TSMC founder Morris Chang is a shrewd man. This experienced engineer founded the company in 1987, which led the semiconductor industry for many years. Although he is a Taiwanese national, he was born in what is now the People’s Republic of China and studied in the USAHe has shown to the public many times that he knows everything. One of its predictions suggests that production costs for facilities located outside Taiwan will double in the future, which will have a direct impact on chip prices.

Moreover, he has emphasized many times what, for him, is the key ingredient that has led to the success of both TSMC and other Japanese and South Korean chipmakers: their work culture. For this executive, that’s what makes them so competitive, and he predicts that the situation won’t be in his favor. TSMC is already equipping its new Arizona facility, and its initial plan called for it to begin producing chips on N5, N5P, N4, N4P and N4X nodes in 2024. However, things are not going as well as expected in the USA. . To wait.

Be that as it may, the company that Morris Chang founded more than thirty-five years ago dominates the chip industry with humbling clarity. Intel and Samsung compete with this, but they do so from a significant distance. In fact, TSMC triples the market share of these two companies in the integrated circuit manufacturing industry. One of its pillars is its ambitious production infrastructure. And not only do they have state-of-the-art facilities in Taiwan, the US, and China; It is also building new factories in Japan, Taiwan, Germany and the United States.

A self-taught engineer

Morris Chang’s childhood and adolescence were not easy. He was born in 1931 in China, which was on the brink of war with Japan, and lived in six different cities and changed schools ten times before he was 18. He survived the bombings in Guangzhou and Chongqing and even had to cross the front lines to escape Shanghai with his family. His journey in his home country ended in 1949. That year, Morris Chang immigrated to the United States to study mechanical engineering at two of the country’s top universities: Harvard and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

After being rejected twice from MIT’s PhD program, Morris Chang decided to enter the job market. It wasn’t long before he started working at Sylvania, an electronics company where he honed his skills in transistors. There he really started his career in semiconductors. Having been on the job for three years, Sylvania had to face a profound crisis that was largely caused by her lack of skills to do the job. get into the rhythm The chip industry was already developing. But Chang did a good job. In 1958 he was hired at Texas Instruments, a then young but promising company dedicated to integrated circuits.

The 92-year-old guru respected by the chip industry

Taiwan does not have the natural resources that other countries with large industrial capacity, such as the United States or China, have, but there is now a wealth of human talent in this province. Otherwise, according to Chang himself, his success would not have been possible. Moreover, TSMC’s founder has assured on various occasions that the deep-rooted work spirit and professional dedication of the Taiwanese society are two added values ​​that most of its competitors do not have.

Morris Chang, who has a friendly and approachable character, barely mentions himself in his speech, but there is no doubt that he is largely responsible for the occupation of TSMC. privileged position it was there for a long time. In fact, he instilled in the company he founded almost four decades ago the values ​​that have guided him throughout his professional career: integrity, commitment, innovation and trust.

According to NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang, Chang is not only a leader in the semiconductor industry. “The world is full of successful people, but heroes are rare. There’s a big difference between success and impact. And I think Morris, with his career, philosophy, TSMC, strategy, and core values, is undoubtedly that. Huang does not exaggerate his devotion to TSMC’s founder in the slightest.” “Without a doubt, it is an example of the industrial revolution,” he continues, without hiding it.

Industrial revolution. Jensen Huang’s words may seem exaggerated, but the truth is that the semiconductor industry would not be this size without TSMC. And without Morris Chang. Much of this experienced engineer’s professional career One of the subsidiaries owned by Texas Instruments He was in the USA and already 54 years old and had nothing to prove, he had a prophetic vision. He envisioned that it might be possible to create a company that specialized solely in the production of integrated circuits and could serve other companies responsible for the design of chips. Today this is a completely consolidated strategy, but at the time it was an unprecedented idea. In fact, he was going against the current.

But Morris Chang knew exactly what he had. The business model has not only proven to be profitable; It also confirmed that when implemented correctly, it can take a company to the top. Where TSMC has been for over a decade. However, Chang is an ambitious person as well as a successful strategist. “Our goal is to be No. 1, without exception. And to be No. 1, you have to spend three times more than your next competitor.” When Morris Chang spoke these words in 1997, Intel was leading the semiconductor industry.

Today, twenty-seven years later, TSMC holds approximately 60% of the integrated circuit manufacturing market. Its success is indisputable, but what is really interesting is not to lose sight of the fact that this overwhelming victory came first. result of technological leadership is what this company has achieved. This is their open secret. And of course, that’s why it rubs shoulders with NVIDIA, Apple, AMD, MediaTek, Qualcomm and even Intel in its customer portfolio. “I was absolutely confident that we had the technological lead. And I don’t think we’re going to lose it.”

Morris Chang retired in 2018, and he did so at a time when he thought TSMC had reached its peak. He continues to attend events and give lectures today, and is as respected as he is whenever he appears: one of the most influential people not only in the chip industry, but in the technology industry in general. The following words of Jensen Huang reflect very strongly the dimension reached by the figure of Morris Chang: “Your career is a masterpiece, a Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. […] NVIDIA wouldn’t exist without TSMC.”

Image | Asian Community

More information | New York Times

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