Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s (TSMC) mammoth investment project in the United States has sparked concerns in Taiwan about “brain drain” following the departure of hundreds of TSMC engineers for Arizona over the past month, but some local scholars believe that this is not such a negative development.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, held a tool-in ceremony on Tuesday (U.S. time) to mark the installation of the first batch of equipment at its new US$12 billion fab in northern Phoenix in Arizona, which is still under construction.
The fab will use the 4-nanometer production process, but the company also announced it would increase its total investment in Arizona to US$40 billion to build a second fab using the more advanced 3nm process that could begin operations in 2026.
Since November, several hundred TSMC engineers have moved to the U.S. to work at the Arizona fab.
On Dec. 3, when asked if the “outflow of talents” could “hollow” Taiwan’s semiconductor industry where TSMC stands at the core, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei (???) said firmly that it would not happen.
Taiwan’s semiconductor industry has worked hard to build a solid production and supply chain over the past 30-plus years so “it is impossible for it to be knocked down,” Wei said.
“There is no need to exaggerate the issue of these engineers moving from home to overseas as a brain drain problem,” former TSMC vice president in research and development Lin Burn-jeng (???) said in a recent interview with CNA.
“In fact, it is a good thing,” said the 80-year-old Lin, who now heads the College of Semiconductor Research under National Tsing Hua University.
Lin is recognized in the semiconductor manufacturing industry for developing the industry-changing 193 nanometer immersion lithography technique in 2002.
Having studied, worked, and started a business in the U.S. before being recruited by TSMC in 2000, Lin, who retired from the company 15 years later, saw himself as a “returned” technician. As such, he believes that talented professionals should not only stay in Taiwan.
According to Lin, anyone who has the opportunity to work in a foreign country should grab the chance because it helps Taiwanese learn how people overseas think and their way of doing things.
“This can help broaden one’s working experience,” said Lin.
Hsin Ping-lung (???), an associate professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development, suggested that people first clarify what “brain drain” meant.
If the current wave of this so-called “brain drain” refers to employees being dispatched by Taiwanese enterprises to overseas affiliates to help with operations there, then “it is not bad” because they are helping the mother company in Taiwan grow, Hsin said.
However, what worries him is “whether or not there are channels for the talents to return (home),” the academic said.
He warned that the once strong bond between Taiwan’s government and Taiwanese educated in foreign countries was increasingly weakening these days, creating a growing challenge for the government in recruiting Taiwan nationals overseas to return home to work.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel