Taiwan is well-positioned to develop electric vehicles by capitalizing on its edge in semiconductors, said Liu Young-way (???), chairman of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., which has intensified its efforts to get into the global EV market.
Speaking in a recorded leaders dialogue forum that will be posted in its entirety Monday by industry group SEMI, Liu said Taiwan has built a thriving silicon semiconductor industry and can use its experience in that sector to build a wide-bandgap semiconductor industry for EV production use.
“Now is a good time for Taiwan to enter the EV market as the market is just taking off globally,” Liu said.
SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, released part of the recorded forum on Friday.
In it, Liu discussed semiconductor development with Terry Tsao (???), global chief marketing officer and Taiwan president of SEMI.
So-called wide-bandgap semiconductors are compound semiconductors composed of chemical elements belonging to two or more different groups in the periodic table, and represent the stage of development after conventional silicon semiconductors.
Wide-bandgap semiconductors have a larger band gap than silicon semiconductors and are used in applications such as EVs that demand higher transmission speeds, better resistance to high pressure and high temperatures, and better heat dissipation.
In the recorded dialogue with Liu, Tsao said that with the arrival of 5G, EVs and the Internet of Things, demand for technologies such as radio frequencies and optoelectronics has been on the rise, paving the way for Taiwan to develop a wide-bandgap semiconductor industry.
In response, Liu said he expected demand for wide-bandgap semiconductors used in EVs to far exceed supply.
Hon Hai’s efforts to develop wide-bandgap semiconductors will start with its recent acquisition of a six-inch wafer plant from Macronix International Co., Liu said.
In early August, Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn on the global market, announced that it was acquiring the six-inch wafer fab for NT$2.52 billion (US$90.97 million).
Liu said Hon Hai will continue to seek cooperation with other companies in wide-bandgap semiconductor development in the future.
In recent years, Hon Hai, one of Apple Inc.’s most important suppliers, has made electric vehicles a central component of its efforts to expand beyond its contract manufacturing business, under what it refers to as the “3 plus 3” initiative.
Specifically, the name refers to three emerging industries — electric cars, robots and digital health care — that are being developed through the application of artificial intelligence, semiconductor and communication technologies.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel