Silicon Valley

The Soviet Union, seeking to ignite its economy, has hired Bechtel Group Inc. to help convert a government research center near Moscow into a Silicon Valley-style "technopolis" where science is commercialized. The Soviets hired the San Francisco-based construction and engineering giant for a feasibility study for the new research park, which is planned for Troitsk, 20 miles southwest of Moscow.

Raychem Corp. has unveiled the first phase of a $70-million plan to turn an existing factory into an automated plant that will employ 500 and produce more than 400 million circuit protectors each year. To save time getting the devices to market, the specialty materials company decided to expand at home rather than move the plant to an area where costs are lower.

Nearly all the registered nurses at two Silicon Valley hospitals walked off the job Wednesday in hopes of higher pay. Officials at Stanford Medical Center and Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital brought in about 500 nurses to replace the 1,730 on strike and said they would turn away patients before compromising care. Both sides said they hoped for a quick end to the dispute. "But we're in this for the long haul, if that's what's necessary," union spokeswoman Kim Griffin said.

Intel Corp. said Wednesday that it would close five older plants that employed as many as 6,000 people, including its last factory in Silicon Valley, as the world's biggest chip maker coped with a worldwide recession. Intel will close a factory at its headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif.; a plant in Oregon; and assembly and test facilities in Malaysia and the Philippines. Some workers affected will be offered positions elsewhere in the firm, Intel said.

Silicon Valley has wielded its growing political clout at the state Capitol to kill a digital privacy bill that would have given consumers access to information about them being collected online. Had the Right to Know Act become law, California would have been the first state to take direct aim at an online industry that stockpiles and trades in a wide range of personal data about nearly every adult in the United States. In a major defeat for consumer groups and privacy watchdogs, AB 1291 will instead become a two-year bill, effectively putting it into a deep freeze until next year.

SAN FRANCISCO - Could the next Martha Stewart come from Silicon Valley? The East Coast tastemaker who for decades ruled the lifestyle category with her tireless pursuit of domestic perfection seems to be losing her elegant grip on younger viewers and consumers searching for something a bit more accessible. Enter Brit Morin, a 26-year-old Google alum fashioning herself as a youthful cross between hacker and homemaker. Her edge: She resonates with the iPhone generation for whom the hottest accessory is the latest gadget.

French nuclear energy giant Areva has jumped into the U.S. renewable energy market with the acquisition of Ausra Inc., a Mountain View, Calif., solar power plant start-up. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Areva executive Anil Srivastava said the sale price was in line with the $418 million that rival Siemens of Germany spent last year to acquire Solel Solar Systems, an Israeli solar power plant builder. That would be a decent payday for Ausra's investors, which include Silicon Valley venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Khosla Ventures.

Ralph Aceves had already made it big in Silicon Valley, with three technology start-ups under his belt and a nice bank account. What more could a successful Mexican immigrant do? "I had another idea for a new business in social networking," the Guadalajara-born entrepreneur said. "I thought, 'Why can't I start the business in Mexico and expand into the United States?' " That sort of talk is what Mexican officials want to hear. After years of free trade in North America, Mexico's high-tech industry wasn't growing fast enough at home and wasn't breaking into the lucrative American or global markets.

Silicon Valley Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of Silicon Valley Bancshares, has opened its first office in Los Angeles to lend to growing technology companies. Silicon Valley, which already has offices in San Diego and Irvine, lends to growing mid-sized companies primarily in the technology and science industries. The bank had a small office in Los Angeles that focused on entertainment, but that division will move to the new office in West Los Angeles.

Details Inc., an Anaheim printed circuit board maker, said Friday it has merged with a Silicon Valley firm, Dynamic Circuits Inc. The new company, called Dynamic Details Inc., will be based in Anaheim and operate eight circuit board manufacturing facilities. The merged companies had combined net sales of $265.5 million in the year ended June 30, 1998. Dynamic Details is controlled by Bain Capital Inc., a Boston-based private equity investment firm.