Technology trends may push Silicon（[化学] 硅） Valley back to the future. Carver（雕刻匠） Mead, a pioneer（拓荒者） in integrated（使…完整） circuits and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology, notes that there are now workstations that enable（使能够） engineers to design, test and produce chips right on their desks. Much the way an editor creates a newsletter（时事通讯） on a Macintosh. As the time and cost of making（使） a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars, engineers may soon be free to let their imagination（想象） soar（高飞） without being penalized（处罚） by expensive failures. Mead predicts that inventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend at the office, spawning（产卵） a new generation of garage start-ups and giving the US a jump on its foreign rivals（竞争者） in getting new products to market fast. "We've got more garages with smart people," Mead observes（遵守）.

  "We really thrive（兴旺） on anarchy." And on Asians, already Orientals and Asian Americans constitute（组成） the majority（多数） of the engineering staffs at many valley firms（商行）. And Chinese, Korean（韩国（人/语）的）, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from California（加利福尼亚）'s colleges. As the heads of next generation start-ups, these Asian innovators can draw on customs and languages to forge（稳步前进） tighter links with crucial（至关重要的） Pacific（太平洋） Rim markets. For instance（实例）, Alex Au, a Stanford PhD from Hong Kong, has set up a Taiwan factory to challenge（向…挑战） Japan's near log（航行日志） on the memory chip market. Indian-born N.

  Damodar Reddy's tiny California company reopened（重开） an AT&T chip plant in Kansas City last spring, with financing from the state of Missouri（密苏里州（美国州名））. Before it becomes a retirement（退休） village, Silicon Valley may prove a classroom for building a global business.