According to UDN’s report, the Taiwanese government has introduced the “Taiwan Chip-Driven Industrial Innovation Program,” an investment of NT$300 billion with an annual average of NT$30 billion.  On October 2, Executive Yuan Commissioner Tsung Tsong Wu and Chairperson of the National Science Council revealed that this program welcomes foreign participation but will consider prerequisites such as competition with local talent.

When asked about what attracts international startups to Taiwan, Tsung Tsong Wu emphasized that while the $30 billion investment over a decade is significant, Taiwan’s strength lies in its complete industry ecosystem, covering everything from IC design and manufacturing to packaging and testing.

The government and private sector collaborate to achieve the best results, making international startups and chip designers eager to come to Taiwan. The aim is to turn Taiwan into the global destination for related industries’ dreams.

The National Science Council presented the “Taiwan Chip-Driven Industrial Innovation Program” to the Executive Yuan on October 2. Tsung Tsong Wu explained that out of next year’s $12 billion technology budget, approximately $4 billion will be allocated to generating AI-driven innovations across all industries, attracting international investments, and supporting startups. Additionally, around $8 billion will be dedicated to strengthening talent development and advancing towards cutting-edge processes.

While the initial investment for the first year of the “Taiwan Chip-Driven Industrial Innovation Program” is $1.2 billion, critics have raised concerns about its insufficiency. The National Science Council clarified that although the initial investment is relatively low, the budget allocated will increase from 2025 onwards, adapting to the evolving economic landscape.

Tsung Tsong Wu emphasized that the program encompasses both advanced and mature processes. While Taiwan is perceived to have an advantage in advanced processes, many mature processes, such as 3DIC, are vital for future industry innovations.

(Photo Credit: TSMC)

The government of Taiwan is preparing to launch its version of “the CHIPS Act” to support locally operating companies that develop innovative technologies and have a crucial spot within the global supply chain. A highlight of this legislation is a tax credit scheme: a maximum of 25% for R&D in “forward-looking technologies” and another 5% for investments in advanced manufacturing equipment.

According to the draft of this proposed legislation, companies that play an important role in the global supply chain and engage in technological innovation within the jurisdiction of Taiwan (the Republic of China) are eligible for the aforementioned tax credits if they also meet certain other conditions. As for the limit of the two tax credits, neither one of them can exceed 30% of the business income tax for the current year. Together, they cannot exceed 50% of the same annual business income tax.

Companies that will be applying for the tax credits must meet three general conditions. First, applicants must pay an effective tax rate of at least 15% in accordance with OECD’s minimum tax rules for multinationals. Second, applicants must reach a certain scale for the ratio of R&D spending to revenue (R&D intensity) and equipment-related investments. The minimum thresholds for the R&D intensity and equipment-related investments have yet to be determined and will likely be set within the subsections of the legislation later on. Lastly, applicants must not have incurred a major regulatory violation concerning environmental protection, labor protection, food and drug safety, etc. in the past three years.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs stated in a recent announcement that the island’s industries are deeply enmeshed within the global supply chain. They thus have become the backbone of the global economy and international commerce on account of their “uniqueness” and “irreplaceability”. The ministry added that local industries will have to adapt to the changing landscape of cooperation and competition in order to retain their indispensable role.

The ministry also commented that in the wake of a series of major events that have disrupted the operation of the global supply chain, many countries have initiated industry development policies that seek to improve the resiliency of their key economic sectors and strengthen their national security. These policies tend to emphasize the followings: (1) the formation of an autonomous and stable domestic supply chain; (2) the need to achieve dominance in next-generation technologies; and (3) the provisioning of large subsidies and tax incentives so as to raise domestic production and attract investments from multinationals. The ministry further asserted that as international competition gets fiercer, Taiwan must retain its existing advantages while finding other ways to further consolidate and enhance the positions of its key industries in the global supply chain. Therefore, the government finds it necessary to provide new tax incentives to support this kind of development.

