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TSMC to recruit 400 staff

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufact-uring Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's largest made-to-order chipmaker, plans to recruit 400 new employees this year, the company said in a statement released yesterday.

The new staff will be mainly engineers that the chipmaker plans to place in its new 12-inch wafer plant in the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區), said Chang Pin-heng (張秉衡), vice president of TSMC's human resources department.

Chang made the remarks at a joint press conference with Tainan County Government yesterday to promote the science park's facilities and environment, as well as touting the park's development and future prospects.

TSMC which is headquartered in Hsinchu, currently has some 20,000 employees, with about 15,000 in Hsinchu and 5,000 in Tainan, the company said.

But the company's new plant, Fab 14, "will need to add 400 new staff, primarily nanometer technology production engineers, starting from this month to the end of October," Chang said in a statement released yesterday after the press conference.

TSMC was rated the most admired company in Taiwan in a June poll by the Chinese-language Cheers magazine. But the company does face difficulty in hiring people for its plants in Tainan, as the Southern Taiwan Science Park is less popular among tech talent than the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park (新竹科學園區).

The Hsinchu park was set up in 1980 and became the nation's largest research and development base with more than 40,000 engineers.

TSMC was the first company to build a facility in the Southern Taiwan Science Park, after an eight-inch fab was constructed in July 1997. The plant, Fab 6, began production in March 2000 and has an annual capacity of more than 900,000 wafers, Chang said.

Fab 14 is the company's second wafer plant in the park, and is expected to churn out 328,000 12-inch wafers (about 738,000 eight-inch equivalent) this year.

"Monthly capacity will reach as high as 115,000 12-inch wafers," given the plant's construction is fully completed, Chang said.

To attract more businesses and people to work in the southern park, Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智), who also attended the press conference, said the county government has been improving the environment surrounding the park with the goal of "bringing technology and humanity together."

Su said 12 companies have already moved into a specialized LCD television zone next door to the Southern Taiwan Science Park, adding that these companies will be working hand in hand with optoelectronics firms in the park to mutually improve competitiveness.

Echoing Su's optimism, Tai Chien (戴謙), director general of Southern Taiwan Science Park Administration, said yesterday at the same venue that the science park is targeting NT$500 billion (US$15.39 billion) in total revenue this year, and is home to 50,000 employees.

"TSMC's continued growth in operations and manpower will be an important factor in reaching this target," Tai said in the statement.

Shares of TSMC closed up NT$2.60 to NT$59.40 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, while rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) was up NT$0.25 to NT$18.75.
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