Silicon

In what may be a leading indicator of how traditional social welfare agencies are struggling even as technology yields new riches, the United Way of Santa Clara County, in Silicon Valley, collapsed this month as donations slipped, a reserve fund once brimming with $11 million went dry, and the agency ran out of money May 1.Donations to the Santa Clara United Way, the 30th largest in the nation, are expected to total $20 million in the current campaign, down...

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- For now, its a warehouse filled with artifacts from hackers' garages and corporations' dark basements.But the Computer Museum, of Boston, wants to open a museum in the Silicon Valley to illuminate the history of the computer industry -- as soon as it finds the proper place. The new Computer Museum History Center will display relics from 14 years of breakneck technological change, from ancient calculators and supercomputers to notorious virus software and games.For the moment, the collection is not available to the general public.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening signed a wide-ranging package of technology-promoting bills into law yesterday, then jetted off to Silicon Valley to boast that they will make Maryland a national leader in electronic commerce. The governor's visit to Cisco Systems in San Jose, Calif., today is the first stop on a weeklong trip that will take him to three states to promote initiatives the state launched or expanded during the General Assembly session that ended this month. For Glendening, already basking in national attention over passage of his gun safety legislation, the trip will further raise his profile as he prepares to take over the chairmanship of the National Governors' Association in July.

LOS GATOS, Calif. - Behind the closed doors and darkened windows of what looks like a former furniture store, Steve Wozniak just might be proving F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong: Maybe there are second acts in American lives. Wozniak, whose invention of the Apple computer launched the PC revolution, has generated buzz in Silicon Valley and beyond by announcing several months ago that he is developing new wireless products. After years in which the idiosyncratic Wozniak drifted away from the industry he helped create and pursued decidedly non-geek interests such as producing rock concerts and teaching fifth grade, his return to the drawing board has many eagerly anticipating a next big thing.

Overlooked in the antitrust battle against the nation's software giant is this: Microsoft's complicity in the demise of the business suit. Microsoft - and its khakis-and-T-shirt cousins - have systematically untucked and short-sleeved the togs of the American workplace. They've made pinstripes obsolete. They've made ties as necessary as typewriters. And here in Baltimore, they've spoiled the Memorial Day de-mothballing of the poplin. Memorial Day weekend once delineated the shift to summer business attire.

Bookham Technology PLC is a British fiber-optics company almost in American disguise: It is managed like a U.S. business, it is traded on the Nasdaq stock market and many of its customers are based in the United States. That isn't by chance, though. The company always planned to straddle the Atlantic. In February, Book- ham will begin to make its imprint in Maryland, as it opens its North American headquarters in Columbia. "It's not just a manufacturing facility, it's the start of our significant U.S. presence," said the company's president, Giorgio Anania.

1958: First silicon chip1967: Rouse Co. creates Columbia1971: Nixon devalues the dollar1971: NASDAQ is introduced

Here's Phil Kuekes's recipe for building the computer of the future: Take a glass tumbler, pour in a few jiggers of exotic chemicals, shake it like a Martini, and voila!"

A California-based bank is considering opening a loan production office near Baltimore to tap the region's burgeoning high-technology industry.Santa Clara-based Silicon Valley Bank will decide by fall whether it will open the office in the region, said Kenneth Wilcox, senior vice president of Silicon Valley Bank."

In rooms so sterile that only those clad in gloves and special jumpsuits can enter, workers will soon begin to manufacture the key ingredient for Bookham Technology PLC, silicon wafers. Bookham makes components that help information flow along fiber-optic networks. Yesterday, the British company officially opened its North American headquarters and manufacturing plant in Howard County. What sets Bookham apart from other component-makers is that it uses silicon, rather than silica, to make its product.