TECH NEWS – The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (from now on, abbreviated as TSMC) will not only manufacture domestically.

TSMC founder Dr. Morris Chang made a somewhat divisive statement when announcing the construction of the US production line because he believes globalization is dead. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen says “de-Taiwanisation” is not an option, while her opponents fear that TSMC will lose its national security by expanding internationally. The President told the press that concerns about the US plant are unnecessary. He also quoted Dr. C.C. Wei as saying that she does not think it is an option for the company to move away from Taiwan.

She reiterated the founder’s thoughts (Taiwan is a perfect place for TSMC to invest, as it is a professional location and industrially strong in semiconductor manufacturing). Still, the importance of chemicals and clean water should not be forgotten. As a response to the President’s press conference, the opposition, the nationalist KMT, also held one. The party said they started TSMC, and now the government should work to make Taiwan an excellent location. They fear more chips will be made in America than in Taiwan. They are also afraid of losing their technological advantage and of the disclosure of yield rates.

The governing DPP (Democratic Progressive Party, also nationalist but center-left) says TSMC has already responded to these concerns. The government’s main problem is whether hostile countries can siphon off TSMC’s talent. Weng Mei-hua, the country’s finance minister, says opening a factory in America does not automatically make TSMC American. Sun Ming-te, director of the Macroeconomic Forecasting Center at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, also held a press conference, and he is optimistic about developments. According to him, it is similar to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: he thinks TSMC should “attack” Intel and Samsung.

Sun Ming-te believes that TSMC can use US resources to increase its international presence and reduce concerns about security threats in the supply chain. He says globalization is not dead, as the concept does not mean that a company can sell products internationally but that manufacturers can produce their products worldwide. And this has happened because TSMC (perhaps because of the Chinese threat) wants to pop up abroad!

Source: WCCFTech