According to TrendForce, Taiwan is crucial to the global semiconductor supply chain, accounting for a 26% market share of semiconductor revenue in 2021, ranking second in the world. Its IC design and packaging & testing industries also account for a 27% and 20% global market share, ranking second and first in the world, respectively. Firmly in the pole position, Taiwan accounts for 64% of the foundry market. In addition to TSMC possessing the most advanced process technology at this stage, foundries including UMC, Vanguard, and PSMC also have their own process advantages. Under the looming shadow of chip shortages caused by the pandemic and geopolitical turmoil in the past two years, various governments have quickly awakened to the fact that localization of chip manufacturing is necessary to avoid being cut off from chip acquisition due to logistics difficulties or cross-border shipment bans. Taiwanese companies have ridden this wave to become partners that governments around the world are eager to invite to set up factories in various locales.

Currently, 8-inch and 12-inch foundries are dominated by 24 fabs in Taiwan, followed by China, South Korea, and the United States. Looking at new factories plans post 2021, Taiwan still accounts for the largest number of new fabs, including six new plants in progress, followed in activity by China and the United States, with plans for four and three new fabs, respectively. Due to the advantages and uniqueness of Taiwanese fabs in terms of advanced processes and certain special processes, they accepted invitations to set up plants in various countries, unlike non-Taiwanese foundries who largely still build fabs locally. Therefore, Taiwanese manufacturers have successively announced factory expansions at locations including the United States, China, Japan, and Singapore in addition to Taiwan in consideration of local client needs and technical cooperation.

The focus of Taiwan’s key technologies and production expansion remains in Taiwan, accounting for 44% of global wafer production capacity by 2025

In 2022, Taiwan will account for approximately 48% of global 12-inch equivalent wafer foundry production capacity. Only looking at 12-inch wafer production capacity with more than 50% market share, the market share of advanced processes below 16nm (inclusive) will be as high as 61%. However, as Taiwanese manufacturers expand their production globally, TrendForce estimates that the market share held by Taiwan’s local foundry capacity will drop slightly to 44% in 2025, of which the market share of 12-inch wafer capacity will fall to 47% and advanced manufacturing processes to approximately 58%. However, Taiwanese foundries’ recent production expansion plans remain focused on Taiwan including TSMC’s most advanced N3 and N2 nodes, while companies such as UMC, Vanguard, and PSMC retain several new factory projects in Hsinchu, Miaoli, and Tainan.

TrendForce believes, since Taiwanese foundries have announced plans to build fabs in China, the United States, Japan, and Singapore, and foundries in numerous countries are also actively expanding production, Taiwan’s market share of foundry capacity will drop slightly in 2025. However, semiconductor enclaves do not come together quickly. The integrity of a supply chain relies on the synergy among upstream (raw materials, equipment, and wafers), midstream (IP design services, IC design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing), and downstream (brands and distributors) sectors. Taiwan has advantages in talent, geographical convenience and industrial enclaves. Therefore, Taiwanese foundries still tend to focus on Taiwan for R&D and production expansion. Looking at the existing blueprint for production expansion, Taiwan will still control 44% of the world’s foundry capacity by 2025 and as much as 58% of the world’s capacity for advanced processes, continuing its dominance of the global semiconductor industry.

(AmCham Taiwan｜Associate Editor: Julia Bergström) As more countries look to diversify their supply chains, Taiwan has a chance to strengthen its position in the global economy. But is its infrastructure robust enough to support expanded business?

Over the past few years, the U.S. and Taiwan have intensified their efforts to reduce reliance on China in their supply chains as a way to increase resilience. First came the U.S.-China trade dispute, in which American companies were encouraged to leave or decrease operations in China, followed by the Tsai Ing-wen administration’s reshoring initiative to bring investment from China back to Taiwan.

At the onset of the global pandemic, the flow of critical products halted, global supply chains were disrupted, and supply chain resilience became a priority for all industries. Then, just as commerce began to bounce back, Russia launched an attack on Ukraine, giving rise to new worries of geopolitically induced shortages and inflationary effects.

Meanwhile, China is pushing to indigenize its supply chains, most notably with its Made in China 2025 plan, which aims to upgrade Chinese industries’ manufacturing capabilities into more technology-intensive powerhouses and achieve independence from foreign suppliers.

Although the U.S. and Taiwan are not decoupling from China, they have significantly changed the flow of goods and investments, says Rupert Hammond-Chambers, managing director of BowerGroupAsia, a consultancy.

“Instead of 10 dollars flowing into China, you’re seeing five going to China and the other five to the Southeast Asia region, or even Taiwan,” he says. However, there is no certainty that Taiwan will gain some of China’s lost business. Rather, achieving that goal will require significant policy changes and government efforts.

