Escalating trade tensions between Washington and Beijing would create tougher challenges for the global IC industry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) said yesterday, as he called for local players to become more competitive.
The global economy is being hurt by US-China trade friction and geopolitical tensions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Taiwan’s semiconductor sector would face pressure, Liu told the annual meeting of the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association in Taipei.
Liu is chairman of the association.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
The US on Oct. 7 announced a new round of restrictions on exports of ICs and related production equipment to China, expanding their scope to semiconductors used in artificial intelligence applications and supercomputers.
They have been viewed as the most comprehensive sanctions against Beijing to date.
However, TSMC itself might have avoided a direct hit.
The chipmaker last week said that it had secured a one-year license allowing its plant in China’s Nanjing to continue ordering US-made chipmaking equipment, giving it a temporary reprieve from the sanctions.
To protect Taiwan’s semiconductor sector as a whole, Liu urged IC suppliers to make themselves more competitive and said that TSMC, the world’s dominant contract chipmaker, was determined to support them.
To boost the industry’s competitive edge, members of the association should continue to devise comprehensive environment, social and governance strategies to fight climate change and promote green manufacturing to cut carbon and support a circular economy, he said.
At the same time, the government should develop a long-term policy to ensure sufficient supply of water, electricity and land while protecting the environment to help the domestic semiconductor sector meet sustainability goals, he said.
Nicky Lu (盧超群), chairman of memorychip supplier Etron Technology Inc (鈺創科技), said that the latest US trade sanctions imposed on China are expected to affect the global semiconductor industry for about a year.
IC suppliers and other industrial players not only in China, but also in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea would feel the effects of the sanctions, Liu said.
Lu added that semiconductor suppliers should invest more in research and development, and make more innovative products to reduce the risks of trade friction.
Taiwan is home to the world’s biggest pure-play wafer foundry sector, and IC packaging and testing industry as well as the second-biggest IC design sector.
The production value of the local semiconductor industry topped NT$4 trillion (US$125 billion) for the first time last year and output this year is expected to grow 19.7 percent to NT$4.88 trillion, the association said.
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