Morris Chang, the founder of TSMC, has recently expressed his views on the future challenges and strategic positioning of the company. Chang stressed the increasing difficulties that TSMC is likely to face due to geopolitical shifts and increased competition, despite its historical success attributed to operational efficiencies and significant R&D investments. Meanwhile, he does not see Intel as a major threat, reports money.UDN.com.
Chang noted that despite Intel receiving considerable support and endorsement from the U.S. government, it does not pose a substantial threat to TSMC unless it manages to enhance various facets of its foundry operations like technological leadership, yield rates, and competitive pricing. Meanwhile, even if Intel Foundry Services is successful, it will still be a shadow of TSMC, according to Chang.
The founder of TSMC highlighted the diminishing trends of globalization and free trade in the semiconductor sector. Emphasizing that the focal point in global policies and business strategies is gravitating toward national security concerns, he illustrated the important role that TSMC has come to play as a necessity in the tech supply chains of various countries, including Japan and Germany, underscoring its strategic importance in the broader geopolitical landscape.
Chang also pointed out the challenges that TSMC is poised to confront due to the intensified competitive atmosphere aggravated by geopolitical tensions. Meanwhile, he noted that because other tech giants use geopolitical nuances to gain competitive advantages over TSMC, the foundry is destined to face more challenges than ever before.
However, Chang noted that the cornerstones of TSMC's historical success are delivering extensive production capacity, cost-efficiency, and robust R&D. Therefore, the world's largest foundry should press on with its current strategy to retain its competitive advantages, at the same time increasing the scale of its investments in both production capacity and process technologies.
