The bay area is buzzing with rising rentals and housing prices while the rest of the nation is barely coming out of the housing downturn of 2008. Is this a real increase this time or is it hype like what we experienced during the dot com era? It probably is real mainly because of the proliferation of the success of the social media companies, Apple, Google etc. It is not because of the semiconductor industry this time although Silicon Valley's roots lie in Silicon and the valley continues to churn out innovations after innovations in Integrated circuits and semiconductor technologies. The success of products coming out of Apple depends on the semiconductor process advancements and design for development of ever faster processing speeds and small size System on Chips possible only with process geometries of 14nm and below. Intel is the world leader in semiconductor process technology leading with 10nm &moving towards 7nm pushing the limits of Moore's law. Intel uses these processes for its own microprocessors and provides foundry service as well to select few customers. The success of Facebook/Google depends on the high throughput in data bandwidth's possible only due to semiconductor innovations in Optical Photonics and Point to Point Radios. For instance, optical modulators drivers and transimpedance amplifiers produced by GigOptix in GaAs, InP&SiGe technologies are pushing the envelope by offering ICs with speeds beyond 100 Gbps today and reaching 1Tbps, with GigOptix's large selection of products suitable for wireless communication applications that cover frequencies from L-band (1+GHz) to E-band (80+ GHz), providing unprecedented communication performance for GNSS/GPS, microwave backhaul, satellite systems, and with the availability of CMOS process in geometries down to 28nm & lower, the performance of CMOS based devices are approaching SiGe speeds. For instance 28G SerDes, TIA, Driver etc. are achievable in 40nm or 28nm process geometries making it possible to integrate these very high speeds IPs using digital circuits in Optical ASICs for the Optical transceivers/Line Cards

The innovations in these products are needed for the high throughput needed for telecom, datacom and wireless for ever increasing bandwidth needs of Social network/Cellular phones/server farms etc. So why stocks of companies like Google, Apple, Facebook etc. are sky high and Semiconductor companies are struggling? These companies are very innovative and credit is due to them for providing software/hardware solutions, but theycannot reach pinnacle in their areas without the innovations provided by semiconductor technology.

Back in the dot com days there was a different IC start up almost every day. A lot of VC money was being pumped into semiconductors. Unfortunately due to the dot com bust the VC's took a hit and left a bad taste and the money dried up for the semiconductor startups. This void left the innovation of semiconductor designs with the larger semiconductor companies for the high volume mature markets and to smaller, efficient and tech heavy semiconductor companies, GigOptix being one of them, for the developing markets pushing the performance envelope. For a large company to move the needle in the ever growing performance/innovation needs of the industry takes lot more effort than a smaller nimble company focused in their area of expertise. For this to happen in a bigger way, like the dotcom days, will need paradigm shift in the minds of the VC's and with the renewed attention, the pendulum will swing to the semiconductor industry, Silicon Valley is known for. Even for Social networking companies it will be a good thing because their growth and innovation depends on the semiconductor industries innovations and these innovations can only take place if the money for innovation is evenly distributed between semiconductor and social networking startups.