Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) is increasing its investment into research and development (R&D) despite the recession. Jack Sun, the man in charge of R&D, spoke to us and explained what the firm's goals are.
The outlook for the economy is very murky, but you have increased your
R&D budget for 2009 in spite of this. Why?There are two reasons. The first is that the technological prowess we gain through our R&D is our corporate lifeline.
We have defined three pillars supporting our business - technical expertise, manufacturing capability and good relations with our customers - and I think that makes it clear how highly we value technical strength.
The other reason is that investing in a poor economy is the key to success in semiconductors. Many of the leading corporations in the semiconductor industry succeeded because they invested during slumps to pull ahead of their competitors. We also believe that investing during a business recession makes it easier for you to quickly meet customer demand when the market recovers.
The numbers haven't been disclosed, but I can say that investment into process technology and design is up about 20% over last year. As a result, the number of people involved in R&D in those fields will rise by about 30%, from the 1,800-strong level of last year.
We are also engaged in R&D related to production technology, but we tie investment there to corporate revenues, so there will be a slight drop in 2009. Total R&D investment into all three fields - process technology, design and production technology - will be flat, or possibly show a slight rise over last year.
We have defined three priority fields: advanced complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, manufacturing technologies other than what we refer to as the "Mr ABCD" technologies, and packaging technology.
We have stressed advanced CMOS in the past as well, but plan to accelerate R&D this year by establishing special teams for the two remaining areas.
Mr ABCD refers to integrated circuits (IC) other than advanced logic: "M" stands for micro-electro mechanical systems (MEMS), microcontrollers, etc; "r" is for radio frequency (RF); "A" is for analog, automotive, etc; "B" is for bipolar, CMOS and double-diffused CMOS (DMOS); "C" is for CMOS image sensors; and "D" is for displays. You could say the technologies are needed for interfacing with the outside world. In fields like these, none of which is what I would call advanced, there is still plenty of potential for us. The percentage of revenues from manufacturing technologies of 0.15um or above is about 35%, which is quite high.
The importance of packaging technology is increasing, too. Many chips these days are using low-k films, which have very poor mechanical strength, and as a result industry is demanding packaging technologies to minimize chip damage during encapsulation. Environmentally-friendly packaging technologies and through-silicon via (TSV) technologies are also needed. In addition to developing these packaging-related technologies ourselves, we also hope to work on development with customers, third-party firms in the field and other groups.
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