1.
Semiconductor
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Semiconductors are crystalline or amorphous solids with distinct electrical characteristics. They are of high electrical resistance — higher than typical resistance materials and their resistance decreases as their temperature increases, which is behavior opposite to that of a metal. The behavior of charge carriers which include electrons, ions and electron holes at these junctions is the basis of diodes, transistors and all modern electronics. Semiconductor devices can display a range of properties such as passing current more easily in one direction than the other, showing variable resistance. The modern understanding of the properties of a semiconductor relies on quantum physics to explain the movement of carriers in a crystal lattice. Doping greatly increases the number of carriers within the crystal. When a doped semiconductor contains mostly free holes it is called p-type, the semiconductor materials used in electronic devices are doped under precise conditions to control the concentration and regions of p- and n-type dopants. A single semiconductor crystal can have many p- and n-type regions, although some pure elements and many compounds display semiconductor properties, silicon, germanium, and compounds of gallium are the most widely used in electronic devices. Elements near the so-called metalloid staircase, where the metalloids are located on the table, are usually used as semiconductors. Some of the properties of materials were observed throughout the mid 19th. The first practical application of semiconductors in electronics was the 1904 development of the Cats-whisker detector, developments in quantum physics in turn allowed the development of the transistor in 1947 and the integrated circuit in 1958. There are several developed techniques that allow semiconducting materials to behave like conducting materials and these modifications have two outcomes, n-type and p-type. These refer to the excess or shortage of electrons, respectively, an unbalanced number of electrons would cause a current to flow through the material. Heterojunctions Heterojunctions occur when two differently doped semiconducting materials are joined together, for example, a configuration could consist of p-doped and n-doped germanium. This results in an exchange of electrons and holes between the differently doped semiconducting materials, the n-doped germanium would have an excess of electrons, and the p-doped germanium would have an excess of holes. The transfer occurs until equilibrium is reached by a process called recombination, a product of this process is charged ions, which result in an electric field. Excited Electrons A difference in electric potential on a material would cause it to leave thermal equilibrium. This introduces electrons and holes to the system, which interact via a process called ambipolar diffusion, whenever thermal equilibrium is disturbed in a semiconducting material, the amount of holes and electrons changes
2.
Texas Instruments
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Texas Instruments Inc. is an American technology company that designs and manufactures semiconductors, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globally. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, United States, TI is one of the top ten semiconductor companies worldwide, Texas Instrumentss focus is on developing analog chips and embedded processors, which accounts for more than 85% of their revenue. TI also produces TI digital light processing technology and education technology products including calculators, microcontrollers, to date, TI has more than 43,000 patents worldwide. TI produced the worlds first commercial silicon transistor in 1950, Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at TIs Central Research Labs. TI also invented the hand-held calculator in 1967, and introduced the first single-chip microcontroller in 1970, in 1987, TI invented the digital light processing device, which serves as the foundation for the companys award-winning DLP technology and DLP Cinema. In 1990, TI came out with the popular TI-81 calculator which made them a leader in the calculator industry. In 1997, its business was sold to Raytheon, which allowed TI to strengthen its focus on digital solutions. Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott, McDermott was one of the original founders of Geophysical Service Inc. in 1930. McDermott, Green, and Jonsson were GSI employees who purchased the company in 1941, in November,1945, Patrick Haggerty was hired as general manager of the Laboratory and Manufacturing division, which focused on electronic equipment. By 1951, the L&M division, with its contracts, was growing faster than GSIs Geophysical division. The company was reorganized and initially renamed General Instruments Inc, because there already existed a firm named General Instrument, the company was renamed Texas Instruments that same year. From 1956 to 1961, Fred Agnich of Dallas, later a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, was the Texas Instruments president, Geophysical Service, Inc. became a subsidiary of Texas Instruments. Early in 1988 most of GSI was sold to the Halliburton Company, in 1930, J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott founded Geophysical Service, an early provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum industry. In 1939, the company reorganized as Coronado Corp. an oil company with Geophysical Service Inc, on December 6,1941, McDermott along with three other GSI employees, J. Erik Jonsson, Cecil H. Green, and H. B. During World War II, GSI expanded their services to include electronics for the U. S. Army, Signal Corps, in 1951, the company changed its name to Texas Instruments, GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company. Texas Instruments also continued to manufacture equipment for use in the seismic industry, after selling GSI, TI finally sold the company to Halliburton in 1988, at which point GSI ceased to exist as a separate entity. Texas Instruments entered the electronics market in 1942 with submarine detection equipment. During the early 1980s, Texas Instruments instituted a quality program which included Juran training, as well as promoting statistical process control, Taguchi methods and Design for Six Sigma
3.
Danbury, Connecticut
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Danbury is a city in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, approximately 70 miles from New York City. Danburys population at the 2010 census was 80,893, Danbury is the fourth most populous city in Fairfield County, and seventh among Connecticut cities. The city is within the New York metropolitan area, the city is named for Danbury, England, the place of origin of many of its early settlers. It is nicknamed the Hat City because of its prominent history in the hat industry, the mineral danburite is named for Danbury. Danbury is home to Danbury Hospital, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury Fair Mall, Danbury was settled by colonists in 1685, when eight families moved from what are now Norwalk and Stamford, Connecticut. The Danbury area was then called Pahquioque by its namesake, the Pahquioque Native Americans, one of the original settlers was Samuel Benedict, who bought land from the Paquioques in 1685, along with his brother James Benedict, James Beebe, and Judah Gregory. Also called Paquiack by local Native Americans, the settlers chose the name Swampfield for their town, but in October 1687, the general court appointed a committee to lay out the new towns boundaries. A survey was made in 1693, and a formal patent was granted in 1702. During the American Revolution, Danbury was an important military depot for the Continental Army. On April 26,1777, the British, under Major General William Tryon, the central motto on the seal of the City of Danbury is Restituimus, a reference to the destruction caused by the Loyalist army troops. The American General David Wooster was mortally wounded at the Battle of Ridgefield by the same British forces which had attacked Danbury and he is buried in Danburys Wooster Cemetery, the private Wooster School in Danbury also was named in his honor. It is the first known instance of the expression in American legal or political writing, the letter is on display at the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Danbury. The first Danbury Fair was held in 1821, in 1869, it became a yearly event, the last edition was in 1981. The fairgrounds were cleared to make room for the Danbury Fair Mall, in 1835, the Connecticut Legislature granted a rail charter to the Fairfield County Railroad, which saw no construction as investment was slow. In 1850, the plans were scaled back, and renamed the Danbury. Work moved quickly on the 23 mi railroad line, in 1852, it, the first railroad line in Danbury, opened, with two trains making the 75-minute trip to Norwalk. The central part of Danbury was incorporated as a borough in 1822, the borough was reincorporated as the city of Danbury on April 19,1889. The city and town were consolidated on January 1,1965, the dam impounding the Kohanza Reservoir, one of many reservoirs built to provide water to the hat factories, broke on January 31,1869
4.
Santa Clara, California
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Santa Clara is a city in Santa Clara County, California, named after the Spanish mission that was established there in 1777. The citys population was 116,468 at the 2010 United States Census, located 45 miles southeast of San Francisco, the city was founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852. The city is the site of the eighth of 21 California missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asís, the Mission and Mission Gardens are located on the grounds of Santa Clara University. Saint Clare is the saint of Santa Clara. Santa Clara is located in the center of Silicon Valley and is home to the headquarters of several companies such as Intel. It is also home to Santa Clara University, the oldest institution of learning in the state of California. It is bordered by San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Cupertino, the first European to visit the valley was José Francisco Ortega in 1769. He found the area inhabited by Native Americans, whom the Spanish called the Costanos, coast people, the Spanish began to colonize California with 21 missions and the Mission Santa Clara de Asis was founded in 1777. In 1846, the American flag was raised over Monterey and symbolized the transfer of the sovereignty of the California Republic over to the United States of America, in 1851, Santa Clara College was established on the grounds of the original Mission. In 1852, Santa Clara was incorporated as a town, it became state-chartered by 1862, for the next century the economy centered on agriculture since orchards and vegetables were thriving in the fertile soil. By the beginning of the 20th century, the population had reached 5,000, in 1905, the first public high-altitude flights by humans were made over Santa Clara in gliders designed by John J. Montgomery. The semiconductor industry, which sprouted around 1960, changed the city and surrounding Valley of Hearts Delight, Santa Claras first medical hospital was built in 1963. This structure, on Kiely Boulevard, was replaced in 2007 with the new Kaiser Permanente medical center located on Lawrence Expressway at Homestead Road, Santa Clara was also home to a major mental health facility, Agnews State Hospital. According to the National Park Service, more than 100 persons were killed at this site in the 1906 earthquake, the site is the former home to Sun Microsystems and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Santa Clara is drained by three creeks, all of which empty into the southern portion of San Francisco Bay, these creeks are San Tomas Aquino Creek, Saratoga Creek. This owl uses burrows created by ground squirrels and prefers generally level grasslands, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city covers an area of 18.4 square miles, all of it land. The average daily temperatures in July range from 82 °F to 53 °F, winters are mild, with the mean daily temperatures in January ranging from 58 °F to 38 °F. Most of the rainfall comes in the winter months, the summer months are generally rainless
5.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
6.
Earnings before interest and taxes
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In accounting and finance, earnings before interest and taxes, is a measure of a firms profit that includes all expenses except interest and income tax expenses. It is the difference between operating revenues and operating expenses, when a firm does not have non-operating income, then operating income is sometimes used as a synonym for EBIT and operating profit. To calculate EBIT, expenses are subtracted from revenues, net income is later obtained by subtracting interest and taxes from the result
7.
Net income
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In business, net income is an entitys income minus cost of goods sold, expenses and taxes for an accounting period. In the context of the presentation of financial statements, the IFRS Foundation defines net income as synonymous with profit, net income is a distinct accounting concept from profit but the same as net profit. Net income can also be calculated by adding a companys operating income to non-operating income, net income can be distributed among holders of common stock as a dividend or held by the firm as an addition to retained earnings. As profit and earnings are used synonymously for income, net earnings, often, the term income is substituted for net income, yet this is not preferred due to the possible ambiguity. Net income is called the bottom line because it is typically found on the last line of a companys income statement. The items deducted will typically include tax expense, financing expense, likewise, preferred stock dividends will be subtracted too, though they are not an expense. For a merchandising company, subtracted costs may be the cost of goods sold, sales discounts, for a product company advertising, manufacturing, and design and development costs are included
8.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
9.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
10.
Audio power amplifier
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This includes both amplifiers used in home audio systems and musical instrument amplifiers like guitar amplifiers. It is the electronic stage in a typical audio playback chain before the signal is sent to the loudspeakers. The inputs can also be any number of sources like record players, CD players, digital audio players. Most audio power amplifiers require these low-level inputs, which are line level, the audio amplifier was invented in 1909 by Lee De Forest when he invented the triode vacuum tube. The triode was a three terminal device with a grid that can modulate the flow of electrons from the filament to the plate. The triode vacuum amplifier was used to make the first AM radio, early audio power amplifiers were based on vacuum tubes and some of these achieved notably high audio quality. Audio power amplifiers based on transistors became practical with the availability of inexpensive transistors in the late 1960s. Since the 1970s, most modern audio amplifiers are based on solid state devices, transistor-based amplifiers are lighter in weight, more reliable and require less maintenance than tube amplifiers. In the 2010s, there are still audio enthusiasts, musicians, audio engineers and music producers who prefer tube-based amplifiers, key design parameters for audio power amplifiers are frequency response, gain, noise, and distortion. These are interdependent, increasing gain often leads to increases in noise. While negative feedback reduces the gain, it also reduces distortion. Most audio amplifiers are linear amplifiers operating in class AB, until the 1970s, most amplifiers were tube amplifiers which used vacuum tubes. During the 1970s, tube amps were increasingly replaced with transistor-based amplifiers, which were lighter in weight, more reliable, one alternative to a separate preamp is to simply use passive volume and switching controls, sometimes integrated into a power amplifier to form an integrated amplifier. The final stage of amplification, after preamplifiers, is the output stage, for this reason, the design choices made around the output device or devices, such as the Class of operation of the output devices is often taken as the description of the whole power amplifier. For example, a Class B amplifier will probably have just the power output devices operating cut off for half of each cycle, while the other devices operate in Class A. In a transformerless output stage, the devices are essentially in series with the supply and output load. For some years following the introduction of solid state amplifiers, their perceived sound did not have the excellent audio quality of the best valve amplifiers and this led audiophiles to believe that tube sound or valve sound had an intrinsic quality due to the vacuum tube technology itself. In 1970, Matti Otala published a paper on the origin of a previously unobserved form of distortion, transient intermodulation distortion, TIM distortion was found to occur during very rapid increases in amplifier output voltage
11.
Operational amplifier
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An operational amplifier is a DC-coupled high-gain electronic voltage amplifier with a differential input and, usually, a single-ended output. In this configuration, an op-amp produces a potential that is typically hundreds of thousands of times larger than the potential difference between its input terminals. Operational amplifiers had their origins in analog computers, where they were used to perform operations in many linear, non-linear. The popularity of the op-amp as a block in analog circuits is due to its versatility. Op-amps are among the most widely used electronic devices today, being used in a vast array of consumer, industrial, op-amps may be packaged as components, or used as elements of more complex integrated circuits. The op-amp is one type of differential amplifier, other types of differential amplifier include the fully differential amplifier, the instrumentation amplifier, the isolation amplifier, and negative feedback amplifier. The output voltage of the op-amp Vout is given by the equation, situations in which the output voltage is equal to or greater than the supply voltage are referred to as saturation of the amplifier. The magnitude of AOL is not well controlled by the manufacturing process, without negative feedback, and perhaps with positive feedback for regeneration, an op-amp acts as a comparator. Since there is no feedback from the output to either input, if predictable operation is desired, negative feedback is used, by applying a portion of the output voltage to the inverting input. The closed loop feedback greatly reduces the gain of the circuit, when negative feedback is used, the circuits overall gain and response becomes determined mostly by the feedback network, rather than by the op-amp characteristics. The transfer functions are important in most applications of op-amps, such as in analog computers, high input impedance at the input terminals and low output impedance at the output terminal are particularly useful features of an op-amp. In the non-inverting amplifier on the right, the presence of negative feedback via the voltage divider Rf, equilibrium will be established when Vout is just sufficient to reach around and pull the inverting input to the same voltage as Vin. The voltage gain of the circuit is thus 1 + Rf/Rg. As a simple example, if Vin =1 V and Rf = Rg, Vout will be 2 V, because of the feedback provided by the Rf, Rg network, this is a closed loop circuit. The input impedance between and pins is much larger than other resistances in the circuit, the input signal Vin appears at both and pins, resulting in a current i through Rg equal to Vin/Rg. These ideals can be summarized by the two rules, The first rule only applies in the usual case where the op-amp is used in a closed-loop design. These rules are used as a good first approximation for analyzing or designing op-amp circuits. None of these ideals can be perfectly realized, a real op-amp may be modeled with non-infinite or non-zero parameters using equivalent resistors and capacitors in the op-amp model
12.
