High tech sector of Scotland
Silicon Glen
is the nickname given to the
high tech
sector of
Scotland
, the name inspired by
Silicon Valley
in California. It is applied to the
Central Belt
triangle
[1]
between
Dundee
,
Inverclyde
and
Edinburgh
, which includes
Fife
, Glasgow and
Stirling
; although electronics facilities outside this area may also be included in the term. The term has been in use since the 1980s. It does not technically represent a
glen
as it covers a much wider area than just one valley.
History
[
edit
]
Silicon Glen had its origins in the
electronics
business with
Ferranti
establishing a plant in
Edinburgh
in 1943, relocating facilities from
Manchester
during the Second World War. When Ferranti remained in Edinburgh, other defence electronics companies also established themselves in Scotland, including the
Marconi Company
and
Barr & Stroud
. Major US companies followed in the late 1940s, including
Honeywell
and
NCR Corporation
, the latter setting up cash register and adding machine manufacturing in Dundee.
IBM
decided to establish a presence in the region in 1951, opening a manufacturing facility in
Greenock
in 1953.
[2]
Indeed, this was typical of much of the early days of Silicon Glen, which were dominated by electronics manufacturing for foreign companies much more than research and development or the establishment of home grown companies.
The emphasis on electronics came about due to the decline in traditional Scottish heavy industries such as
shipbuilding
and mining. The government development agencies saw electronics manufacturing as being a positive replacement for people made redundant through
heavy industry
closures and the associated training and reskilling was relatively easy to achieve.
Like the bedrock of
Silicon Valley
was in
semiconductors
, Silicon Glen also had a significant influence in
semiconductor
design and manufacturing starting in 1960 with
Hughes Aircraft
(now
Raytheon
) establishing its first facility outside the US in
Glenrothes
to manufacture
germanium
and
silicon
diodes
. In 1965
Elliott Automation
established a production facility in
Glenrothes
followed by a
MOS
research laboratory in 1967. This was followed in 1969 by the establishment of
wafer
fabs by
General Instrument
in
Glenrothes
,
Motorola
(now
Freescale
) in
East Kilbride
and
National Semiconductor
in
Greenock
.
Signetics
also opened a facility in
Linlithgow
in 1969.
In 1970,
Compugraphic
relocated from
Aldershot
to
Glenrothes
to provide
photomask
manufacturing for these companies. Other companies who developed semiconductor wafer fabrication or other manufacturing plants included
SGS
in
Falkirk
,
NEC
,
Burr-Brown Corporation
, IPS (then
Seagate Technology
) and Kymata (now
Kaiam
) in
Livingston
,
CST
in Glasgow and Micronas in
Glenrothes
.
There were some other notable successes such as the large
Sun Microsystems
plant in
Linlithgow
and the
Digital Equipment Corporation
semiconductor manufacturing plant in
South Queensferry
where the pioneering
64-bit
Alpha 21064
and its derivatives were made. Digital also opened an office in
Livingston
, developing their flagship
OpenVMS
operating system. Digital's South Queensferry facility, opened in 1990 at an estimated cost of
$200 million
, was eventually sold to Motorola in 1995. At the time, Motorola itself employed 4,000 people at its own semiconductor plant at East Kilbride, as well as operating a cellular telephone plant at
Easter Inch
.
[3]
The potential and implications of a single European market motivated foreign companies, particularly those from the United States, to establish operations in Silicon Glen. By having a presence in a European Economic Community member country, companies could formally participate in standards committees and thus exert a degree of influence. Emerging European tariff rules concerning the origin of products were also strong motivators for the establishment of local manufacturing operations, with the EEC having updated its rules in 1989 to consider the location of the wafer diffusion phase of semiconductor production as determining the origin of the manufactured product. Local infrastructure support for the semiconductor industry was well regarded in Scotland, with local universities offering "a strong design base".
[4]
Rodime
of
Glenrothes
pioneered the 3.5 inch hard disk drive in 1983 and spent subsequent years defending its patents against (and collecting
royalties
from)
Seagate
,
Quantum
,
IBM
and others.
The manufacturing sector grew to such an extent that at its peak it produced approximately 30% of Europe's PCs, 80% of its
workstations
, 65% of its
ATMs
and a significant percentage of its
integrated circuits
.
[5]
Today
[
edit
]
The heavy dependency on electronics manufacturing hit Silicon Glen hard after the collapse of the hi-tech economy in 2000. Viasystems,
National Semiconductor
(now
Texas Instruments
),
Motorola
and Chunghwa Picture Tubes all laid off substantial numbers of employees or closed factories completely. The effects of the Viasystems closure are still felt in the
Scottish Borders
today. Digital sold their Alpha facility to
Motorola
who eventually closed it down.