For Taiwan, strengthening its role in global supply chains is more than an effort to ensure economic stability – it also has political and security implications. Hammond-Chambers sees Taiwan’s role in the semiconductor industry in particular as a “geostrategic lever that focuses other countries on the importance of Taiwan and peace and security in the Taiwan Strait.”

Taiwan accounts for over 60% of the global chip foundry market, and the island plays a pivotal role in many high-tech industries, a trend expected to continue despite pushes from the U.S. and EU to revitalize their semiconductor industries.

In fact, says Joanne Chiao, senior analyst at Taiwanese market research firm TrendForce, her organization “expects Taiwan’s market share [in the chip foundry sector] will further increase to 66% in 2022,” as some of the newly added capacity will enter mass production by the end of 2022.

Although Taiwan leads in semiconductors, domestic expansion has its limits. During a discussion on Taiwan’s role in global supply chains organized by Washington, D.C.-based public policy organization The Brookings Institution, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) Vice President of Global Government Affairs Peter Cleveland noted that the company operates “at such a massive scale that it’s mind-blowing to people. [Production] takes over 4 million gallons of water per day, the power requirements are enormous, and STEM talent is critical.”

Cleveland said he sees geographic dispersion as an advantage for the company, and the expansion of Taiwan semiconductor operations in the U.S. as a way to strengthen supply chains while alleviating chip manufacturing’s strain on Taiwan’s resources. TSMC is constructing a US$12 billion fab in Phoenix, Arizona, which is scheduled to start producing chips in 2024. It is also building a plant in Japan and is in early discussions regarding a possible fab in Germany.

Apart from expanding manufacturing abroad, Taiwan also needs to implement policies that strengthen its infrastructure, according to BowerGroupAsia’s Hammond-Chambers. Of what has been termed the island’s “five shortages” (land, power, water, labor, and talent), he refers to labor, talent, and electricity as the most critical areas for government scrutiny of existing policies.

“The energy policy of Taiwan is just not working at the moment,” he says, adding that “there’s no time to waste” when it comes to improving the power grid. “It’s a strategic issue, military issue, social issue, and economic issue – it ticks every single major box.”

Jason Hsu, a former Taiwan legislator and currently senior research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, stressed at the Brookings seminar that the shortage of semiconductor talent is already noticeable in both the U.S. and Taiwan. The island’s recent establishment of a Semiconductor Research Institute is a step in the right direction, but not enough to fill the gap, he said.

“There needs to be a comprehensive program that links U.S. and Taiwan talent development and ensures that Taiwan can continue to develop its manufacturing capability and talent,” with innovation shared between the U.S. and Taiwan, Hsu noted.

Taiwan has relaxed immigration laws to attract foreign talent, particularly from Southeast Asia, and developed work and study programs for university students, said Minister Without Portfolio John Deng during the Brookings event.

But considering that the island is on track to become a super-aged society, Taiwan could and should implement a much more robust and open immigration policy that attracts more people to make up for the shrinking labor pool. The island’s decreasing population could pose an existential threat to Taiwan if not managed, says Hammond-Chambers.

Meanwhile, Taiwan could take advantage of what some scholars have dubbed “brain circulation” to strengthen economic ties with the U.S., according to Michael Nelson, senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment For International Peace’s Technology and International Affairs Program.

“A lot of people from Taiwan have studied overseas, and some of them bring that knowledge back to Taiwan and start companies or teach the next generation,” he says, citing the founders of TSMC and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) as two examples. “But a lot of them are still working overseas, and they’re part of this diaspora that forms a built-in advantage for Taiwan.”

Cloud opportunities

As the world undergoes the Fourth Industrial Revolution, digital supply chain technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and machine learning can be used to analyze and learn from big data, which powers intelligent automation and provides supply chain managers with real-time insights that can assist quick responses to disruptions.

“When we think about how to boost our competitiveness, it doesn’t all have to be about manufacturing,” said Meriya Solis, Director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings. “We need to be mindful of the fact that we’re moving toward a digital economy.”

