October 25, 2023

Groundbreaking technologist Morris Chang ’52, SM ’53 discussed the key elements behind Taiwan’s long-term ascendancy in semiconductor manufacturing, while speaking to a large campus audience in an MIT talk on Tuesday.

Chang is the influential founder and former longtime head of TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which has become the world’s leading microchip maker. Chang started the firm in 1987, and since then it has helped reshape the industry by making Taiwan a crucial center of production and by focusing on manufacturing while chip design occurs elsewhere.

In his remarks, Chang, whose career spans the history of the semiconductor industry, gave a broad overview of the development of chip manufacturing, then focused on some of the factors that have helped TSMC and Taiwan thrive. In his view, this includes a healthy supply of talent, in the form of engineers and other technical employees willing to work in manufacturing; low turnover of employees; a geographical concentration of industry manufacturing in Taiwan; and the “experience curve theory,” in which accumulated manufacturing experience leads to lower production costs.

Complete article from MIT News.