Zhang Zhongmou: TSMC's challenges in the next 10 years will be more severe than in the past!
On October 14, TSMC, a major wafer foundry, held the "TSMC Employee Sports Conference", which was held again after three years of suspension of the new crown epidemic. In addition to the participation of the Taiwan factory teams, TSMC Kindergarten and JASM also participated in the group for the first time, and held it simultaneously with the teams of the Shanghai and Nanjing branches.
Zhang Zhongmou: TSMC's challenges in the next 10 years will be more severe than in the past!
TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou also attended the employee sports conference. As soon as Zhang Zhongmou entered, he took the initiative to ask to go around the field and integrate into the employee team. Later, when Zhang Zhongmou delivered a speech on stage, he also stated that he was not a guest of honor, but "his own person", and the annual sports meeting was the most enjoyable day of his year.
△TSMC founder Zhang Zhongmou
Zhang Zhongmou said that it will be his third "home" after retirement, and the last time he returned to TSMC was to attend the opening ceremony of TSMC's global research and development center in July.
Zhang Zhongmou said in his speech that at the 2019 Games, he said that TSMC has become a battleground under geopolitics, and now it seems that TSMC's challenges in the next decade will be more severe than in the past.
Zhang Zhongmou pointed out that in semiconductors, globalization and free trade are gone, the most important thing at present is regional security, and other companies may take advantage of geopolitical trends to defeat TSMC.
At present, major countries and regions around the world are actively establishing localized semiconductor supply chains, and TSMC has to follow the trend to make a global layout, such as building factories in the United States, Japan, and Germany.
Zhang Zhongmou said, "I believe that in 20-30 years, Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing environment will not be as advantageous as it is now." This is also a key factor for TSMC to actively carry out overseas layout in recent years.
Zhang Zhongmou revealed that he will go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in two weeks to give a speech on the chip industry. Zhang Zhongmou pointed out that in the United States from 1955 to the early 1970s, the semiconductor manufacturing environment was as good as today's Taiwan, but with the evolution of the global economic development and other situations, the United States lost a large part of semiconductor manufacturing, but the United States has upgraded to semiconductor design, and semiconductor design does not require a lot of capital, such as NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, etc., are doing semiconductor design.
Zhang Zhongmou has publicly said many times that building a factory in the United States has always been his dream, in 1996 to establish WaferTech to invest in the construction of a factory, although in just 2 or 3 years "a dream becomes a nightmare", but now TSMC is completely different from that time, no matter talent, capital, technology is much stronger, now should be better prepared.
Zhang Zhongmou said in his speech that TSMC's current talents, funds, and technology are much stronger than 278 years ago, and it has a rich experience curve, and the more he does, the more he can reduce costs, and he believes that his dream at that time may be realized now. But he also stressed that it is necessary to take advantage of this opportunity, so TSMC's active and significant increase in research and development is the secret of the company's success.
Of course, for TSMC, building a factory in the United States may not be the best choice. After all, building a factory in the United States is not only costly, but also faces a series of problems such as local culture, laws and regulations, talents, and labor unions. This directly led to the announcement of the construction of a fab in Arizona in May 2020, and the mass production schedule was delayed by one year to 2025.
In contrast, TSMC announced that the 12~28nm mature process fab under construction in Kumamoto, Japan, is progressing smoothly, and is expected to start installing equipment from this month, and is expected to mass production next year, far exceeding the Arizona fab in the United States.
In this regard, Zhang Zhongmou also said that according to past experience, Japan and Singapore are ideal places to build wafers in the future, but Singapore has relatively few resources, compared with Japan's Kyushu land and hydropower resources are abundant, and Japan is also a good place for work culture.
Looking to the future, which other countries have a relatively favorable semiconductor manufacturing environment? Zhang Zhongmou said that maybe India, Vietnam, Indonesia, but who knows?
Andy Lau announced a special bonus of NT$800 million
Subsequently, TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin said in his speech that this year's TSMC Games has been held for 26 times since 1993, in addition to the 921 earthquake and the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and as the epidemic eases, this activity can finally be continued, so that TSMC people who are not usually in the same work place can gather together, unite and cooperate and contact each other on the sports field, so as to exert the spirit of sportsmen.
△TSMC Chairman Liu Deyin
Liu Deyin also announced at the scene that all Taiwanese employees with grades 60 to 64, grades 20 to 26, and grades 31 to 33 (including deputy managers) will each receive a special bonus of NT$16,000, and the total amount of special bonuses will reach at least NT$800 million, based on more than 50,000 employees at TSMC's grassroots level.
It is worth mentioning that on November 2, 2019, Zhang Zhongmou and his wife Zhang Shufen participated in the TSMC Games for the first time after retirement, when in addition to Chairman Liu Deyin announced the distribution of big red envelopes, 39,000 employees can each receive NT$12,000, Zhang Zhongmou also predicted that the following year would increase. However, the following year, due to the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the Games were suspended.
Liu Deyin also encouraged employees in his speech at the Games, taking the spirit of "victory is not arrogant, defeat is not discouraged" into the attitude in daily life, with the company's global layout launched, TSMC has become an international company, he encouraged TSMC people to step out of the comfort zone, but also to adopt tolerance, inclusion, embrace multiculturalism, based on Taiwan, China, look at the world.
Editor: Xinzhixun - Ronin Sword