新概念英語第四冊（美音版）Silicon valley

Unit 2
Lesson 10
Silicon valley
硅谷
First listen and then answer the following question.
聽錄音，然后回答以下問題。
What does the computer industry thrive on apart from anarchy?
Technology trends may push Silicon Valley back to the future. Carver Mead, a pioneer in integrated circuits and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology, notes there are now work-stations that enable engineers to design, test and produce chips right on their desks, much the way an editor creates a newsletter on a Macintosh. As the time and cost of making a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars, engineers may soon be free to let their imaginations soar without being penalized by expensive failures. Mead predicts that inventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend at the office -- spawning a new generation of garage start-ups and giving the U.S. a jump on its foreign rivals in getting new products to market fast. 'We're got more garages with smart people,' Mead observes. 'We really thrive on anarchy.'
And on Asians. Already, orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering staffs at many Valley firms. And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from California's colleges. As the heads of next-generation start-ups, these Asian innovators can draw on customs and languages to forge righter links with crucial Pacific Rim markets. For instance, Alex Au, a Stanford Ph. D. from Hong Kong, has set up a Taiwan factory to challenge Japan's near lock on the memory-chip market. India-born N.Damodar Reddy's tiny California company reopened an AT & T chip plant in Kansas City last spring with financing from the state of Missouri. Before it becomes a retirement village, Silicon Valley may prove a classroom for building a global business.
US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, October 2, 1989
New words and expressions 生詞和短語
silicon
n. 硅
integrated
adj. 綜合的
circuit
n. 線路，電路
California
n. 加利福尼亞（美國州名）
workstation
n. 工作站
chip
n. 芯片，集成電路片，集成塊
newsletter
n. 時事通訊
Macintosh
n. 蘋果機，一種個人電腦
penalize
v. 處罰，懲罰
customize
v. 按顧客具體需要制造
spawn
v. 引起，釀成
thrive
v. 興旺，繁榮
anarchy
n. 無政府狀態(tài)，混亂
oriental
n. 東方人
constitute
v. 構(gòu)成
drove
n. 群
innovator
n. 發(fā)明者
forge
v. 發(fā)展
memory-chip
n. 內(nèi)存條
AT & T
美國電話電報公司 (American Telephone and Telegraph)
Kansas
n. 堪薩斯（美國州名）
Missouri
n. 密蘇里（美國州名）