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It is called "Silicon Fen" by analogy with Silicon Valley in California, and because of the large area of drained fenland to the north of Cambridge.
The so-called Cambridge phenomenon giving rise to start-up companies, in a town previously only having a little light industry in the electrical sector, is usually dated to the founding of the Cambridge Science Park in 1970. This was an initiative of Trinity College, Cambridge; and moved away from a traditional low-development policy for Cambridge (based partly on Oxford's experience with the motor industry).
The characteristic of Cambridge is small companies (as few as three people, in some cases), in sectors such as CAD. Over time the number of companies has grown; it has not proved easy to count them, but as of 2004 there are supposed to be about 3500. They spread over an area defined perhaps by the CB postcode (which is sought after); or more generously in an area bounded by ElyEly (pronounced to rhyme with mealy is a cathedral city in east Cambridgeshire, East Anglia. The population was 11,760 in 1994. It is the main town in the Isle of Ely. The city was founded in 673 by Saint Ethelreda, daughter of King Anna. The foundation w- NewmarketThis article is about the English town. For other places named Newmarket or New Market, see New Market. Newmarket is a market town in the English county of Suffolk, approximately 65 miles north of London, which has grown and become famous because of its c- Saffron WaldenSaffron Walden is a small market town in the district of Uttlesford in Essex, England, 12 miles North of Bishop's Stortford, and about 15 miles South of Cambridge. The town retains a picturesque, rural appearance and many old buildings dating from the med- RoystonThis article is about Royston, Hertfordshire . For other uses of the name Royston see Royston (disambiguation). Royston is a town in the English county of Hertfordshire. It lies at the crossing of two ancient thoroughfares, Ermine Street and the Icknield- St. Neots- HuntingdonThis article is about the English town of Huntingdon. For other uses see Huntingdon (disambiguation Huntingdon is a town in Cambridgeshire in East Anglia, England. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire, and now serves as the adm.
A tiny proportion only of these companies have grown to multinationalThe word multinational can refer to several things. A Multinational corporation A Multinational State.s: ARMAdvanced RISC Machines better known as ARM is a microprocessor company founded in 1990 by Hermann Hauser. The Cambridge-based company was a spin-off from Acorn Computers Ltd to further the development of the Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) RISC chip, which was o is the most obvious example. The region does have one of the most flexible job markets in the technology sector, meaning that the same people are often retained in the Cambridge area after a start-up fails, in other companies. One explanation for the success is that such an employment market after a while is self-sustaining, since employees are willing to move to an area that promises a future beyond any one company.
The spread of technologies now includes biotechnology in a broad sense and bioinformatics, as well as mobile phones, on top of more traditional software development.
See also: Hermann Hauser.