Silicon Valley
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Silicon Valley is a nickname for the southern portion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in the northern part of the U. S. state of California. The valley in its name refers to the Santa Clara Valley in Santa Clara County, which includes the city of San Jose and surrounding cities and towns, where the region has been traditionally centered. The region has expanded to include the half of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Mateo County. It was in the Valley that the integrated circuit, the microprocessor. As of 2013, the region employed about a quarter of an information technology workers. The term is now used as a synecdoche for the American high-technology economic sector. The first published use of Silicon Valley is credited to Don Hoefler, hostler used the phrase as the title of a series of articles in the weekly trade newspaper Electronic News. The series, entitled Silicon Valley in the USA, began in the papers January 11,1971, the term gained widespread use in the early 1980s, at the time of the introduction of the IBM PC and numerous related hardware and software products to the consumer market. The silicon part of the name refers to the concentration of companies involved in the making of semiconductors. These firms slowly replaced the orchards and the fruits which gave the area its initial nickname — the Valley of Hearts Delight, Stanford University leadership was especially important in the valleys early development. Together these elements formed the basis of its growth and success, the ship had been outfitted with a wireless telegraph transmitter by a local newspaper, so that they could prepare a celebration on the return of the American sailors. Local historian Clyde Arbuckle states in Clyde Arbuckles History of San Jose that California first heard the click of a key on September 11,1853. It marked completion of an enterprise begun by a couple of San Francisco Merchants Exchange members named George Sweeney and it was known as the Inner Station, the second, as the Outer Station. Both used their primitive mode of communication until Messrs, Sweeney and Baugh connected the Outer Station directly with the Merchantss Exchange by electric telegraph Wire. According to Arbuckle Sweeney and Baughs line was strictly an intra-city, San Francisco-based service, allen and C. Burnham led the way to build a line from San Francisco to Marysville via San Jose, Stockton, and Sacramento. Delays to construction occurred until September 1853, but, …San Jose became the first station on the line when the wire arrived here on October 15, the line was completed when Gambles northbound crew met a similar crew working southward from Marysville on October 24. The Bay Area had long been a site of United States Navy research. In 1909, Charles Herrold started the first radio station in the United States with regularly scheduled programming in San Jose
13.
Sperry Corporation
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Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Through a series of mergers it exists today as a part of Unisys, during World War I the company diversified into aircraft components including bomb sights and fire control systems. In their early decades, Sperry Gyroscope and related companies were concentrated on Long Island, New York, over the years, it diversified to other locations. In 1918, Lawrence Sperry split from his father to compete over aero-instruments with the Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Company, in 1924, following the death of Lawrence on December 13,1923, the two firms were brought together. The company became Sperry Corporation in 1933, the new corporation was a holding company for a number of smaller entities such as the original Sperry Gyroscope, Ford Instrument Company, Intercontinental Aviation, Inc. and others. The company made advanced aircraft navigation equipment for the market, including the Sperry Gyroscope, the company prospered during World War II as military demand skyrocketed, ranking 19th among US corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. It specialized in high technology such as analog computer–controlled bomb sights, airborne radar systems. Postwar, the company expanded its interests in electronics and computing, producing the companys first digital computer, SPEEDAC, during the 1950s, a large part of Sperry Gyroscope moved to Phoenix, Arizona and soon became the Sperry Flight Systems Company. This was to preserve parts of this company in the event of a thermonuclear conflagration. The Gyroscope division remained headquartered in New York—in its massive Lake Success, Long Island, in 1955, Sperry acquired Remington Rand and renamed itself Sperry Rand. The company remained a military contractor. From 1967 to 1973 the corporation was involved in an acrimonious antitrust lawsuit with Honeywell, the company dropped Rand from its title and reverted to Sperry Corporation. At about the time as the Rand acquisition, Sperry Gyroscope decided to open a facility that would almost exclusively produce its marine instruments. After considerable searching and evaluation, a plant was built in Charlottesville, Virginia and it was later renamed Sperry Marine. Sperry also managed the operation from 1961 to 1975, of the large Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant near Minden, Sperry bought out and continued the RCA line of electronic digital computers, architectural cousins to the IBM System/360. In 1983, Sperry sold Vickers to Libbey Owens Ford, certain internal divisions of Sperry such as Sperry New Holland and Sperry Marine were sold off after the merger. This group is now part of Lockheed Martin, Sperry in Britain started with a factory in Pimlico, London in 1913, manufacturing gyroscopic compasses for the Royal Navy. It became the Sperry Gyroscope Co Ltd in 1915, in 1923, Lawrence Sperry was killed in an air crash near Rye, Sussex
14.
Venture capital
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Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity–an ownership stake–in the companies they invest in. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing risky start-ups in the hopes some of the firms they support will become successful. The start-ups are usually based on a technology or business model and they are usually from the high technology industries, such as information technology. The typical venture capital investment occurs after a seed funding round. The first round of venture capital to fund growth is called the Series A round. This institution helps identify promising new firms and provide them with finance, technical expertise, mentoring, marketing know-how, and business models. Once integrated into the network, these firms are more likely to succeed. However, venture capitalists decisions are often biased, exhibiting for instance overconfidence and illusion of control, a venture may be defined as a project prospective converted into a process with an adequate assumed risk and investment. With few exceptions, private equity in the first half of the 20th century was the domain of wealthy individuals, the Wallenbergs, Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Rockefellers, and Warburgs were notable investors in private companies in the first half of the century. In 1938, Laurance S. Rockefeller helped finance the creation of both Eastern Air Lines and Douglas Aircraft, and the Rockefeller family had vast holdings in a variety of companies. Eric M. Warburg founded E. M. Warburg & Co. in 1938, which would ultimately become Warburg Pincus, with investments in both leveraged buyouts and venture capital. The Wallenberg family started Investor AB in 1916 in Sweden and were early investors in several Swedish companies such as ABB, Atlas Copco, Ericsson, before World War II, money orders remained primarily the domain of wealthy individuals and families. Georges Doriot, the father of capitalism, founded INSEAD in 1957. Along with Ralph Flanders and Karl Compton, Doriot founded ARDC in 1946 to encourage investment in businesses run by soldiers returning from World War II. ARDC became the first institutional private-equity investment firm to raise capital from other than wealthy families. ARDC is credited with the first trick when its 1957 investment of $70,000 in Digital Equipment Corporation would be valued at over $355 million after the initial public offering in 1968. Former employees of ARDC went on to several prominent venture-capital firms including Greylock Partners and Morgan, Holland Ventures. ARDC continued investing until 1971, when Doriot retired, in 1972 Doriot merged ARDC with Textron after having invested in over 150 companies
15.
Bob Widlar
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Robert John Widlar was an American electronics engineer and a designer of linear integrated circuits. Widlar never talked about his years and personal life. He was born in Cleveland to parents of Czech, Irish and his mother, Mary Vithous, was born in Cleveland to Czech immigrants Frank Vithous and Marie Zakova. His father, Walter J. Widlar, came from prominent German, a self-taught radio engineer, Walter Widlar worked for the WGAR radio station and designed pioneering ultra high frequency transmitters. Robert was born November 30,1937, the world of electronics surrounded him since birth, one of his brothers became the first baby monitored by wireless radio. Guided by his father, Bob developed a strong interest in electronics in early childhood, Widlar graduated from Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland and enrolled at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In February 1958 Widlar joined the United States Air Force and he instructed servicemen in electronic equipment and devices and authored his first book, Introduction to Semiconductor Devices, a textbook that demonstrated his ability to simplify complex problems. His liberal mind was a match for the military environment. He joined the Ball Brothers Research Corporation in Boulder to develop analog and he simultaneously continued studies at the University of Colorado and graduated with high grades in the summer of 1963. Widlar invented the basic building blocks of linear ICs including the Widlar current source, the Widlar bandgap voltage reference, each of Widlars circuits had at least one feature which was far ahead of the crowd and became a product champion in its class. They made his employers, Fairchild Semiconductor and National Semiconductor, the leaders in linear integrated circuits, already a legendary chip designer at the age of 33, Widlar voluntarily retired into a hideout in Mexico and became the Valleys most celebrated dropout. Widlars eccentric, and outspoken personality, and his bohemian lifestyle made him the enfant terrible of Silicon Valley and he is remembered in legends, myths and anecdotes that are largely true. According to Bo Lojek, author of History of Semiconductor Engineering, in the environment where Human Relations Departments define what engineers can and cannot comment about, it is very unlikely that we will see his kind again. Work at Ball Research brought Widlar in contact with Jean Hoerni and Sheldon Roberts, Widlar decided to move to a semiconductor manufacturing company, and in 1963 Jerry Sanders, a Fairchild Semiconductor salesman, provided him the opportunity. According to Thomas Lee, Fairchild also wanted to have Widlar on board, in September 1963 Widlar was invited for an interview with Fairchild research and development manager Heinz Ruegg. Widlar arrived at the interview intoxicated, and frankly told Ruegg what he thought about Fairchilds analog circuits, Widlar was sent to another interview with the companys Applications Engineering division, which was based in Mountain View, California. The division head, John Hulme, hired Widlar despite objections from the first round interviewers, Widlars first assignment at Fairchild targeted IC reliability through adjustments in fabrication processes. This early work, directed by process engineer David Talbert, reduced the price of planar process, Widlar, who formally reported to John Barrett, proved himself capable of quickly improving Barretts own designs and very soon squeezed his nominal boss out of the company
16.
