[00:00.49]Technology trends may push Silicon Valley back to the future.
[00:05.82]Carver Mead, a pioneer in integrated circuits and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology,
[00:15.36]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.
[00:30.04]As the time and cost of making a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars,
[00:36.44]engineers may soon be free to let their imaginations soar without being penalized by expensive failures.
[00:44.52]Mead predicts that inventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend at the office
[00:52.96]'We're got more garages with smart people,' Mead observes. 'We really thrive on anarchy.'
[00:59.60]And on Asians. Already, orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering staffs at many Valley firms.
[01:09.59]And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from California's colleges.
[01:19.18]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.
[01:30.97]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.
[01:42.78]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.
[01:55.76]Before it becomes a retirement village, Silicon Valley may prove a classroom for building a global business.
