The Silicon Gorge refers to the numerous high-tech and research companies, in the triangle of Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, Swindon

Swindon

Swindon is a large town within the borough of Swindon and ceremonial county of Wiltshire, in South West England. It is midway between Bristol, west and Reading, east. London is east...

 and Gloucester

Gloucester

Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....

, in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is ranked fourth of such areas in Europe, and is named after the Avon Gorge

Avon Gorge

The Avon Gorge is a 1.5-mile long gorge on the River Avon in Bristol, England. The gorge runs south to north through a limestone ridge west of Bristol city centre, and about 3 miles from the mouth of the river at Avonmouth. The gorge forms the boundary between the unitary authorities of...

.

Bath

Bath is home to a number of high-tech companies ranging from fabless semiconductor designers to eCommerce retailers. Many companies have been started by ex-employees of companies such as FuturePublishing and IPL

IPL

-Sports:* Indian Premier League, a cricket league* Indonesian Premier League, a football league* Iran Pro League, a football league* Irish Premier League, a former football league* Israeli Premier League, a football league-Computing :* IBM Public License...

, two long standing employers in the area.

Ventures

• LoveHoney
  LoveHoney
  Lovehoney is a British business that sells sex toys, lingerie and erotic gifts on the Internet. Their tagline is “the sexual happiness people”....
  
   uk sex-toy retailer.
• The Filter
  The Filter
  The Filter is a company providing a recommendation engine for providers of digital content. Founded in 2004, it has ties to musician Peter Gabriel and is based in Bath, UK.-History:...
  
   media recommendation service.
• Bardowl Audiobook subscription service.
• Roman Cart  eCommerce software provider.
• CommunityDNS DNS provider.

Bristol

Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

 is part of the Silicon Gorge, along with Gloucester

Gloucester

Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....

 and Swindon

Swindon

Swindon is a large town within the borough of Swindon and ceremonial county of Wiltshire, in South West England. It is midway between Bristol, west and Reading, east. London is east...

 and hosts a number of high-tech and creative industries

Creative industries

The creative industries refers to a range of economic activities which are concerned with the generation or exploitation of knowledge and information...

 including research group HP Labs

HP Labs

HP Labs is the exploratory and advanced research group for Hewlett-Packard. The lab has some 600 researchersin seven locations throughout the world....

 and animation studio Aardman Animations

Aardman Animations

Aardman Animations, Ltd., also known as Aardman Studios, or simply as Aardman, is a British animation studio based in Bristol, United Kingdom. The studio is known for films made using stop-motion clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring Plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit...

. The cluster of high-tech electronics industries began when Fairchild Semiconductor

Fairchild Semiconductor

Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. is an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957, it was a pioneer in transistor and integrated circuit manufacturing...

 located a design office in Bristol in 1972. Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

 also has the strongest digital media supply chain in England, outside of London and has been pinpointed as a "hot spring" for innovation on the McKinsey/World Economic Forum innovation map.

Microelectronic companies in Bristol

• Broadcom
  Broadcom
  Broadcom Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company in the wireless and broadband communication business. The company is headquartered in Irvine, California, USA. Broadcom was founded by a professor-student pair Henry Samueli and Henry T. Nicholas III from the University of California, Los...
  
  
• HP Labs
  HP Labs
  HP Labs is the exploratory and advanced research group for Hewlett-Packard. The lab has some 600 researchersin seven locations throughout the world....
  
  
• Infineon
• NVIDIA
  NVIDIA
  Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
  
  
• Oxford Instruments
  Oxford Instruments
  Oxford Instruments plc is a United Kingdom manufacturing and research company that designs and manufactures tools and systems for industry and research. The company is headquartered in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, with sites in the United Kingdom, United States, Europe, and Asia...
  
  
• Toshiba
  Toshiba
  is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
  
  
• STMicroelectronics
  STMicroelectronics
  STMicroelectronics is an Italian-French electronics and semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.While STMicroelectronics corporate headquarters and the headquarters for EMEA region are based in Geneva, the holding company, STMicroelectronics N.V. is registered in Amsterdam,...
  
  
• ZiiLabs
  ZiiLABS
  ZiiLABS is a global technology company, whose ZMS media-rich application processors, reference platforms and enabling software are designed to enable OEMs and ODMs to create products that target a range of low-power consumer electronics and embedded markets, including Android based tablets.-...
  
  

Support organisations

• Media Sandbox by Watershed Media Centre
  Watershed Media Centre
  Watershed opened in June 1982 as the United Kingdom's first dedicated media centre. Based in former warehouses on the harbourside at Bristol, it hosts three cinemas, a café/bar, events/conferencing spaces, and office spaces for administrative and creative staff. It occupies the former V and W sheds...
  
  
• Connecting Bristol by Bristol City Council
• SiliconSouthwest

Ventures

• Aardman Animations
  Aardman Animations
  Aardman Animations, Ltd., also known as Aardman Studios, or simply as Aardman, is a British animation studio based in Bristol, United Kingdom. The studio is known for films made using stop-motion clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring Plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit...
  
  
• IMDb
  Internet Movie Database
  Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
  
  
• Viral Ad Network
• XMOS
  XMOS
  XMOS is a fabless semiconductor company that develops multi-core multi-threaded processors designed to execute several real-time tasks, DSP, and control flow all at once.-Company history:...
  
  

Other cities

• Gloucester
  Gloucester
  Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
  
  
• Swindon
  Swindon
  Swindon is a large town within the borough of Swindon and ceremonial county of Wiltshire, in South West England. It is midway between Bristol, west and Reading, east. London is east...
  
  

Cities sometimes associated with the region:

• Bath
• Exeter
  Exeter
  Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
  
  
• Southampton
  Southampton
  Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
  
  
• Surrey
  Surrey
  Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
  
  
• Plymouth
  Plymouth
  Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
  
  

Academic Institutions

• University of Bristol
  University of Bristol
  The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
  
  
• University of the West of England
  University of the West of England
  The University of the West of England is a university based in the English city of Bristol. Its main campus is at Frenchay, about five miles north of the city centre...
  
  
• University of Bath
  University of Bath
  The University of Bath is a campus university located in Bath, United Kingdom. It received its Royal Charter in 1966....
  
   (part of SETsquared)
• University of Surrey
  University of Surrey
  The University of Surrey is a university located within the county town of Guildford, Surrey in the South East of England. It received its charter on 9 September 1966, and was previously situated near Battersea Park in south-west London. The institution was known as Battersea College of Technology...
  
   (part of SETsquared)
• University of Exeter
  University of Exeter
  The University of Exeter is a public university in South West England. It belongs to the 1994 Group, an association of 19 of the United Kingdom's smaller research-intensive universities....
  
   (part of SETsquared)
• University of Southampton
  University of Southampton
  The University of Southampton is a British public university located in the city of Southampton, England, a member of the Russell Group. The origins of the university can be dated back to the founding of the Hartley Institution in 1862 by Henry Robertson Hartley. In 1902, the Institution developed...
  
   (part of SETsquared)