Silicon Valley

American  

noun

1. the area in northern California, southwest of San Francisco in the Santa Clara valley region, where many of the high-technology design and manufacturing companies in the semiconductor industry are concentrated.

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Silicon Valley British  

noun

1. an industrial strip in W California, extending S of San Francisco, in which the US information technology industry is concentrated

2. any area in which industries associated with information technology are concentrated

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Silicon Valley Cultural  

1. A region on the San Francisco Peninsula in California where the miniaturized electronics industry is centered, so called because most of the devices built there are made of semiconductors such as silicon.

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The term is often used as a catchword to describe the development of high-tech industry (see also high-tech): “If we can attract this corporation to our town, we could become another Silicon Valley.”

Etymology

Origin of Silicon Valley

So called from the silicon wafers employed in semiconductor devices

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Silicon Valley

It was because of money from tech billionaire investor Peter Thiel and other Silicon Valley types who seem to equate being rich with being learned.

From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2026

More than 70 Silicon Valley firms have now added their names.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

As debate escalates over the implications of open-weight artificial intelligence in both Washington and Silicon Valley, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made his position clear on Friday.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026

OpenAI, the Silicon Valley giant run by Sam Altman, gave two of its models a test recently to judge how well they can hack on their own.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

I don’t mean to suggest, of course, that every software tycoon in Silicon Valley was born in 1955.

From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell