The head of the world's largest contract chip manufacturer said yesterday it will cost an estimated US$1 billion for his company to develop the latest chip production technology.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
Nanometer sizes, which are thousands of times smaller than a human hair, are used to describe the microscopic parts that make up a semiconductor.
Chang said rising research and development costs on the manufacturing side mirror increasing costs for chip developers as well.
"That obviously has increased the stakes, has increased the risk of failure," Chang said at a news conference in Taipei sponsored by the Fabless Semiconductor Association.
He added that if a medium-sized company develops a chip and it doesn't sell well, it may not survive.
The rising costs for semiconductor manufacturing and design work mean the industry is at a crossroads, Chang said.
He predicted chip design houses, which create blueprints for chips that control gadgets from digital cameras to MP3 players and computers, will have to form tighter relationships with contract chipmakers like TSMC.
He also said larger companies that have done a lot of their own chip design and production work in the past will also likely abandon manufacturing since a state-of-the-art chip factory alone can cost up to NT$100 billion (US$3 billion).
To survive, Chang said chip firms need to form strong partnerships. TSMC is pursuing a "customer-partnership" business model to deal with the challenges of rising costs, he added.
TSMC has faced new competition from entrants in the contract chip business in recent years, particularly from Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際集成電路), which is based in Shanghai.
Many chip design houses, which made up around two-thirds of TSMC's customers in the third quarter, work with more than one contract chipmaker.
Chang said he expects high growth in the next five to 10 years among Chinese chipmakers that outsource their production.
There are at present 600 to 700 so-called fabless chipmakers in China, he said. Fabless chipmakers design semiconductors and outsource production to foundries, or made-to-order suppliers.
"Their [China's fabless companies] total revenue is still very low," Chang said. "But their growth rate in the next five to 10 years will be quite impressive."
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last