Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday received an award from KT Li Foundation for the Development of Science and Technology for his contribution to the nation’s high-tech and economic development.
The foundation set up the award to commemorate late economics minister Li Kwoh-ting (李國鼎), who played a crucial role in establishing the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and recruited several scientific and technological talent, including Chang, from abroad to nurture the nation’s technology industry during the 1970s to 1980s.
“Without Li, TSMC will not be possible,” Chang said after receiving the first KT Li award from former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), a representative of the award’s review committee.
Photo: Liao Chen-hui, Taipei Times
Li invited Chang to work at ITRI, where Chang served as the institute’s president from 1985 to 1988 and its chairman from 1988 to 1994. Chang founded TSMC in 1987 in Hsinchu to focus on foundry business.
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), who also attended the ceremony, praised Li as “the godfather of Taiwan’s technology industry” and Chang “the godfather of every industry.”
Huang said Chang has created a company that has had an unprecedented impact on the global technology industry.
He described TSMC as a masterpiece of Chang, like Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 or Ode to Joy.
“Without TSMC, the entire world of technology industry today will not be possible,” Huang said. “Nvidia will not be possible without TSMC.”
Nvidia is one of the major customers of TSMC and one of the early adopters of the chipmaker’s most cutting-edge technologies. TSMC now makes Nvidia’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
Separately, TSMC yesterday reiterated that its most advanced 1.4-nanometer fab would be located in Taiwan after the chipmaker last month dropped a plan to build the fab in Taoyuan’s Longtan District (龍潭) due to local opposition.
“The company’s 1.4-nanometer technology will stay in Taiwan,” TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) said on the sidelines of the ceremony.
Speaking about TSMC’s capacity expansion in Japan, Liu said the chipmaker is on track to build a second fab in Kumamoto, while its first Japanese fab is set to begin production next year as scheduled.
Japan is set to allocate almost ￥2 trillion (US$13.3 billion) in an extra budget to boost its capacity to make and secure semiconductors at home, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing government officials familiar with the matter.
Of the total, about ￥760 billion would go into a fund to support the mass production of chips, money that could be used for supporting a second TSMC factory in Kumamoto, Bloomberg reported.
The Japanese government has pledged to provide a subsidy of ￥476 billion for TSMC’s first plant in Kumamoto.
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