Taiwan's Odyssey to Dominate the Microchip Industry

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Taipei. There's a moment in A Chip Odyssey in which one of the first-generation engineers, now elderly, recalls the words that Economy Minister Sun Yun-suan addressed to him in the 1970s: "You can only succeed; failure is not an option." That phrase reflects the spirit of a challenge that, in the space of a few decades, transformed Taiwan from a technological periphery to the center of global semiconductor production. The film, directed by Hsiao Chu-chen, reconstructs the birth and development of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan, a process that is not only industrial but also political, social, and identity-based. The tone is at times celebratory, but it remains an accurate reconstruction of one of the most significant technological developments of the post-World War II period. The director focuses not only on the big names, but also gives space to the voices of those who built the industry from the ground up. The female workers who crowded the production lines in the 1970s and 1980s remember working overtime as an opportunity to earn a little extra; The engineers are shown not as legendary figures, but as young people from modest backgrounds who transformed challenges into motivation and expertise. This portrait captures the human dimension of a sector often described only through numbers and records.

The Taipei government's decision to invest in the semiconductor sector marked the beginning of a process that would change the island's destiny. Words like betting and gambling appear in documents from the time: it was truly, as the director recalls, "a huge gamble at the state level." Thus was born the pure-play foundry model, based on foundries that, thanks to continuous investment in the most advanced production processes, have kept Taiwan at the top of the global value chain. The industrial development occurred within the context of major international transformations that affected Taiwan in the 1970s: the end of American aid, the loss of its UN seat, and the energy crisis. It was in this climate that the RCA 37 group was born, sent to the United States to learn the basics of semiconductor production: geopolitical tensions reinforced the belief that the island's future lay in its ability to pioneer a technological sector. Led by Pan Wen-Yuan, considered the father of the Taiwanese chip industry, many of them opened the first integrated circuit companies.

Scholar Annalee Saxenian has called them the "new Argonauts." But technology transfer was only a starting point: decades of investment were needed to perfect the foundry model, and US companies benefited from the system, being able to focus on design while Taiwan ensured chip production. The centrality achieved by TSMC and the Taiwanese foundries today highlights both the strength and the vulnerability of a model unlike any other in the world. A Chip Odyssey also highlights today's challenges: political threats, technological competition, growing energy needs, and the shortage of qualified personnel. As one manufacturer recalls, "These people didn't do it for the money, they did it for Taiwan."

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