Taipei Puts Case for Being Close to Core of Semiconductor Ecosystem

The EE Times C-Suite Interview Series

By Nitin Dahad, EETimes (April 7, 2022)

Taiwan is well known as home to the world’s top semiconductor manufacturing company, so it’s no surprise that the electronics industry is also the largest sector for foreign direct investment (FDI) into Taiwan. The electronics sector represented around 16 percent of greenfield FDI projects in Taiwan in 2019–20, more than any other sector, according to GlobalData

I first learned about Taiwan’s ambitions to build upon its strengths and electronics skills base on a visit in 2019. During my time there, I spoke to the minister for the office of science and technology (MOST) and also met with several key players in the electronics ecosystem representing research, industry, startups, accelerators, and government–funded organizations that were keen to highlight how Taiwan is making progress in multiple sectors.

Last September, I spoke with Jiun-Huei Proty Wu, a cosmologist in Taiwan who was on secondment at the time serving as the director of U.K. office for MOST. Leading a Taiwanese delegation into the city for London Tech Week, I could tell Taiwan was keenly encouraging tech startups to set up in Taiwan. As if to endorse that, Bruno Johnson, CEO of Cascoda, also involved in the exchange between British and Taiwanese tech companies, was presented as an example of a startup taking advantage of what Taiwan has to offer for foreign tech companies.

So how exactly can companies in the electronics industry — and particular those involved in the whole of the semiconductor industry ecosystem — benefit from having a base in Taipei and/or Taiwan? While it may have the biggest semiconductor fabrication facilities, presumably companies don’t necessarily have to set up an office or research center in Taiwan.

EE Times posed this question to Robert Lo, executive director of the Invest Taipei Office (ITO), as part of an interview to understand more about why companies might also want to consider a base in Taiwan.

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