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.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
RSS