Hon Hai Technology Group (鴻海科技集團) has hired former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) cochief operating officer Chiang Shang-yi (蔣尚義) as a strategy officer to assist its semiconductor business development, the group said yesterday.
Chiang’s appointment took effect immediately. He is to report directly to Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉).
Chiang was the central figure in TSMC’s technology advancement, and once considered a potential successor to TSMC founder and former chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀). He spent the past few years in China assisting Chinese chipmakers Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際) and Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Corp (武漢弘芯半導體).
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Chiang on Oct. 18 attended a Hon Hai technology forum in Taipei, prompting speculation that he might join the Apple Inc supplier.
Bob Chen (陳偉銘), president of Hon Hai’s semiconductor business group, is a former colleague of Chiang’s from TSMC.
“Chiang’s rich experience in the semiconductor industry will provide Hon Hai invaluable support for the group’s global semiconductor deployment strategy and technical guidance,” Liu said in a statement. “We are grateful to have such a seasoned semiconductor veteran join us at this important juncture in the group’s development.”
File photo: Liberty Times
Hon Hai last year accelerated the pace of its semiconductor capacity deployment in response to rising customer demand following a two-year chip crunch, Liu said in August.
The iPhone assembler purchases about US$60 billion of chips a year, and would focus on making chips used in electric vehicles and electronics, he said, adding that the company would not compete with chipmakers.
Hon Hai has said it is looking to build semiconductor capacity in Malaysia and India through its partnerships with local companies.
The company said it hopes its efforts in developing microcontrollers, power semiconductors, and light detection and ranging technology would bear fruit within three years.
It also said it expects to launch volume production of chips using mature technology in 2024 and start supplying auto chips to customers in 2025.
In related news, Intel Corp executive Randhir Thakur, who oversaw a key part of the company’s comeback plan — its push into the contract-manufacturing industry — is leaving the chipmaker.
Thakur “has decided to step down from his position to pursue opportunities outside the company,” Intel said in an e-mailed statement on Monday. “He will stay on through the first quarter of 2023 to ensure a smooth transition to a new leader.”
The departure marks a shakeup for chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger’s turnaround plan.
After losing its role as the leader of the US$580 billion chip industry, Intel has set out to expand its operations. That includes becoming a so-called foundry — a business that makes chips for other companies. It is an area dominated by TSMC and Samsung Electronics Co, two companies that are unlikely to cede their territory easily.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
RSS