Corporate culture at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is what made the chipmaker a leading player in the global industry, a former executive said in an interview with California’s Computer History Museum.
“One of the really important reasons that TSMC succeeded” is the culture at the firm, where “if equipment went down at two o’clock in the morning, we just called an equipment engineer,” and the worker would not complain, said former TSMC joint chief operating officer Chiang Shan-yi (蔣尚義).
“We didn’t really do anything special, anything great, but we didn’t make any major mistakes,” when compared with competitors, such as United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) in Taiwan and Intel Corp, Chiang told the museum in March for its oral history project.
Chiang retired from the chipmaker in 2013.
Another reason for TSMC’s success was the decision to pivot to developing and manufacturing 12-inch wafers, when Intel and Samsung were focusing on 18-inch wafers in 2013, he said.
TSMC had talks with European chip equipment supplier ASML, whose priority at the time was advanced technology, he said, adding that the industry was “hot for 450mm wafers,” which TSMC was not pursuing.
However, ASML did not care whether “wafers [were] bigger or smaller,” as there was no cost saving, he said.
Chiang called his decision in 2016 to join Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) “a mistake” and “foolish.”
“Before that, I had a pretty good image in Taiwan. That really hurt my image a lot. I didn’t expect that,” Chiang said.
Chiang said he asked TSMC founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) before taking the offer to become an independent member of the SMIC board of directors in 2016, and received his approval.
“You do something right, you do something foolish in your life. It was one of the foolish things I’ve done,” said Chiang, who now lives in the US, where he is a citzen.
SMIC could not purchase the latest manufacturing equipment to produce 7-nanometer chips because of US sanctions implemented three days after he joined the company, Chiang said.
He resigned as SMIC vice chairman in November last year.
“I have no plan to go back to work at this moment. That’s enough,” he said when asked if he is fully retired. “My next birthday, I’ll be 76.”
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
RSS