Robert Noyce
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Robert Norton Noyce, nicknamed the Mayor of Silicon Valley, co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel Corporation in 1968. He is also credited with the realization of the first integrated circuit or microchip that fueled the personal computer revolution, active all his life, Noyce enjoyed reading Hemingway, flying his own airplane, hang gliding, and scuba diving. In his last interview, Noyce was asked what he would do if he were emperor of the United States and he said that he would, among other things, …make sure we are preparing our next generation to flourish in a high-tech age. And that means education of the lowest and the poorest, as well as at the school level. Noyce was born on December 12,1927, in Burlington and his father had graduated from Doane College, Oberlin College, and the Chicago Theological Seminary. He was also nominated for a Rhodes Scholarship, the Reverend Noyce worked as a Congregational clergyman and as the associate superintendent of the Iowa Conference of Congregational Churches in the 1930s and 1940s. His mother, Harriet May Norton, was the daughter of the Rev. Milton J. Norton, a Congregational clergyman and she graduated from Oberlin College in 1921 and had dreamed of becoming a missionary prior to her marriage. She has been described as an intelligent woman with a commanding will, bob Noyce had three siblings, Donald Sterling Noyce, Gaylord Brewster Noyce and Ralph Harold Noyce. Even at the age of five, Noyce felt offended by the notion of losing at anything. Thats not the game, he sulked to his mother, if youre going to play, play to win. In the summer of 1940, at the age of 12, he built an aircraft with his brother. Later he built a radio from scratch and motorized his sled by welding a propeller and his parents were both religious but Noyce became an agnostic and irreligious in later life. He grew up in Grinnell, Iowa, and attended the local schools and he exhibited a talent for mathematics and science while in high school and took the Grinnell College freshman physics course in his senior year. He graduated from Grinnell High School in 1945 and entered Grinnell College in the fall of that year and he was the star diver on the 1947 Midwest Conference Championship swim team. While at Grinnell College, Noyce sang, played the oboe and acted. In Noyce’s junior year, he got in trouble for stealing a 25-pound pig from the mayor of Grinnell’s farm and roasting it at a school luau. ”So essentially, Noyce would have to be expelled from Grinnell College. Grant Gale, Noyce’s physics professor and the President of Grinnell College and they were able to compromise with the mayor so that the college would compensate him for the pig, Noyce would only be suspended for one semester, and no further charges would be pressed. He returned to Grinnell in February 1949 and he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in physics and mathematics from Grinnell College in 1949
17.
Delaware General Corporation Law
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The Delaware General Corporation Law is the statute governing corporate law in the U. S. state of Delaware. It has been the most important jurisdiction in United States corporate law since the early 20th century, over 50% of publicly traded corporations in the United States and 60% of the Fortune 500 are incorporated in the state. Delaware acquired its status as a haven in the early 20th century. The group that pushed for legislation intended to establish a corporation that would sell services to other businesses incorporating in Delaware. Before the rise of general incorporation acts, forming a corporation required an act of the state legislature. General incorporation allowed anyone to form a corporation by simply raising money, §102 shareholders are not liable for corporate debts. §106 A corporation is considered to be in existence after its certificate of incorporation is filed with the secretary of state, §109 shareholders have the right to change the bylaws. §126 Corporations cannot act as banks, §132 Every corporation must maintain a registered agent in the state. So there is a requirement for a board of directors or a comparable organ, §141 the boards quorum for director meetings cannot be under one-third. §141 committees of the board cannot be given authority to amend the certificate of incorporation, merge, or recommend dissolution or sale to shareholders, if the board is classified, then directors cannot be removed unless there is gross misconduct. §202, restrictions on transferability of stock cannot be imposed on shares previously issued without the shareholders consent, §211, there must be an annual meeting of shareholders for election of directors and shareholder meetings can only be called if the constitution allows for it. §216, the quorum for shareholder meetings cannot be less than one-third of those entitled to vote, §218, a voting trust cannot last longer than ten years. §219, shareholders have the right to inspect the register within ten days of a meeting. §220, right to inspect corporations books and record for a purpose at any time. §226, right of the court to appoint one or more persons to be custodians, §242 any constitutional amendment requires a resolution by the directors, and then a majority vote of shareholders, and the affected classes. §271, sale of all the corporation requires majority shareholder approval. §275, dissolution of the corporation requires majority shareholder approval, §262, shareholders dissenting from a merger have the right to be bought out at a fair value. §327, shareholders have the right to a claim for a breach of duties of care or loyalty
18.
Fairchild Semiconductor
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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, Schlumberger bought the firm in 1979 and sold it to National Semiconductor in 1987, Fairchild was spun off as an independent company again in 1997. The company has locations in the United States at San Jose, California, South Portland, Maine, West Jordan, Utah, Mountaintop, Pennsylvania. Outside the U. S. it operates locations in Singapore, Bucheon, South Korea, Penang, Malaysia, Suzhou, China, in September 2016, Fairchild was acquired by ON Semiconductor. At first he attempted to hire some of his colleagues from Bell Labs. Shockley then founded the core of the new company with what he considered the best and brightest graduates coming out of American engineering schools, while Shockley was effective as a recruiter, he was less effective as a manager. A core group of Shockley employees, later known as the traitorous eight, the eight men were Julius Blank, Victor Grinich, Jean Hoerni, Eugene Kleiner, Jay Last, Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, and Sheldon Roberts. Looking for funding on their own project, they turned to Sherman Fairchilds Fairchild Camera and Instrument, in 1957 the Fairchild Semiconductor division was started with plans to make silicon transistors at a time when germanium was still the most common material for semiconductor use. According to Sherman Fairchild, Noyces impassioned presentation of his vision was the reason Sherman Fairchild had agreed to create the division for the traitorous eight. Noyce advocated the use of silicon as substrate – since the costs would consist of sand and a few fine wires. Their first transistors were of the silicon mesa variety, innovative for their time, later Fairchild pioneered the planar process developed by Jean Hoerni in 1958, which was a huge improvement – transistors could be made more easily, at a lower cost and with higher performance. Fairchilds planar process made most other transistor processes obsolete, one casualty of this was Philcos transistor division, which had just built a $40 million plant to make their now-totally obsolete germanium PADT process transistors. Within a few years every other transistor company copied or licensed the Fairchild planar process and their first marketed transistor was the 2N697, and was a huge success. The first batch of 100 was sold to IBM for $150 a piece, the first planar silicon transistor was the 2N1613 developed by Jean Hoerni. Its introduction was an event in semiconductor history. Only two years later they had managed to build a circuit with four transistors on a wafer of silicon. The company grew from twelve to twelve thousand employees, and was soon making $130 million a year, Fairchilds Noyce and Texas Instruments Kilby had independently invented the integrated circuit based on bipolar technology. In 1960, Noyce invented the integrated circuit
19.
