Next week, Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) will go public―the first stock-market flotation from the high-technology cluster around the university city since late 2000. There'll be no repeat of the high-tech bubble, but Europe's nearest equivalent of Silicon Valley has shaken off the gloom of the bust that followed it. Cambridge's big success, ARM, a chip designer floated in 1998, briefly had a market value, in early 2000, above ￡10 billion ($19 billion now); today's is ￡1.3 billion. Life was crazier still for Autonomy, a maker of information-management software: within days of its launch in late 2000, its shares sold at ￡41, valuing it at ￡4.5 billion. Two years later they stood below ￡1, today near ￡3-and some analysts think that too high. Reality is back in fashion.
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