But while smart tools will mitigate human error, they pose a supply chain risk if they are not backed up by robust cybersecurity systems. Carnegie’s Nelson says that improving cybersecurity and investing in the Cloud of Things – integrated Internet of Things and Cloud Computing technology – would not only benefit biotech and other high-tech industries, but also create more robust supply chains for traditional industries. “It could help us do a better job of tracking fishing ports, ensuring the quality of food, and making sure cold chains are not broken,” he says.

The current global software infrastructure, notes Nelson, is built on a precarious system. Commercial software products tend to rely on complex open-source software repositories, and vulnerability in a single aspect of these repositories could compromise every commercial product that uses it.

Following an increase in cyberattacks, Taiwan’s government declared cybersecurity to be a national security issue in 2018 and proceeded to implement its Cyber Security Management Act in January 2019. The law stipulates obligations for providers of critical infrastructure, including water, energy, ICT production, and financial and healthcare services. The U.S. and Taiwan held their first joint Cyber Offensive and Defense Exercise (CODE), hosted by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Executive Yuan’s Department of Cyber Security, in 2019.

In the past, Chinese tech seemed like it was on a steady path to market domination. But due to a high incidence of poorly written Chinese software and concerns that state actors could impel companies to embed security backdoors into their products, trust in its software is now generally low among global users. Nelson sees a lucrative opportunity for Taiwan to increase its involvement in data supply chains by establishing itself as a trusted source for more secure and better-tested software.

“Through the hardware sector and the semiconductor industry, you have all these links to all the major players,” he says. “By leveraging those links and showing that Taiwan can ensure that the software running on the chips they built is doing the job it’s advertised to do, Taiwan can help integrate different pieces of software from different companies and gain a reputation for being a trusted integrator.”

But to establish such a competitive advantage, Taiwan’s government will need to implement mechanisms that encourage local IT companies to uncover security vulnerabilities and adopt quality verification tools.

According to TrendForce research, in general, revenue of Taiwanese IC design companies grew significantly in 2021 with many hitting record highs due to active procurement of various terminal applications and the effect of product price inflation. These companies also performed well in terms of gross profit margin and profitability. The top 10 Taiwanese IC design companies generated revenue of NT$906.16 billion, or 54.3% YoY. In recent years, MediaTek has contributed more than half of the output value of Taiwan’s top ten IC design companies and has become a primary factor in the growth of Taiwan’s IC design industry.

Looking at Taiwan’s top three IC design companies, MediaTek, Novatek, and Realtek, in 1Q22, MediaTek benefited from the increase in 5G penetration and successive shipments of Dimensity 9000. A mobile phone release in March 2022 produced revenue growth which can offset lower demand for certain consumer products due to seasonal factors while the proportion of high-margin products in each revenue category will increase. Thus, annual revenue growth is expected to exceed 20% this year.

As for Novatek, although DDI and TDDI stocking has entered the off-season for traditional industries and demand for consumer electronics has weakened, overall market demand is still greater than supply and Commercial Notebook and Automotive demand remain strong. New products such as OLED FoD, OLED TDDI, FTDDI, and Mini LED will drive continued revenue stability. This year, Novatek will integrate TCON, PMIC, etc. for package sales, so that there is a relative price support, but the company must still dynamically adjust its product mix according to market changes.

In terms of Realtek, positive demand in the enterprise, industrial, and automotive sectors in 2H21 will continue to 1H22. With the pandemic slowing down, purchasing of commercial laptops and equipment has ramped up, wired and wireless network infrastructure is being upgraded, the automotive market continues to grow, and relevant products such as Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, 5G Ethernet, and the new LE Audio Bluetooth IC are being launched successively, which will continue to improve Realtek’s performance. On the consumer market side, demand in the PC and consumer electronics markets will return to normal in 2022 and the TWS Bluetooth headset market will face a price war, which will lead to a suppression of Realtek’s shipments in relevant sectors. Regarding foundry price hikes, some customers have reported that they cannot afford further price inflation and are still in the process of negotiating terms of cooperation. In addition, Realtek has been destocking in 1Q22 due to the customer yearend inventory audits and component mismatching.

Taking a comprehensive look at 2022, TrendForce believes that the benefits of price inflation will gradually fade and demand for consumer electronics will moderate but not weaken significantly, while sustained strong demand for industrial, automotive, and high-speed computing will test the product portfolio optimization and cost pass-through ability of IC design companies.

（Image credit: iStock）