Liu Deyin believes that perseverance and curiosity are the distinctive characteristics of TSMC engineers.

(Reuters file photo)

[Compilation of Wei Guojin/Taipei Report] American reporter Virginia Heffernan (Virginia Heffernan) was finally allowed to visit and interview TSMC after three requests.

In her long report, "I saw the face of God in a semiconductor factory," she said that it was a pilgrimage to the "Sacred Mountain of Protecting the Country," a mountain in the Hsinchu Science Park whose shrine has an obscure name. : Liu Deyin, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Corporation, said that perseverance and curiosity make TSMC scientists unique.

The report, which contributed to "Wired" magazine (Wired), said that TSMC entered the list of the world's top 10 most valuable companies in 2020, and now its market value surpasses Facebook's parent company Meta and oil giant Exxon (Exxon).

TSMC is also the world's largest manufacturer of logic chips, and produces 92% of the world's most advanced chips, which are used in nuclear weapons, aircraft, submarines and hypersonic missiles. More importantly, TSMC produces 1/3 of the world's silicon chips, especially Chips for iPhones and Macs.

Every six months, one of TSMC's 13 factories, namely Tainan Factory 18, produces 100 quintillion (quintillion, 10 to the 18th power) transistors for Apple.

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The report pointed out that this company, which almost monopolizes the world's best chips and services, has become Taiwan's "Silicon Shield", and this may be the most solid artifact of real politics in the 20th century. Robbing TSMC is like slaughtering the goose that lays golden eggs around the world.

If TSMC chips disappear from the world, every new iPad, iPhone, and Mac will immediately become a brick. TSMC is invisible and indispensable to human beings, as Huang Renxun, CEO of Huida, said in a speech at Stanford University in 2014: "Basically, there's air -- and TSMC."

According to the article, the starting salary of TSMC engineers is US$5,400 (NT$164,500) per month, which is not bad by Taiwanese standards.

Chairman Liu Deyin said that what makes TSMC scientists unique is curiosity and perseverance. Surprisingly, religion is also common. Liu said, "Every scientist must believe in God."

"What we do is build atoms, and I tell my engineers, think like an atom-sized human," he said.

He quoted a passage from the Bible Proverbs: "It is the glory of God to conceal things, but it is the glory of man to find out."

The article said that for a company, maintaining a large economic sector in essence, while also maintaining the global democratic alliance, seems to be a heroic undertaking. However, this may not be TSMC's most amazing achievement.

Last spring, British economic historian Adam Tooze appeared on the Vox show "Ezra.

The Ezra Klein Show refutes the notion that fabs are simply powerful commercial and geopolitical forces.

He told host Klein, "If you think about the conflict over Taiwan; the global semiconductor industry is not just a supply chain problem, it's also one of the greatest technological and scientific achievements of mankind, and we make these things at the nanometer level. The power of God is, in a sense, our face to God".

The author said that she relayed Tooze's words to Liu Deyin, and he tacitly agreed, but modified the view by saying, "God means nature, and we describe the appearance of nature at TSMC."

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