Taiwan fears that it will lose itssilicon shield as the world courts TSMC
The Rise and Fall of Taiwan, a Powerhouse in Semiconductor, and the Loss of a Million Jobs: The Case of Chang
TSMC, which stands for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, produces an estimated 90% of the world’s super-advanced chips. The company has a market value of $435 billion, making it the most valuable listed company in the world.
Chang previously stated that it would production 3-nanometer chips at its plant in Arizona because of the advancement in chip manufacturing.
“They’re like the Hope Diamond of semiconductors. Everybody wants them,” said G. Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of TechInsights, a research organization specializing in chips. (The Hope Diamond is the world’s largest blue diamond, which now resides at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington.)
Apart from the risk that TSMC will take its most advanced technology with it — stripping Taiwan of one of its unique assets and reducing employment opportunities locally — there are fears that a diminished presence for the company could expose Taipei to greater pressure from Beijing, which has vowed to take control of the self-ruled island, by force if necessary.
Hutcheson said that the idea is that if Taiwan became a powerhouse in Semiconductor, then America would have to support and defend it. The strategy has been a huge success.
The chip giant was being pressured to move its operations to the US, claimed Chiu. 300 people were transferred from TSMC to the Arizona plant. In response, Wu said there was no secret deal, nor was there any attempt to diminish the importance of Taiwan to TSMC.
“It is similar to what happened in the US in the 70s and 80s when manufacturing jobs were being shifted away from the States into other countries. Many jobs were lost and the cities were bankrupted.
It suggests that customers of TSMC are requesting more geographic variety, which was previously a key concern of major customers.
The Future of Semiconductors: Why Taiwanese are Important in China and How to Make the Most of Their Technological Complexities
Semiconductors are in almost every electronic device. They are difficult to make because of the high cost of development and the level of knowledge required, meaning much of the production is concentrated among a handful of suppliers.
Chris Miller, author of the book “Chip War: the Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology”, said that TSMC’s expansion of its Arizona investment is proof that politics and geopolitics will play a bigger role in supply chain decisions.
He said that it would be economic to have lower salaries and a higher quality of Taiwanese engineers, but that the company would have to get approval from the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Many experts think that TSMC would be able to produce even smaller chips once 3-nanometer chips are being made in Arizona.
They work closely together when there’s a team of people doing development work. You don’t want to disrupt that. He said it wasn’t easy to do.
The world’s largest contract chipmaker is looking to recruit new engineers and production line operators across its home base of Taiwan — in the cities of Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung — it confirmed Monday.
TSMC told CNN that it has around 70,000 employees. That means its latest recruitment drive would boost its global headcount by nearly 9%.
Taiwanese Superconductor (TSMC) Announces New Taiwan Dollars ($4 billion) in Stock Option and Performance-Related Benefits
The manufacturing giant is looking for candidates with a variety of experiences, from management to engineering, it said.
TSMC has a market cap of 3.6 trillion Hong Kong dollars, but that isn’t enough to catch up with China’s Tencent which has a 3.5 trillion Hong Kong dollars.
TSMC warned of a revenue decline in the first half of the year after posting strong earnings in January. The firm’s CEO, CC Wei, had told analysts that sales would recover later in 2023 and pick up again in the second half.
Due to its record earnings last year, TSMC’s board last month approved the distribution of $121 billion New Taiwan Dollars ($4 billion) in performance-related bonuses and profit sharing to employees based in Taiwan.
The average monthly salary in Taiwan was 44,417 Taiwanese dollars per month in the year 2022. That is equivalent to approximately 533,004 New Taiwan Dollars each year.
