Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday signed an agreement with Germany’s Saxony state government and Dresden University of Technology to jointly launch a semiconductor talent incubation program, with an aim to address a shortage of talent.
The program would be the first overseas talent cultivation initiative financially backed by a local government.
The project came after TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, last month unveiled a new overseas capacity expansion plan in Dresden. The chipmaker plans to build a new factory in the German city at the end of 2027, following its expansions in Arizona and Kumamoto, Japan.
Photo: CNA
The Dresden fab is to produce 28-nanometer chips used in vehicles for customers such as Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG and NXP Semiconductors NV.
“With the global semiconductor market estimated to swell to US$1 trillion in 2030, we have to plan ahead and be well-prepared for a potential talent gap,” TSMC senior vice president for human resources Lora Ho (何麗梅) said. “Enhancing semiconductor education will be a crucial approach to solve shortages of semiconductor technicians worldwide.”
Before finalizing the Dresden expansion plan, the chipmaker has dispatched several human resources executives to Europe to study talent supply and related regulations, TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) told reporters following the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu.
TSMC is struggling to recruit enough engineers to support its rapid expansions at home and overseas. The chipmaker is seeking to add 6,000 new employees this year, after enlisting more than 12,000 employees globally last year.
The new talent incubation program would support as many as 100 students a year from 11 German universities to take tailor-made semiconductor courses at Taiwan’s top universities, including National Taiwan University and National Tsing Hua University.
Dresden University of Technology president Ursula Staudinger told a news conference in Taichung that her university is to act as a bridge between the students and universities in Taiwan.
Those students would then take two months of training courses at TSMC’s Newcomer Training Center in Taichung, where TSMC’s overseas employees from the US and Japan are trained.
Saxony plans to allocate about 3 million euros (US$3.2 million) a year to fund the talent incubation program. The first batch of German students are due to arrive in February next year.
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
‘FALLACY’: Xi’s assertions that Taiwan was given to the PRC after WWII confused right and wrong, and were contrary to the facts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday called Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) claim that China historically has sovereignty over Taiwan “deceptive” and “contrary to the facts.” In an article published on Wednesday in the Russian state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Xi said that this year not only marks 80 years since the end of World War II and the founding of the UN, but also “Taiwan’s restoration to China.” “A series of instruments with legal effect under international law, including the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration have affirmed China’s sovereignty over Taiwan,” Xi wrote. “The historical and legal fact” of these documents, as well
RSS