The Semiconductor Gateway to Taiwan – Why It’s Critical for Semiconductor Innovation
Colley Hwang – Founder & President | DIGITIMES
Josh Liu – Co-Founder & Director | Semi Ventures
In this session, Professor Yung and Josh focused on the potential for strategic collaboration between the UK and Taiwan in the semiconductor industry, emphasizing their complementary strengths—the UK in R&D and small-volume, high-value production, and Taiwan in large-scale semiconductor manufacturing and ecosystem development.
Key Themes & Highlights
1. Strategic Opportunity in High-Value Niches
- UK's strength lies in early-stage research, biomedical applications, and low-volume, high-variety chip needs—areas TSMC typically avoids.
- Professor Yung advised the UK to focus on market-driven goals, and invest in areas with future growth (sunrise sectors), not mature industries (sunset).
- Healthcare tech and defense applications were noted as ideal areas for the UK to lead.
2. Semiconductor Ecosystem & Government Support
- Taiwan's ecosystem success stems from early government support (e.g., NARLabs, ITRI, TSRI) and a market-first mindset.
- Organizations like MICROIP, DEUV, JMEMTEK, and others provide IP, design, and backend support, enabling rapid innovation.
- The UK was encouraged to build a mature ecosystem by engaging with Taiwan’s local partners and replicating the ecosystem model in a localized way.
3. The “Semiconductor Gateway” Initiative
- Proposed to facilitate collaboration between UK companies and Taiwanese foundries.
- Would help UK companies to access IC design services, navigate supply chains, and engage early with partners like TSMC to reduce risks
- Aimed to reduce friction for UK startups entering the advanced semiconductor ecosystem.
4. Founders, Talent & Long-Term Strategy
- Founder quality matters—highlighted through Prof. Yung’s anecdote about Jensen Huang of NVIDIA.
- Advice to students: Understand "what to build" before "how to build". IC design is a skill, but the application is where value lies.
- Encouraged students to focus on sunrise industries, and take leadership roles, not just technical ones.
- TSMC also aims to provide training that fosters future leaders, not just skilled engineers.
Actionable Takeaways
- Identify UK/Europe strengths in niche semiconductor markets (e.g., biomedical, quantum, defense).
- Explore the “semiconductor gateway” concept to streamline cross-border collaboration.
- Consider forming a consulting group to guide UK/European firms on ecosystem strategy.
- Engage early with Taiwanese partners and leverage existing innovation infrastructure.