Taiwanese supply chain partners such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) would be crucial for US-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) next-generation technologies, AMD’s Tainan-born chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said yesterday.
At a forum in Tainan, the AMD chief executive said that she was excited to be making her first trip to the city in a decade, as her hometown celebrates the 400th anniversary of its founding.
Noting “the incredible week” for Taiwan at Computex Taipei, which has seen global technology leaders talk about technology, partnerships and the future, Su jokingly said: “The best is on Friday,” referring to yesterday’s forum.
Photo: Liu Wan-chun, Taipei Times
In the discussion titled “AI Era Dialogue,” Su said artificial intelligence (AI) is “the most important technology that we’ve seen over the past 50 years,” as it has the opportunity to transform every aspect of people’s everyday lives.
She said that AI would also transform the healthcare sector, automotive capability and research capability.
“And Taiwan is a center for computing,” she said.
Photo: Liu Wan-chun, Taipei Times
As AMD is focused on high-performance computing, which requires “making big bets over many, many years,” Su said it is essential to work with those who can build the most advanced technology, many of whom are in Taiwan, such as TSMC, and those in the integrated circuit (IC) design and supply chain.
She cited chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) technology as an example of TSMC’s advancement.
As Moore’s law is slowing down, other ways to continue advancing technology are needed, and one area is in advanced packaging with CoWoS, Su said.
CoWoS is a 2.5D packaging technology launched by TSMC that enables the integration of multiple dies and memory cubes into a single package. It supports the continuation of Moore’s law by allowing more transistors to work together.
Moore’s law is an observation made by Gordon Moore that the number of transistors in an IC doubles roughly every two years.
“Today, our most advanced AI products have more than 150 billion transistors and 12 chiplets that are put together, which is very, very advanced,” Su said.
Taiwan is “so important because it has the supply chain and the ability to bring all these pieces together,” Su added.
The AMD chief executive also quipped that Taiwan is the only place where you can say CoWoS and everybody understands what it is.
Su was joined by Jason Chen (陳俊聖), chairman of Acer Inc and an alumnus of Tainan’s National Cheng Kung University, in the discussion at the Southern Semiconductor Forum.
With several newly planned science parks, Tainan has been described as a potential major player in the next semiconductor boom driven by AI.
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