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Silicon Forest is a Washington County cluster of high-tech companies located in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. The term most frequently refers to the industrial corridor between Beaverton and Hillsboro in northwest Oregon. The high-technology industry accounted for 19 percent of Oregon's economy in 2005, and the Silicon Forest name has been applied to the industry throughout the state in such places as Corvallis, Bend, and White City. Nevertheless, the name refers primarily to the Portland metropolitan area, where about 1,500 high-tech firms were located as of 2006.
The name is analogous to Silicon Valley. In the greater Portland area, these companies have traditionally specialized in hardware — specifically test-and-measurement equipment (Tektronix), computer chips (Intel and an array of smaller chip manufacturers), electronic displays (InFocus, Planar Systems and Pixelworks) and printers (Hewlett-Packard, Xerox and Epson). There is a small clean technology emphasis in the area.
The high-tech industry in the Portland area dates back to at least the 1940s, with Tektronix and Electro Scientific Industries as pioneers.Manaton, Michael E. (August 4, 1994). "Tektronix began 'Silicon Forest' boom". The Oregonian (MetroWest edition). Tektronix and ESI both started out in Portland proper, but moved to Washington County in 1951 and 1962, respectively, and developed sites designed to attract other high-tech companies. Floating Point Systems, co-founded by three former Tektronix employees in Beaverton in 1970, was the first spin-off company in Silicon Forest and the third (after Tek and ESI) to be traded on the NYSE.G.B. Dodds, C.E. Wollner & M.M. Lee, The Silicon Forest, Oregon Historical Society Press, 1990, pp. 46-55. These three companies, and later Intel, led to the creation of a number of other spin-offs and Startup company, some of which were remarkably successful. A 2003 dissertation on these spin-offs led to a poster depicting the genealogy of 894 Silicon Forest companies. High-tech employment in the state reached a peak of almost 73,000 in 2001, but has never recovered from the dot-com bubble. Statewide, tech employment totaled 57,000 in the spring of 2012.
Unlike other regions with a "silicon" appellation, semiconductors truly are the heart of Oregon's tech industry.
Intel's headquarters remain in Santa Clara, California, but in the 1990s the company began moving its most advanced technical operations to Oregon. Its Ronler Acres campus eventually became its most advanced anywhere, and Oregon is now Intel's largest operating hub. In late 2012, Intel had close to 17,000 employees in Oregon—more than anywhere else the company operated; by 2022, the number had grown to about 22,000.
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