Cyrix
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Cyrix Corporation was a microprocessor developer that was founded in 1988 in Richardson, Texas, as a specialist supplier of math coprocessors for 286 and 386 microprocessors. The company was founded by Tom Brightman and Jerry Rogers, Cyrix founder, President and CEO Jerry Rogers, aggressively recruited engineers and pushed them, eventually assembling a small but efficient design team of 30 people. Cyrix merged with National Semiconductor on 11 November 1997, the first Cyrix product for the personal computer market was a x87 compatible FPU coprocessor. The Cyrix FasMath 83D87 and 83S87 were introduced in 1989, the FasMath was the fastest 386-compatible coprocessor and provided up to 50% more performance than the Intel 80387. Cyrix FasMath 82S87, a 80287-compatible chip, was developed from the Cyrix 83D87 and has been available since 1991 and its early CPU products included the 486SLC and 486DLC, released in 1992, which, despite their names, were pin-compatible with the 386SX and DX, respectively. While they added an on-chip L1 cache and the 486 instruction set, performance-wise, the chips did see use in very low-cost PC clones and in laptops. Cyrix would later release the Cyrix 486SRX2 and 486DRX2, which were essentially clock-doubled versions of the SLC and DLC, eventually, Cyrix was able to release the Cyrix Cx486S and later Cyrix Cx486DX that was pin-compatible with its Intel 486 counterparts. However, the chips were later to market than AMDs 486s and benchmarked slightly slower than AMD and Intel counterparts, while AMD had been able to sell some of its 486s to large OEMs, notably Acer and Compaq, Cyrix had not. Cyrix 5x86 was a cost reduced version of the flagship 6x86, like Intels 486 Pentium Overdrive, the Cyrix 5x86 was 64-bit internally with a 32-bit external data bus. While AMDs Am5x86 was little more than a clock-quadrupled 486 with a new name, later in 1995, Cyrix released its best-known chip, the Cyrix 6x86. This processor continued the Cyrix tradition of making faster replacements for Intel designed sockets, however, the 6x86 was the star performer in the range, giving a claimed performance boost over the Intel equivalent. 6x86 processors were given such as P166+ indicating a performance better than a Pentium 166 MHz processor. In fact, the 6x86 processor was clocked at a lower speed than the Pentium counterpart it outperformed. Initially, Cyrix tried to charge a premium for the Cyrix-claimed extra performance, the main difference was not one of actual computing performance on the coprocessor, but a lack of instruction pipelining. Due to the popularity of first-person 3D games, Cyrix was forced to lower its prices. While the 6x86 quickly gained a following among enthusiasts and independent computer shops, unlike AMD. The game in question causing most problems for performance was id Softwares Quake, unlike previous 3D games, Quake used the pipelined Pentium FPU to do perspective correction calculations in the background while texture mapping, effectively doing two tasks at once. This would not have been a big problem for the 6x86 if, by time, Quake had a fallback to do perspective correction without the FPU as in, for example
20.
VIA Technologies
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VIA Technologies Inc. is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory, and is part of the Formosa Plastics Group. It is the worlds largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets, as a fabless semiconductor company, VIA conducts research and development of its chipsets in-house, then subcontracts the actual manufacturing to third-party merchant foundries, such as TSMC. The company was founded in 1987, in Fremont, California, in 1992, it was decided to move the headquarters to Taipei, Taiwan in order to establish closer partnerships with the substantial and growing IT manufacturing base in Taiwan and neighbouring China. In 1999, VIA acquired most of Cyrix, then a division of National Semiconductor and that same year, VIA acquired Centaur Technology from Integrated Device Technology, marking its entry into the x86 microprocessor market. VIA is the maker of the VIA C3, VIA C7 & VIA Nano processors, the Cyrix MediaGX platform remained with National Semiconductor. In 2001, VIA established the S3 Graphics joint venture, in January 2005, VIA began the VIA pc-1 Initiative, to develop information and communication technology systems to benefit those with no access to computers or Internet. In February 2005, VIA celebrated production of the 100 millionth VIA AMD chipset, on 29 August 2008, VIA announced that they would release official 2D accelerated Linux drivers for their chipsets, and would also release 3D accelerated drivers. VIAs business focuses on integrated chipsets for the PC market, among PC users, VIA is best known for its motherboard chipsets. However, VIAs products include controllers, network/connectivity controllers, low-power CPUs. PC and peripheral vendors such as ASUS then buy the chipsets for inclusion into their own product brands. In the late 1990s, VIA began diversifying its business, and the company has since made business acquisitions to form a CPU division, graphics division. As advances in silicon manufacturing continue to increase the level of integration and functionality in chipsets, the VIA PadLock Security Engine is implemented in most recent VIA x86 processors. It contains at least a hardware random number generator, the C5P core gained AES acceleration on top of the random number generator, using a different instruction set than Intel AES-NI. The C5J Esther core has SHA-1 and SHA-256 acceleration and a Montgomery multiplier as well, a Montgomery modular multiplier can be used to speed up asymmetric encryption such as RSA signing and decryption. Finally the C5P Esther core also contains NX bit security which VIA considers a component of the PadLock suite, the difference with the other features is that it doesnt provide additional functionality to the user. VIA established itself as important supplier of PC components with its chipsets for Socket 7 platform, with the Apollo VP3 chipset VIA pioneered AGP support for Socket 7 processors. VIAs present market position derives from the success of its Pentium III chipsets, Intel discontinued the development of its SDRAM chipsets, and stated as policy that only RAMBUS memory would be supported going forward. Since RAMBUS was more expensive and offered few, if any, obvious performance advantages, in response to increasing market competition, VIA decided to buy out the ailing S3 Graphics business
21.
8250 UART
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The 8250 UART is an integrated circuit designed for implementing the interface for serial communications. The part was manufactured by the National Semiconductor Corporation. It was commonly used in PCs and related equipment such as printers or modems, the chip designations carry suffix letters for later versions of the same chip series. For example, the original 8250 was soon followed by the 8250A, in particular, the original 8250 could repeat transmission of a character if the CTS line was asserted asynchronously during the first transmission attempt. Due to the demand, other manufacturers soon began offering compatible chips. Western Digital offered WD8250 chip under Async Communications Interface Adapter and Async Communications Element names, the 16450 UART, commonly used in IBM PC/AT-series computers, improved on the 8250 by permitting higher serial line speeds. The line interface consists of, SOUT, SIN, /RTS, /DTR, DSR, /DCD, /CTS, /RI Clock interface, XIN, XOUT, /BAUDOUT, RCLK Computer interface, the interrupt signal is reset to low level upon the appropriate interrupt service or a reset operation. 8250 UART was introduced with the IBM PC, the 8250A and 8250B revisions were later released, and the 16450 was introduced with the IBM Personal Computer/AT. The main difference between releases was the maximum allowed communication speed, a very similar, but slightly incompatible variant of this chip is the Intel 8251. Serial and UART Tutorial archive. pcjs. org, National Semiconductor PC16450C/NS16450, PC8250A/INS8250A Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter
22.
IBM Personal Computer
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The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12,1981 and it was created by a team of engineers and designers under the direction of Don Estridge of the IBM Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton, Florida. IBM compatible became an important criterion for sales growth, only the Apple Macintosh family kept significant market share without compatibility with the IBM personal computer, International Business Machines, one of the worlds largest companies, had a 62% share of the mainframe computer market in 1981. Its share of the computer market, however, had declined from 60% in 1970 to 32% in 1980. In 1979 BusinessWeek asked, Is IBM just another stodgy, mature company, by 1981 its stock price had declined by 22%. IBMs earnings for the first half the year grew by 5. 3%—one third of the inflation rate—while those of minicomputer maker Digital Equipment Corporation grew by more than 35%. B. M, No longer dominates the computer business. IBM wished to avoid the outcome with the new personal computer industry, dominated by the Commodore PET, Atari 8-bit family, Apple II, Tandy Corporations TRS-80. With $150 million in sales by 1979 and projected growth of more than 40% in the early 1980s. The Japanese project, codenamed Go, ended before the 1981 release of the American-designed IBM PC codenamed Chess, whether IBM had waited too long to enter an industry in which Apple and others were already successful was unclear. An observer stated that IBM bringing out a computer would be like teaching an elephant to tap dance. Successful microcomputer company Vector Graphics fiscal 1980 revenue was $12 million, the company only sold through its internal sales force, had no experience with resellers or retail stores, and did not introduce the first product designed to work with non-IBM equipment until 1980. Another observer claimed that IBM made decisions so slowly that, when tested, as with other large computer companies, its new products typically required about four to five years for development. IBM had to learn how to develop, mass-produce. The potential importance to microcomputers of a company so prestigious, that a saying in American companies stated No one ever got fired for buying IBM, was nonetheless clear. InfoWorld, which described itself as The Newsweekly for Microcomputer Users, stated that for my grandmother, is far and away the media star, not because of its features, but because it exists at all. When the number eight company in the Fortune 500 enters the field, the influence of a personal computer made by a company whose name has literally come to mean computer to most of the world is hard to contemplate. The editorial acknowledged that some factions in our industry have looked upon IBM as the enemy, desktop sized programmable calculators by Hewlett Packard had evolved into the HP9830 BASIC language computer by 1972. In 1972–1973 a team led by Dr. SCAMP emulated an IBM1130 minicomputer to run APL\1130, in 1973 APL was generally available only on mainframe computers, and most desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200 or HP9800 offered only BASIC
23.
MOSFET
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The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor is a type of field-effect transistor. It has a gate, whose voltage determines the conductivity of the device. This ability to change conductivity with the amount of applied voltage can be used for amplifying or switching electronic signals, although FET is sometimes used when referring to MOSFET devices, other types of field-effect transistors also exist. Because these two terminals are connected to each other internally, only three terminals appear in electrical diagrams. The basic principle of the transistor was first patented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925. The main advantage of a MOSFET over a regular transistor is that it very little current to turn on. In enhancement mode MOSFETs, a voltage drop across the oxide induces a conducting channel between the source and drain contacts via the field effect. The term enhancement mode refers to the increase of conductivity with increase in oxide field that adds carriers to the channel, also referred to as the inversion layer. The channel can contain electrons, or holes, opposite in type to the substrate, so nMOS is made with a p-type substrate, the metal in the name MOSFET is now often a misnomer because the previously metal gate material is now often a layer of polysilicon. Aluminium had been the material until the mid-1970s, when polysilicon became dominant. Metallic gates are regaining popularity, since it is difficult to increase the speed of operation of transistors without metal gates, likewise, the oxide in the name can be a misnomer, as different dielectric materials are used with the aim of obtaining strong channels with smaller applied voltages. An insulated-gate field-effect transistor or IGFET is a term almost synonymous with MOSFET. The term may be inclusive, since many MOSFETs use a gate that is not metal. Another synonym is MISFET for metal–insulator–semiconductor FET, the MOSFET is by far the most common transistor in both digital and analog circuits, though the bipolar junction transistor was at one time much more common. The basic principle of this kind of transistor was first patented by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925. Twenty five years later, when Bell Telephone attempted to patent the junction transistor, they found Lilienfeld already holding a patent, Bell Labs was able to work out an agreement with Lilienfeld, who was still alive at that time. It was at time the Bell Labs version was given the name bipolar junction transistor, or simply junction transistor. In 1959, Dawon Kahng and Martin M. Atalla at Bell Labs invented the metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor as an offshoot to the patented FET design and it used crystalline silicon for the semiconductor and a thermally oxidized layer of silicon dioxide for the insulator
24.
Integrated circuit
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An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece of semiconductor material, normally silicon. The ICs mass production capability, reliability and building-block approach to circuit design ensured the rapid adoption of standardized ICs in place of using discrete transistors. ICs are now used in all electronic equipment and have revolutionized the world of electronics. Computers, mobile phones, and other home appliances are now inextricable parts of the structure of modern societies, made possible by the small size. These advances, roughly following Moores law, allow a computer chip of 2016 to have millions of times the capacity, ICs have two main advantages over discrete circuits, cost and performance. Cost is low because the chips, with all their components, are printed as a unit by photolithography rather than being constructed one transistor at a time, furthermore, packaged ICs use much less material than discrete circuits. Performance is high because the ICs components switch quickly and consume little power because of their small size, the main disadvantage of ICs is the high cost to design them and fabricate the required photomasks. This high initial cost means ICs are only practical when high production volumes are anticipated, Circuits meeting this definition can be constructed using many different technologies, including thin-film transistor, thick film technology, or hybrid integrated circuit. However, in general usage integrated circuit has come to refer to the single-piece circuit construction originally known as a integrated circuit. Jacobi disclosed small and cheap hearing aids as typical industrial applications of his patent, an immediate commercial use of his patent has not been reported. The idea of the circuit was conceived by Geoffrey Dummer. Dummer presented the idea to the public at the Symposium on Progress in Quality Electronic Components in Washington and he gave many symposia publicly to propagate his ideas, and unsuccessfully attempted to build such a circuit in 1956. A precursor idea to the IC was to create small ceramic squares, Components could then be integrated and wired into a bidimensional or tridimensional compact grid. This idea, which seemed very promising in 1957, was proposed to the US Army by Jack Kilby, however, as the project was gaining momentum, Kilby came up with a new, revolutionary design, the IC. In his patent application of 6 February 1959, Kilby described his new device as a body of semiconductor material … wherein all the components of the circuit are completely integrated. The first customer for the new invention was the US Air Force, Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit. His work was named an IEEE Milestone in 2009, half a year after Kilby, Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor developed his own idea of an integrated circuit that solved many practical problems Kilbys had not. Noyces design was made of silicon, whereas Kilbys chip was made of germanium, Noyce credited Kurt Lehovec of Sprague Electric for the principle of p–n junction isolation, a key concept behind the IC
25.
Sequoia Capital
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Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is located in Menlo Park, California and mainly focuses on the technology industry and it has backed companies that now control $1.4 trillion of the combined stock market value. Sequoia manages multiple investment funds including funds specific to India, Israel, Sequoia was founded by Don Valentine in 1972 in Menlo Park, California. In the mid-1990s, Valentine gave control of the company to Doug Leone, in 1999, Sequoia expanded its operations to Israel. Sequoia Capital China was established in 2005 as an affiliate to the U. S. firm, in 2006, Sequoia Capital acquired Westbridge Capital Partners, an Indian venture capital firm. It later was renamed Sequoia Capital India, CB Insights recognized Sequoia Capital as the number one venture capital firm in 2013. The U. S. firm had 11 partners as of 2016, members of the media, technology and investment communities criticized the statements as suggesting smart, driven, capable young women interested in working in technology. don’t exist. Moritz subsequently issued a statement saying, I know there are many women who would flourish in the venture business. In 2016, Sequoia hired Polyvore CEO Jess Lee,33, as an investing partner, the firm invests in both public and private companies. It specializes in incubation, seed stage, startup stage, early stage, the company invests mainly in companies based in the United States for early and seed stage investments. It invests between $100,000 and $1 million in seed stage, between $1 million and $10 million in early stage, and between $10 million and $100 million in companies that are in their growth stage. Sequoia Capital has invested in over 250 companies since 1972, including Apple, Google, Oracle, PayPal, Stripe, YouTube, Instagram, Yahoo. the combined current public market value for these companies is over $1.4 trillion, equivalent to 22 percent of Nasdaq. Its portfolio is mainly in services, healthcare, outsourcing
26.
