Students from Dresden, Germany, have begun to arrive in Taiwan as part of an internship program to support the development of a new fab by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in the European country.
Saxon Science Liaison Office Taiwan liaison officer Josef Goldberger on Thursday, on the sidelines of a German Trade Office event, said that some of the 30 students enrolled in the six-month program have arrived in Taiwan, while others are to arrive next month.
Their program is to start with semiconductor-related classes at National Taiwan University (NTU).
Photo: Pichi Chuang, Reuters
“The internship program consists of four months of study at NTU and a two-month internship at TSMC’s Taichung fab,” Goldberger said.
The two-month internship with TSMC is to be at the Taichung fab “because the one to be set up in Dresden is most similar to the one in Taichung in terms of chipmaking process technologies,” he said.
TSMC in August last year announced its plan to set up European Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (ESMC) in Dresden as a base for extending its global manufacturing network to Europe.
The company plans to build a fab in Dresden that would rely on its 28 and 22-nanometer technologies and 16-nanometer and 12-nanometer fin field-effect transistor process technologies to make automotive and other chips, with production scheduled to begin by the end of 2027.
The exchange program, named the Semiconductor Talent Incubation Program Taiwan, is a joint initiative of the German state of Saxony, the Dresden University of Technology and TSMC.
Although the exchange program is aimed at cultivating semiconductor talent, Goldberger said participating students did not have to make a formal commitment to eventually work for TSMC or the Dresden fab.
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