Motorola
also closed their factory in
Bathgate
and the substantial
NEC
plant in
Livingston
was also closed. In 2009 Sun ceased manufacturing at its Linlithgow plant
[6]
and, after successive years of downsizing, NCR ended all manufacturing in Dundee.
However, there are many promising signs as well as a recognition that diversification away from electronics and manufacturing produces a more balanced and stronger economy. There is also more of an interest in encouraging home grown talent.
To diversify away from electronics and manufacturing, the development agencies now see global services as being a potential area of growth, but there is also substantial interest in the software development industry, including
Rockstar North
, developers of the market leading
Grand Theft Auto
series. There is also a dynamic and fast growing electronics design and development industry, based around links between the very strong
universities
and indigenous companies and projects like the Alba Campus. The software sector has also notably attracted
Amazon.com
to set up a software development centre in
Edinburgh
, the first such centre outside the US. There remains a significant presence of global players like
National Semiconductor
,
IBM
, Shin Etsu Handotai Europe Ltd and
Freescale
. The move from a primarily manufacturing dominated region to a wealth creation one has been successful as demonstrated in a report from UBS Wealth Management in 2006 showing Scotland with more venture backed companies per capita than any other UK region.
In addition to the indigenous companies, Silicon Glen continues to have quite a significant semiconductor design community of inward investment companies including
Atmel
,
Freescale
,
Texas Instruments
,
Micrel
,
Analog Devices
, Allegro MicroSystems, Micro Linear, Micronas and
ST Microelectronics
.
Semefab, the former
General Instrument
semiconductor foundry, has been funded as the UK's Primary Centre for the development of
microelectromechanical systems
(MEMS) and
nanotechnology
.
Scotland had 1,000 companies in electronics employing 25,000 people in 2004, this number has been in decline since 2000 when 48,000 people were employed in the industry in Scotland.
[7]
However, by 2016 the Silicon Glen has begun to boom once again, with new digital start ups - such as
Skyscanner
- choosing Scotland for headquarters or offices.
The Open Source Awards (formerly the Scottish Open Source Awards) have been run from Scotland since 2007.
[
citation needed
]
It was initially a subset of the Scottish Software Awards.
Notable companies
[
edit
]
Many
high technology
companies are established in Silicon Glen, including:
See also
[
edit
]
References and notes
[
edit
]
- ^
"National semiconductor strategy"
.
GOV.UK
. Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. 19 May 2023
. Retrieved
12 December
2023
.
- ^
Grossman, Wendy M. (September 1993). "Northern Exposure".
Personal Computer World
. pp. 294?296, 298.
- ^
DeTar, Jim (9 January 1995).
"Motorola To Take Over Digital's Scottish Plant"
.
Electronic News
. pp. 1, 4
. Retrieved
10 June
2022
.
- ^
Miller, Christine (June 1990).
"Silicon Glen: The European Challenge"
.
IEEE Micro
. pp. 7?8
. Retrieved
19 March
2023
.
- ^
"Vaz, Keith (2001).
Success of British companies in the rest of Europe
"
(PDF)
.
- ^
"155 Scots jobs lost since Sun takeover by Oracle"
.
The Scotsman
. 10 March 2011
. Retrieved
25 December
2016
.
- ^
Council, Fife (13 October 2021).
"Home"
.
www.fife.gov.uk
. Retrieved
24 October
2021
.
- ^
"Home"
.
Version 1
.
- ^
"Micronas Home | micronas.com"
.
www.micronas.com
.
- ^
"Home - Leonardo in the UK"
.
www.uk.leonardocompany.com
.
- ^
"Semiconductor and MEMS Fabrication"
.
Semefab
.
- ^
"New Edinburgh Office Opens - AND Digital"
.
AND Digital
.
- ^
"Mobile App Development | Scotland, UK"
.
Waracle
.
- ^
"Compugraphics"
.
Compugraphics
.
- ^
"Software consultancy Infinity Works opens in Edinburgh's WeWork site"
.
Scotsman
. 23 October 2019.
- ^
"Brand Rex"
.
- ^
"Mobile App Performance Management for Developers | Kumulos"
.
Kumulos
.
- ^
"Electronics | Sensors, Power, Connectivity & Manufacturing Solutions | TT Electronics"
.
www.ttelectronics.com
. 26 November 2018.
- ^
"Mage Control Systems Ltd - Creative Control Systems"
. 16 May 2019.
- ^
CRC Group
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