Field trip report written by Mark (2009/05)
The company tour was a very successful and meaningful event. This tour was different than the previous company tours I have joined before. Maybe because the company knows that their visitors will comprise of foreign students in majority. Instead, the companies opted to prepare a different set of program for us to learn things that could be applied to our home country. Beyond the typical company video introduction and production line tour, companies discussed some their market structure,latest technology, work ethics and ideology. This enabled me to gain insight on how Taiwan was able to attain a superb economic success during the latter part of the 20th century better known as the “Taiwan Miracle”.
The first company visited was Teradyne. The company is an American company producing test equipment for the IC testing. It established a customer service facility in Taiwan and has a service and repair facility in Philippines.The company presentation started with the discussion of the whole three trillion dollar semiconductor industry. After which, they focused the discussion on the testing equipment industry, their portion of the semiconductor industry. There is one thing that I have noticed that although the test equipment industry is just a small portion of the semiconductor industry, the company was able to become a multinational high earning company. The reason for this was their products are top class, the latest technology and they also offers friendly customer service rendering the needs of its customers.
The second company visited was UMC. The United Micro-Electronics Corporation (UMC) is the first foundry company in Taiwan. They are one of the largest wafer foundry companies in the world. The tour started with a short presentation which discussed the technology of the company and the production facility of the company. They presented a production data of the company based on the application market share. The slide showed that the semiconductor industry is dominated by communication applications, followed by computer, memory, medical other applications. I was taught that the semiconductor industry is dominated by computer market. But as time progress, the human lifestyle improves and requires different needs. In other words, the semiconductor industry continues to evolve. After the presentation we proceed to the visitors lobby. They showed some sample of single crystaline unsliced silicon ingots, silicon wafers, die mask and sets of video screens of the whole production facility. The foundry production facility tour helped me visualize and appreciate the CMOS foundry process taught in the lecture class before.
The third company was Global Unichip Corporation. The Global Unichip Corporation is partly subsidiary of the TSMC. The company is a young company that offers top-down System on a Chip (SoC) service. They offered subcontracting of the IC chip from circuit design down to fabrication and packaging. These are the semiconductors companies that produce and sell integrated circuits with their own design and fabrication facility. The entrance of Taiwan in the semiconductor industry was in 1980s, at that time American IDM companies was already well established. They would compete against giant America companies. However, Taiwan created a different market structure. They created fabless operations, which separates the circuit design with the foundry manufacturing. The government established state owned foundry companies UMC and TSMC. This enables Taiwan to dominate the global semiconductor industry today which resulted to economic success. Now the Global Unichip was able to introduce a new kind of service, a different market structure. I believe these innovations will enable Taiwan companies to stay as the dominant companies of the semiconductor industry in the future.
Throughout the tour I have learned a lot of things not only the semiconductor industry but on some of the ideology that lead to the Taiwan Miracle. I learned the importance of innovation and learning constantly. This was a very wonderful experience that I would remember.
The first company visited was Teradyne. The company is an American company producing test equipment for the IC testing. It established a customer service facility in Taiwan and has a service and repair facility in Philippines.The company presentation started with the discussion of the whole three trillion dollar semiconductor industry. After which, they focused the discussion on the testing equipment industry, their portion of the semiconductor industry. There is one thing that I have noticed that although the test equipment industry is just a small portion of the semiconductor industry, the company was able to become a multinational high earning company. The reason for this was their products are top class, the latest technology and they also offers friendly customer service rendering the needs of its customers.
The second company visited was UMC. The United Micro-Electronics Corporation (UMC) is the first foundry company in Taiwan. They are one of the largest wafer foundry companies in the world. The tour started with a short presentation which discussed the technology of the company and the production facility of the company. They presented a production data of the company based on the application market share. The slide showed that the semiconductor industry is dominated by communication applications, followed by computer, memory, medical other applications. I was taught that the semiconductor industry is dominated by computer market. But as time progress, the human lifestyle improves and requires different needs. In other words, the semiconductor industry continues to evolve. After the presentation we proceed to the visitors lobby. They showed some sample of single crystaline unsliced silicon ingots, silicon wafers, die mask and sets of video screens of the whole production facility. The foundry production facility tour helped me visualize and appreciate the CMOS foundry process taught in the lecture class before.
The third company was Global Unichip Corporation. The Global Unichip Corporation is partly subsidiary of the TSMC. The company is a young company that offers top-down System on a Chip (SoC) service. They offered subcontracting of the IC chip from circuit design down to fabrication and packaging. These are the semiconductors companies that produce and sell integrated circuits with their own design and fabrication facility. The entrance of Taiwan in the semiconductor industry was in 1980s, at that time American IDM companies was already well established. They would compete against giant America companies. However, Taiwan created a different market structure. They created fabless operations, which separates the circuit design with the foundry manufacturing. The government established state owned foundry companies UMC and TSMC. This enables Taiwan to dominate the global semiconductor industry today which resulted to economic success. Now the Global Unichip was able to introduce a new kind of service, a different market structure. I believe these innovations will enable Taiwan companies to stay as the dominant companies of the semiconductor industry in the future.
Throughout the tour I have learned a lot of things not only the semiconductor industry but on some of the ideology that lead to the Taiwan Miracle. I learned the importance of innovation and learning constantly. This was a very wonderful experience that I would remember.
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