgowshire. An ancient town, it lies in the Central Belt on a historic route between Edi ...

in 1969. In 1970,

Compugraphic Compugraphic Corporation, commonly called cg, was an American producer of typesetting systems and phototypesetting equipment, based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, a few miles from where it was founded. This company is distinct from Compugraphics, ...

relocated from

Aldershot Aldershot ( ) is a town in the Rushmoor district, Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme north-east corner of the county, south-west of London. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Farnborough/Aldershot built-up are ...

to Glenrothes to provide

photomask A photomask (also simply called a mask) is an opaque plate with transparent areas that allow light to shine through in a defined pattern. Photomasks are commonly used in photolithography for the production of integrated circuits (ICs or "chips") ...

manufacturing for these companies. Other companies who developed semiconductor wafer fabrication or other manufacturing plants included SGS in

Falkirk Falkirk ( ; ; ) is a town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had a resident population of 32,422 at the ...

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Inte ...

, Burr-Brown Corporation, IPS (then

Seagate Technology Seagate Technology Holdings plc is an American Computer data storage, data storage company. It was incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology and commenced business in 1979. Since 2010, the company has been incorporated in Dublin, Ireland, with ...

) and Kymata (now Kaiam) in Livingston, CST in Glasgow and Micronas in Glenrothes. There were some other notable successes such as the large

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

plant in

and the

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...

semiconductor manufacturing plant in

South Queensferry Queensferry, also called South Queensferry or simply "The Ferry", is a town to the west of Edinburgh, Scotland. Traditionally a royal burgh of West Lothian, it is now administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. It lies ten miles to the nor ...

where the pioneering

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, a ...

Alpha 21064 and its derivatives were made. Digital also opened an office in Livingston, developing their flagship

OpenVMS OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Op ...

operating system. Digital's South Queensferry facility, opened in 1990 at an estimated cost of , was eventually sold to Motorola in 1995. At the time, Motorola itself employed 4,000 people at its own semiconductor plant at East Kilbride, as well as operating a cellular telephone plant at Easter Inch.

European single market

The potential and implications of a single European market motivated foreign companies, particularly those from the United States, to establish operations in Silicon Glen. By having a presence in a European Economic Community member country, companies could formally participate in standards committees and thus exert a degree of influence. Emerging European tariff rules concerning the origin of products were also strong motivators for the establishment of local manufacturing operations, with the EEC having updated its rules in 1989 to consider the location of the wafer diffusion phase of semiconductor production as determining the origin of the manufactured product. Local infrastructure support for the semiconductor industry was well regarded in Scotland, with local universities offering "a strong design base". Rodime of Glenrothes pioneered the 3.5 inch hard disk drive in 1983 and spent subsequent years defending its patents against (and collecting

royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or ...

from) Seagate,

Quantum In physics, a quantum (: quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This me ...

and others.

Computing

The manufacturing sector grew to such an extent that at its peak it produced approximately 30% of Europe's PCs, 80% of its

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating syste ...

s, 65% of its ATMs and a significant percentage of its

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

Recent history

Electronic decline

The heavy dependency on electronics manufacturing hit Silicon Glen hard after the collapse of the hi-tech economy in 2000. Viasystems,

(now

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

and Chunghwa Picture Tubes all laid off substantial numbers of employees or closed factories completely. The effects of the Viasystems closure are still felt in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by West Lothian, Edinburgh, Midlothian, and East Lothian to the north, the North Sea to the east, Dumfries and Galloway to the south-west, South Lanarkshire to the we ...

today. Digital sold their Alpha facility to

who eventually closed it down.

also closed their factory in

Bathgate Bathgate ( or , ) is a town in West Lothian, Scotland, west of Livingston, Scotland, Livingston and adjacent to the M8 motorway (Scotland), M8 motorway. Nearby towns are Linlithgow, Livingston, and West Calder. A number of villages fall under ...

and the substantial

plant in Livingston was also closed. In 2009 Sun ceased manufacturing at its Linlithgow plant and, after successive years of downsizing, NCR ended all manufacturing in Dundee. However, there are many promising signs as well as a recognition that diversification away from electronics and manufacturing produces a more balanced and stronger economy. There is also more of an interest in encouraging home grown talent. Scotland had 1,000 companies in electronics employing 25,000 people in 2004, this number has been in decline since 2000 when 48,000 people were employed in the industry in Scotland. However, by 2016 the Silicon Glen has begun to boom once again, with new digital start ups - such as Skyscanner - choosing Scotland for headquarters or offices.

