Trade globalization has died amid escalating geopolitical tensions, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) said at the company’s annual sports day yesterday.
TSMC might face more challenges ahead, as its value in the global supply chain soars, Chang said.
Chang, who retired from the company in 2018, said he has faith that TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, would continue to create miracles in the global semiconductor industry on the back of the current leadership.
Photo: Hung Yu-fang, Taipei Times
The TSMC sports day is the happiest day of the year for him, as he gets to see the firm’s employees show their spirit, unity and sportsmanship, he said.
TSMC has continued to grow based on three major pillars: technological leadership, manufacturing excellence and the trust of its clients, Chang said.
Founding Father
The 93-year-old is known as the “father of semiconductors” in Taiwan’s IC industry after founding and building TSMC into the world’s largest pure-play wafer foundry operator.
TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), who took over from Mark Liu (劉德音) in June, said that TSMC has taken on many challenges in its 37-year history and is nearing another milestone with the sophisticated 2-nanometer process proceeding smoothly.
The 2-nanometer process is slated to enter mass production next year, while the chipmaker is also developing the A16 process, an upgraded version of the 2-nanometer process, with commercial production scheduled for the second half of 2026, Wei said.
TSMC’s overseas expansion plans are also proceeding well, which shows that the chipmaker has taken a critical role in the global semiconductor industry, he said.
Sports bonus
The company said that each of its Taiwan-based employees in nonmanagerial roles received NT$20,000 (US$623.61) in sports day bonuses.
About 60,000 employees in Taiwan who joined the company before May 31 were eligible to receive the bonus, translating to a total financial commitment of about NT$1.2 billion, it said.
Wei told his employees that the company would give them a “small” gift, referring to the bonus.
TSMC reported net profit of NT$798.59 billion in the first nine months of this year, up 33.1 percent from the same period last year.
The chipmaker forecast that full-year sales this year would grow almost 30 percent from a year earlier in US dollar terms.
The sports day was canceled for three years before last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but TSMC still gave its employees bonuses of NT$12,000 in 2020 and NT$16,000 in 2021 and 2022.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS