Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday promoted Y.J. Mii (米玉傑) and Y.P. Chyn (秦永沛) as co-chief operating officers (COO) of the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, signaling the formation of a succession team.
The latest executive reshuffle comes after TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) in December last year announced that he is to retire this year. CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) has been recommended as his successor while continuing to serve in his current position.
Mii and Chyn, as well as the company’s human resources, finance, legal and corporate planning units, are to report directly to Wei, a company statement released after the board of directors approved the appointment during a special board meeting yesterday said.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
All other organizations are to report to the co-COOs. The new personnel adjustments and organizational structure take effect today, it said.
TSMC did not disclose details about the new COOs’ job responsibilities.
The company appointed Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president of Europe and Asia sales and corporate research, as Chyn’s deputy, while Kevin Zhang (張曉強), senior vice president of TSMC’s business development, is to be Mii’s deputy.
Chyn is currently responsible for the operation and management of all fabs in Taiwan and overseas. He also co-leads TSMC’s Overseas Operations Office, which is responsible for supporting the company’s global expansion and accelerating the organizational effectiveness of overseas operations, information on the company’s Web site says.
Mii is in charge of the company’s research and development (R&D). He joined TSMC in 1994 as a manager at Fab 3 and then joined the R&D unit in 2001. In 2011, Mii was appointed vice president of R&D and in November 2016, he was promoted to senior vice president.
This is not the first time TSMC has adopted a co-COO management model. In 2012, the chipmaker’s board appointed three executives — Chiang Shang-yi (蔣尚義), Liu and Wei — to share the responsibilities of COO.
The three took turns taking charge of the company’s three major divisions: R&D, operations or manufacturing and business development.
In 2018, Liu was tapped as company chairman after founding chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) retired from his post. Wei became company CEO.
“C.C. has been on the job of CEO for six years. In fact, he is the most well-prepared CEO,” Chang said during his speech at a ceremony in which Wei was awarded an honorary doctorate by National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu yesterday.
Wei is a CEO with comprehensive experiences in the company’s three key divisions, in addition to sales and marketing, Chang said.
He was appointed head of the chipmaker’s first business development division in charge of sales and marketing in 2019, Chang said.
Prior to that, Wei was responsible for managing the company’s 6-inch and 8-inch fabs. He also worked at the R&D divisions of TSMC and Texas Instruments, Chang said.
In his speech, Wei said he has learned a lot from Chang, including how to be a trusted partner of customers.
The first step in building trust with customers is not to compete with them, Wei said, adding that this is the “essence of running a foundry model.”
Moreover, it is something that TSMC’s major rivals, one from South Korea and the other from California, can never catch up with, he said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the