Global services

To diversify away from electronics and manufacturing, the development agencies now see global services as being a potential area of growth, but there is also substantial interest in the software development industry, including Rockstar North, developers of the market leading

Grand Theft Auto ''Grand Theft Auto'' (''GTA'') is an action-adventure video game series created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan and Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut. It is prima ...

series. There is also a dynamic and fast growing electronics design and development industry, based around links between the very strong

universities A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

and indigenous companies and projects like the Alba Campus. The software sector has also notably attracted

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

to set up a software development centre in

, the first such centre outside the US. There remains a significant presence of global players like

, Shin Etsu Handotai Europe Ltd and

. The move from a primarily manufacturing dominated region to a wealth creation one has been successful as demonstrated in a report from UBS Wealth Management in 2006 showing Scotland with more venture backed companies per capita than any other UK region. In addition to the indigenous companies, Silicon Glen continues to have quite a significant semiconductor design community of inward investment companies including Atmel,

Micrel Microchip Technology Incorporated is a publicly listed American semiconductor corporation that manufactures microcontroller, mixed-signal, analog, and Flash-IP integrated circuits. Its corporate headquarters is located in Chandler, Arizona. ...

Analog Devices Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), also known simply as Analog, is an American multinational corporation, multinational semiconductor company specializing in data conversion, signal processing, and power management technology, headquartered in Wilming ...

, Allegro MicroSystems, Micro Linear, Micronas and ST Microelectronics. Semefab, the former

semiconductor foundry, has been funded as the UK's Primary Centre for the development of

microelectromechanical systems MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) is the technology of microscopic devices incorporating both electronic and moving parts. MEMS are made up of components between 1 and 100 micrometres in size (i.e., 0.001 to 0.1 mm), and MEMS devices ...

(MEMS) and

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

. The Open Source Awards (formerly the Scottish Open Source Awards) have been run from Scotland since 2007. It was initially a subset of the Scottish Software Awards.

Notable companies

Many

nology companies are established in Silicon Glen, including: *

Unity (game engine) Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a MacOS, Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

* Codeplay * FanDuel *

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California, by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle was ...

* Rockstar North *

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...

* Canon Medical Systems Corporation * Skyscanner *

* NCR * Proper Games *

3Com 3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe ex ...

* Agilent *

* Atmel *

Atos Atos SE is a European multinational information technology (IT) service and consulting company with headquarters in Bezons suburb of Paris, France, and offices worldwide. It specialises in hi-tech transactional services, unified communicat ...

* Axeon * ST Microelectronics *

Broadcom Corporation Broadcom Corporation was an American fabless manufacturing, fabless semiconductor company that made products for the wireless and broadband communication industry. It was acquired by Avago Technologies for $37billion in 2016 and operates as a ...

Cadence Design Systems Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (stylized as cādence)Investor's Business DailCEO Lip-Bu Tan Molds Troubled Cadence Into Long-Term LeaderRetrieved November 12, 2020 is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology and computational ...

Cirrus Logic Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor company, fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio Digital signal processor, DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have ...

Dialog Semiconductor Dialog Semiconductor Plc is an Anglo-German semiconductor-based system designer and manufacturer. The company is headquartered in the United Kingdom in Reading, Berkshire, Reading, with a global sales, R&D and marketing organization. Dialog cre ...

* Dynamo Games * IndigoVision * Thales Optronics *

Toshiba is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors ...

Medical Visualization Systems *

Version 1 Version 1 is an Irish company specializing in international management consulting, software asset management, software development, cloud computing, and outsourcing. On 13 July 2022 Partners Group completed the acquisition of a majority s ...

* Linn * Maxim Integrated Products * Memex Technology Limited *

* Braindead Ape Games * Micronas Intermetall * Leonardo MW Limited * Semefab * Allegro MicroSystems * AND Digital * Waracle * WFS Technologies * ATEEDA * Codestuff * Compugraphics * ClinTec International * Clyde Space * Infinity Works * Youmanage * Digital Goldfish * Kaiam Europe limited * MEP Technologies Ltd * Brand Rex * Elonics * Kumulos * Optos * Micro Linear * BI Technologies * Mage Control Systems Ltd * CRC GroupCRC Group
/ref> * Shin Etsu Handotai Europe Ltd

References and notes

External links

Scotland IS
the trade body for the Scottish IT sector
Pico and General Instrument's 1970 development of a single chip calculator processor chip
Possibly pre-dating Intel and TI.
The death and rebirth of Silicon Glen
BBC News
Open Tech Calendar
free and open list of tech events in Scotland {{Science and technology in the United Kingdom Economy of Scotland High-technology business districts in the United Kingdom *Silicon Glen Science and technology in Scotland Information technology places

History

Origins

Electronic dominance

Semiconductors

European single market

Computing

Recent history

Electronic decline

Global services

Notable companies

See also

References and notes

External links