Linear Technology
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Linear Technology Corporation designs, manufactures and markets a broad line of standard high performance analog integrated circuits. The company was founded in 1981 by Robert H. Swanson, Jr. in August 2010, Forbes called the company one of the tech industrys most profitable companies. In July 2016 Analog Devices agreed to buy Linear Technology for 14.8 billion dollars and this acquisition was finalized on March 10,2017. The company maintains LTspice, a downloadable version of SPICE that includes schematic capture. Corporate headquarters are in Milpitas, California and it also has centers in Munich and Singapore. The companys wafer fabrication facilities are located in Camas, Washington and Milpitas, Linear Technology official site, including LTspice
27.
Georgia Institute of Technology
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The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. It is a part of the University System of Georgia and has campuses in Savannah, Georgia, Metz, France, Athlone, Ireland, Shenzhen, China. The educational institution was founded in 1885 as the Georgia School of Technology as part of Reconstruction plans to build an economy in the post-Civil War Southern United States. Initially, it offered only a degree in mechanical engineering, by 1901, its curriculum had expanded to include electrical, civil, and chemical engineering. In 1948, the changed its name to reflect its evolution from a trade school to a larger and more capable technical institute. Today, Georgia Tech is organized into six colleges and contains about 31 departments/units, with emphasis on science and it is well recognized for its degree programs in engineering, computing, business administration, the sciences, design, and liberal arts. Student athletics, both organized and intramural, are a part of student and alumni life, Georgia Tech fields eight mens and seven womens teams that compete in the NCAA Division I athletics and the Football Bowl Subdivision. Georgia Tech is a member of the Coastal Division in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the idea of a technology school in Georgia was introduced in 1865 during the Reconstruction period. However, because the American South of that era was mainly populated by workers and few technical developments were occurring. In 1882, the Georgia State Legislature authorized a committee, led by Harris and they were impressed by the polytechnic educational models developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science. On October 13,1885, Georgia Governor Henry D. McDaniel signed the bill to create, in 1887, Atlanta pioneer Richard Peters donated to the state 4 acres of the site of a failed garden suburb called Peters Park. The site was bounded on the south by North Avenue, and he then sold five adjoining acres of land to the state for US$10,000. This land was near Atlantas northern city limits at the time of its founding, the surrender of the city took place on the southwestern boundary of the modern Georgia Tech campus in 1864. The Georgia School of Technology opened in the fall of 1888 with two buildings, One building had classrooms to teach students, The second building featured a shop and had a foundry, forge, boiler room, and engine room. It was designed for students to work and produce goods to sell, on October 20,1905, U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt visited Georgia Tech. On the steps of Tech Tower, Roosevelt delivered a speech about the importance of technological education and he then shook hands with every student. Georgia Techs Evening School of Commerce began holding classes in 1912, the evening school admitted its first female student in 1917, although the state legislature did not officially authorize attendance by women until 1920. Annie T. Wise became the first female graduate in 1919 and was Georgia Techs first female faculty member the following year
28.
South Portland, Maine
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South Portland is a city in Cumberland County, Maine, United States, and is the fourth-largest city in the state, incorporated in 1898. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 25,002, known for its working waterfront, South Portland is situated on Portland Harbor and overlooks the skyline of Portland and the islands of Casco Bay. Due to South Portlands close proximity to air, marine, rail, and highway transportation options, despite the name, South Portland was never part of the city of Portland, but rather part of Cape Elizabeth. However, both Cape Elizabeth and Portland were once part of Falmouth, Cape Elizabeth, and by default, South Portland, broke away from Falmouth in 1765. South Portland is a city of the Portland – South Portland – Biddeford metropolitan area. South Portland was first settled in 1630, and it grew to become a residential community with many farms. The village was raided by natives in Father Rales War, in 1858, the City of Portland purchased land near the Fore River for the Forest City Cemetery. On March 15,1895, it was incorporated as a town after it broke away from Cape Elizabeth, based on a disagreement on a future source of public drinking water. Three years later South Portland became a city, destined to receive its water, like Portland, from Sebago Lake. On South Portlands waterfront is Fort Preble, which is a fort established in 1808 to protect Portland Harbor. It was in operation during several American conflicts, including the United States Civil War, World War I, near Fort Preble is Spring Point Ledge Light, which was constructed by the federal government in 1897 to mark a dangerous rock ledge. In 1940, the Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding Corp was established to build ships for Britain. These shipyards built 236 of the 440 foot long Liberty ships, at its peak, the shipyard employed some 30,000 people, including thousands of women, who took over the jobs vacated by men going into the service. The shipyard gradually ceased operations after the war ended in 1945, remnants of the shipyards are visible, and there is a memorial to the shipyard and the workers at Bug Light Park. The park is home to Portland Breakwater Lighthouse, commonly referred to as Bug Light. On July 11,1944, at 4,45 PM, for reasons that were never fully determined, Russell lost control of the plane and crashed into a trailer park in South Portlands Brick Hill neighborhood. 19 people were killed and 20 people were injured — mostly the families of South Portland shipyard workers — making it the worst aviation accident in Maine history. A Long Creek Air Tragedy Memorial was eventually erected to commemorate the crash and honor the victims, over the last few decades, South Portland has become the retail capital of Maine
29.
Migdal HaEmek
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Migdal HaEmek is a city in the Northern District of Israel. In 2015 it had a population of 24,959, there is a tower to the north-east, above the town. Prior to 1953, the area nearest to where Migdal HaEmek was founded was an Arab village named al-Mujaydil and it had existed there since as early as 1596 during the Ottoman era. Migdal HaEmek was started in 1953 as a maabara for Jews from Arab countries, the original site of the maabara was west of the current site, at Shimron hill. The chief rabbi of the city is Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, every year volunteers from Habonim Dror come to Migdal HaEmek to volunteer in the community. Typically these roles include members of Kvutsat Yovel, and involve teaching in primary and secondary schools, according to CBS, in 2001 the ethnic makeup of the city was all Jewish and other non-Arabs. There were 11,900 males and 12,200 females, more recently the Jewish Agency estimated Migdal HaEmeks population at 28,000, almost half foreign-born, from Russia, the Caucasus, Ethiopia, Morocco, Iraq and South America. According to CBS, there were 22 schools and 5,777 students in the city in 2001,13 elementary schools,47. 8% of 12th grade students qualified for a matriculation certificate in 2001. Many Israeli and global high tech companies are located in three industrial parks, among the companies, Tower Semiconductor, RSL Electronics, KLA-Tencor, CI Systems, Nilit, Vishay Intertechnology and Enzymotec
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Tower Semiconductor
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Tower Semiconductor Ltd. and its fully owned U. S. subsidiaries Jazz Semiconductor, and TowerJazz Texas operate collectively under the brand name TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader. TowerJazz also owns 51% of TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Co. an enterprise with Panasonic Corporation, through TPSCo, TowerJazz offers leading edge 45 nm CMOS,65 nm RF CMOS and 65 nm 1. 12µm pixel technologies. In addition, TowerJazz operates a design center in Netanya. Tower Semiconductor is an Israeli public company that is traded on NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and is included in the TA-100 Index, in 2010, TowerJazz became the #1 specialty foundry by revenue, with 70% revenue growth year-over-year. Tower Semiconductor was founded in 1993, with the acquisition of National Semiconductor’s 150mm wafer fabrication facility, Tower became a public company in 1994 and shares are traded on NASDAQ and Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. In January 2001, an adjacent, state-of-the-art facility was constructed, in September 2008, Tower acquired Jazz Semiconductor in a stock for stock transaction. In November 2009, the companies officially launched as TowerJazz. In June 2011, TowerJazz acquired Micron Technology’s fabrication facility in Nishiwaki City, Hyogo, the acquisition nearly doubled TowerJazz’s 2010 internal manufacturing capacity and cost-effectively increased production by 60,000 wafers per month. TowerJazz announced cessation of its Nishiwaki facility operations in the course of rationalizing and restructuring its manufacturing and this enables the company to reduce its annual fixed costs by approximately $130 million per annum. This acquisition increased increased TowerJazzs production by 28,000 wafers per month, Fab 1, located in Migdal Haemek, Israel is a 150mm facility which was acquired from National Semiconductor in 1993 at the time of Tower Semiconductor’s founding. Fab 2, a 200mm facility was constructed in January 2001, adjacent to Fab 1 in Migdal Haemek, Israel and was designed to operate in geometries of 0. 18-micron and below, using advanced CMOS technology. Fab 3, located in Newport Beach, California, USA was acquired by Tower when it merged with Jazz Technologies in 2008, Jazz Semiconductor was formed in 2002 and inherited the 200mm facility that was once operated by Rockwell Semiconductor. At Fab 3, Jazz established industry leading SiGe, BiCMOS and MEMS technologies and expanded upon its heritage for on-shore, specialized foundry services focused on the Aerospace, TPSCo is 51% owned by Tower Semiconductor Ltd. and 49% owned by Panasonic Corporation. TPSCo has three manufacturing facilities in Hokuriku, Japan which have been producing large scale integrated circuits for over 30 years, areas of process technology focus include high dynamic range image sensors, integrated power devices and high frequency silicon RFCMOS. Foundry model Semiconductor device fabrication Science and technology in Israel Silicon Wadi www. towerjazz. com
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Apple Inc.
