Silicon Valley Tilt-Up

The movers trucked my boxes from the former Linear Technology buildings in Milpitas across town to the new Analog Devices campus in Santa Clara. It's not far; it's just a new building. There was no closing ceremony. It's not like this was hallowed ground. It was just another Silicon Valley tilt-up.

The term "tilt-up" refers to the way many buildings are made here. They pour a concrete slab. Then they pour concrete walls horizontally and tilt them up to form the sides of the building. It's the same way pioneers had barn raisings 150 years ago. Except that barn raisings were a community event that pulled everyone together. They were built by hand and they were built to last for generations. A modern tilt-up is quick, cheap and the community barely notices.  Typically only two stories tall, they are built to barely survive the shaky ground beneath Silicon Valley and its relentlessly shifting tectonic plates.

The ground is not the only thing that is constantly shifting here, the names on the buildings are constantly shifting, too. Silicon Valley is legendary for start-ups and spin-offs. Those from Fairchild Semiconductor are remembered for the people, not the buildings. The tilt-ups represent the footsteps along a journey for those companies, only to be trodden by another in their wake.

I've got an aerial photo of Silicon Valley, vintage 1980. In the upper left of the frame, near Moffett Field, you'll find the first Fairchild building. Where Bob Swanson was hired away from Transitron. Mid-center in the photo is the old National Semiconductor campus, where he rose to VP of Analog and met Bob Dobkin. To the right are the empty fields that Swanson and Dobkin chose to build the first Linear Technology tilt-up. The progression of time and autonomy paralleled the arc across the valley. And now we are looping back over to Santa Clara, not too far away from the original location of Precision Monolithics - one of ADI's earliest acquisitions - the new home of its latest.

Linear occupied that Milpitas space for over 35 years. Of the five buildings, I have the rare distinction of having had an office in each one at some point. Building number one was the original fab and offices. Building two became more offices and the test floor. There were other buildings called three and four, that were occupied for several years then knocked down for a new "building four" which would become the executive offices, marketing, and the shipping dock. Probably unintentional, but the symbolism of Swanson as CEO sitting in the same building as shipping echoes LTC's culture - roll up your sleeves and never forget where the money comes from.

Looks big, but it's a 4" wafer

Building three was leased (when real estate was booming) then purchased (when real estate crashed) from LSI Logic. Wilf Corrigan, the founder of LSI, sat next to a conference room that we called "the round room" in that building. A former president of Motorola who came to Fairchild with "Hogan's Heroes", Wilf became CEO of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1974 - leaving in 1979 when it was sold to Schlumberger. He redeemed his legacy with LSI, next door to LTC, walking the hallways of the future building three.

Building five became Linear's engineering building once they outgrew building three. Building five was purchased (when real estate was cheap) and moth-balled until it was needed. The former tenant was Xicor. Its CEO in those days was Lou DiNardo, a former vice president and general manager at Linear - and my old boss for a time. Linear generally retained its people; it was a great place for the right people to work and built to last. But there wasn't much room at the top. Another high-level defector was Dave Bell, former president. Dave went to Intersil as CEO. Intersil acquired Xicor from Lou. Few noticed within the walls of our tilt-up; few look back.

There aren't many acknowledgments of the buildings in Silicon Valley. Hewlett and Packard's garage is now a museum and a recognized historical landmark. Shockley Semiconductor's building received modest recognition. Few companies stayed put long enough for the accomplishments of the people to be associated with the place. Companies move places, people move companies.

And so we move. But we stand on the shoulders of giants and we carry that forward. We bring that to the new community to build something better, like reclaimed beams from a 150 year-old barn.