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Apple is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. Apples consumer software includes the macOS and iOS operating systems, the media player, the Safari web browser. Its online services include the iTunes Store, the iOS App Store and Mac App Store, Apple Music, Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976 to develop and sell personal computers. It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. in January 1977, Apple joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average in March 2015. In November 2014, Apple became the first U. S. company to be valued at over US$700 billion in addition to being the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization. The company employs 115,000 full-time employees as of July 2015 and it operates the online Apple Store and iTunes Store, the latter of which is the worlds largest music retailer. Consumers use more than one billion Apple products worldwide as of March 2016, Apples worldwide annual revenue totaled $233 billion for the fiscal year ending in September 2015. This revenue accounts for approximately 1. 25% of the total United States GDP.1 billion, the corporation receives significant criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors and its environmental and business practices, including the origins of source materials. Apple was founded on April 1,1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, the Apple I kits were computers single-handedly designed and hand-built by Wozniak and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard, which was less than what is now considered a personal computer. The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66, Apple was incorporated January 3,1977, without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of $250,000 during the incorporation of Apple, during the first five years of operations revenues grew exponentially, doubling about every four months. Between September 1977 and September 1980 yearly sales grew from $775,000 to $118m, the Apple II, also invented by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16,1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because of its character cell-based color graphics. While early Apple II models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface called the Disk II. The Apple II was chosen to be the platform for the first killer app of the business world, VisiCalc. VisiCalc created a market for the Apple II and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II. Before VisiCalc, Apple had been a distant third place competitor to Commodore, by the end of the 1970s, Apple had a staff of computer designers and a production line
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Hong Kong
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Hong Kong, officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the Pearl River Delta of East Asia. Macau lies across the delta to the west, and the Chinese province of Guangdong borders the territory to the north. With a total area of 1,106 square kilometres. Hong Kong was later occupied by Japan during World War II until British control resumed in 1945, under the principle of one country, two systems, Hong Kong maintains a separate political and economic system from China. Except in military defence and foreign affairs, Hong Kong maintains its independent executive, legislative, in addition, Hong Kong develops relations directly with foreign states and international organisations in a broad range of appropriate fields. Hong Kong is one of the worlds most significant financial centres, with the highest Financial Development Index score and consistently ranks as the worlds most competitive and freest economic entity. As the worlds 8th largest trading entity, its legal tender, Hong Kongs tertiary sector dominated economy is characterised by simple taxation with a competitive level of corporate tax and supported by its independent judiciary system. However, while Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world and it has a very high Human Development Index ranking and the worlds longest life expectancy. Over 90% of the population use of well-developed public transportation. Seasonal air pollution with origins from neighbouring areas of Mainland China. Hong Kong was officially recorded in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking to encompass the entirety of the island, before 1842, the name referred to a small inlet—now Aberdeen Harbour, literally means Little Hong Kong)—between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island. Aberdeen was a point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen. Detailed and accurate romanisation systems for Cantonese were available and in use at the time, fragrance may refer to the sweet taste of the harbours fresh water estuarine influx of the Pearl River or to the incense from factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon. The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Hong Kong developed Victoria Harbour, the name had often been written as the single word Hongkong until the government adopted the current form in 1926. Nevertheless, a number of century-old institutions still retain the form, such as the Hongkong Post, Hongkong Electric. As of 1997, its name is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. This is the title as mentioned in the Hong Kong Basic Law. Hong Kong has carried many nicknames, the most famous among those is the Pearl of the Orient, which reflected the impressive nightscape of the citys light decorations on the skyscrapers along both sides of the Victoria Harbour
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Greenock
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Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in Scotland and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It forms part of an urban area with Gourock to the west. The 2011 census showed that Greenock had a population of 44,248 and it lies on the south bank of the Clyde at the Tail of the Bank where the River Clyde expands into the Firth of Clyde. The name of the town has had various spellings over time and it was printed in early Acts of Parliament as Grinok, Greenhok, Grinock, Greenhoke, Greinnock, and later as Greinok. Old Presbyterial records used Grenok, a common spelling until it was changed to Greenock around 1700 and it has also been suggested that Grian cnoc or sunny hill could refer to the hill on which the castle and mansion house stood, but this has not found much support. The towns modern indoor shopping centre is called The Oak Mall, the name is also recalled in a local song. Significantly, no green oak appears on the coat of arms which features the three chalices of the Shaw Stewarts, a sailing ship in full sail and two herring above the motto God Speed Greenock. Hugh de Grenock was created a Scottish Baron in 1296, around 1540 the adjoining barony of Finnart was passed to the Schaw family, extending their holdings westward to the boundary of Gourock, and in 1542 Sir John Schaw founded Wester Greenock castle. The coast of Greenock formed a bay with three smaller indentations, the Bay of Quick was known as a safe anchorage as far back as 1164. To its east, a sandy bay ran eastwards from the Old Kirk, the fishing village of Greenock developed along this bay, and around 1635 Sir John Schaw had a jetty built into the bay which became known as Sir Johns Bay. In that year he obtained a Charter raising Greenock to a Burgh of Barony with rights to a weekly market, further east, Saint Laurence Bay curved round past the Crawfurd Barony of Easter Greenock to Garvel Point. When a pier was built making the bay an important harbour, in 1642 it was made into the Burgh of Barony of Crawfurdsdyke, and part of the ill-fated Darien Scheme set out from this pier in 1697. This town was later renamed Cartsdyke, the fishing trade grew prosperous, with barrels of salted herring exported widely, and shipping trade developed. As seagoing ships could not go further up the River Clyde, a separate Barony of Cartsburn was created, the first baron being Thomas Craufurd. The work was completed in 1710, with quays extended out into Sir Johns Bay to enclose the harbour, in 1711 the shipbuilding industry was founded when Scotts leased ground between the harbour and the West Burn to build fishing boats. A whaling business operated for about 40 years, in 1714 Greenock became a custom house port as a branch of Port Glasgow, and for a period this operated from rooms leased in Greenock. Receipts rose rapidly from the 1770s, and in 1778 the custom house moved to new premises at the West Quay of the harbour. By 1791 a new pier was constructed at the East Quay, in 1812 Europes first steamboat service was introduced by PS Comet with frequent sailings between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh, and as trade built up the pier became known as Steamboat Quay
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Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
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Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
$1.42 billion USD (2010)
