Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Steadies Itself on the Geopolitical Tightrope

Published in Commercial Times
(Taiwan) on 5 Dec 2022
by Commercial Times Editorial (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Matthew Grueninger. Edited by Lisa Attanasio.
On Tuesday, Dec. 6, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. will hold a “first tool-in” ceremony, in which the first batch of equipment will be installed on the shop floor at Arizona's TSMC 5-nanometer manufacturing plant. The ceremony will be attended by President Joe Biden, Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo, Minister of the National Development Council Kung Ming-hsin, TSMC founder Morris Chang and his wife, Chairman Mark Liu, Chief Executive Officer Wei Chung Ching, as well as major clients, suppliers, the governor of Arizona, and other senior officials. This first tool-in ceremony will be the grandest in TSMC's history.
The first tool-in ceremony's high standards show that the Arizona plant is a milestone in carrying out an important political task. When multinational corporations reach a certain degree of expansion, they inevitably face the challenges of the changing international political climate. After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War earlier this year, hundreds of European, American, and Japanese multinational corporations withdrew from the Russian market by selling at rock-bottom prices or even giving away their ownership rights to senior employees or financial groups, resulting in the collapse, in the blink of an eye, of the enterprises they had been operating in Russia for decades, huge losses to their parent companies, and damages suffered, which reached astronomical proportions.
TSMC is a strategic target in the Sino-American chip war. TSMC’s products are in high demand in the governments of both Washington and Beijing. If oppression fails to achieve what is desired, other political means are used as punishment. The governments of the United States and China have abused both carrot and stick in their dealings with TSMC. Since TSMC is caught in the middle, it is impossible to please one side without offending the other. Morris Chang has retired. The TSMC management team led by Mark Liu and Wei Zhejia has long been exhausted by fierce industrial competition and Wall Street’s enthusiastic speculation in semiconductor products, yet the management team must skillfully evade bullets as they are caught in the crossfire between China and the United States. This arduous challenge is of a truly unprecedented difficulty, and perhaps it can even be said that nothing this challenging is likely to be faced in the future.
The Beijing government is obviously not sitting idly by while TSMC holds its grand first tool-in ceremony. The "TSMC brain drain" has become a hotly debated topic in Taiwanese local elections. China and Taiwan's internet soldiers have launched an intense battle over TSMC. ANBOUND, a mainland think tank, has issued a report on this issue, which summarizes China's accusation against TSMC's U.S. factory. The ANBOUND report begins with the claimthat TSMC employees are packing up their belongings, uprooting their families and even bringing their cats and dogs along to emigrate to the United States. It then analyzes TSMC's dependence on the American market and technology, concluding that TSMC's construction of a factory in the United States is not just a simple quantitative increase in investment, but rather a jolting shock that will lead to losses in Taiwanese talent and industry. TSMC has opened the door for brain drain to the United States. Once the door opens, it is difficult to close and the drainage process is likely to become irreversible.
Despite this, at present the claim that TSMC's U.S. plant or its overseas investment in the Kumamoto plant in Kyushu, Japan, will "drain" the Taiwanese headquarters is completely baseless; this claim’s actual purpose is to attack political adversaries in the fierce election campaign, as well as to unite China's domestic semiconductor industry. TSMC's Arizona plant replicates the supply chain ecosystem around Taiwan and is admittedly being constructed in the United States; however, the new Arizona plant's production capacity is only 20,000 chips, and if this amount is added to the capacity of the three nano factories that Morris Chang has already announced, the total only comes out to less than 5% of TSMC's overall production capacity. The 500 Taiwanese employees who are supposedly uprooting everything including their cats and dogs to emigrate to the United States make up an extremely small percentage of the company's personnel, regardless of whether they are compared with its 70,000 total employees or to its nearly 50,000 engineers working in the field of science and technology.
Moreover, considering unfavorable factors such as the difficulty of finding workers and higher production costs in the U.S. than in Taiwan, the Arizona plant is actually not expected to start mass production until 2024. Therefore, the total length of time needed, from the planning of the new plant, training the staff, and installing equipment, to the beginning of mass production, will be more than a year longer than the time needed to complete the 5-nanometer chip manufacturing plant in Nan-ke, Taiwan. This is TSMC's "arbitrage management" of the semiconductor manufacturing process in Taiwan and the United States. The mother plant in Taiwan can first thoroughly master the five-nanometer production process and then apply it to the Arizona plant (the Kumamoto plant in Kyushu, Japan uses FinFET technology for the already-mature 28-nanometerproduction process) so as to ensure that the new plants in the United States and Japan can mass produce quickly and smoothly, and can achieve the same yield as the Taiwanese factory while reducing the costs of cross-border management and keeping these costs within a manageable range.
TSMC is using a "relatively advanced process" in the planning of the new plant in the United States and Japan. It not only protects the rights and interests of shareholders and meets the expectations of the American and Japanese governments, but also ensures usage of the highest-performing system of internal management. In addition, the management teams of the new plants in the United States and Japan may even work locally to strengthen the close strategic alliance between TSMC's clients and suppliers, while also working toward mastering leading trends for the production of the most advanced semiconductor technologies and products. This unique skill developed by TSMC will allow it to balance on the geopolitical tightrope. As long as TSMC's system of manufacturing management can remain unchallenged during this process of global expansion, the plan for overseas plant installations will not only not lead to brain drain, but may end up even paying large dividends to the parent company.
TSMC's skillful maneuvers provide an excellent example for Taiwanese companies caught in gaps caused by Sino-American supply chain decoupling. It is key that the parent company master the most advanced core production processes, find space for "management arbitrage" in each country at the government's national or local level, and strive for relatively large subsidies and greater policy flexibility when negotiating with the government. The company's management team should also maintain proper etiquette and focus the spotlight on political leaders such as President Biden, holding them in the center of attention. The leaders and management teams of Taiwan-funded enterprises must clearly recognize the facts. The art of balancing the poles of political power is essential in determining whether a multinational corporation will succeed or fail. Only those who can successfully walk across the political tightrope have a future. For business executives, mastering this essential skill cannot be avoided.


台積電將在周二(12月6日)舉行美國亞利桑那州五奈米新廠的「首批機台設備到廠」(First tool-in)典禮,美國總統拜登、商務部長雷蒙多、國發會主委龔明鑫、台積電創辦人張忠謀夫婦、董事長劉德音、總裁魏哲家、還有主要客戶、供應商、亞利桑那州州長等高官政要都將出席,堪稱是台積電所有新廠裝機典禮最隆重的一次。。

超高規格的新廠裝機典禮,說明了亞利桑那廠是背負高度政治任務的里程碑,當跨國企業規模擴張到一定程度,必然無法逃避國際政治變局的挑戰,今年俄烏戰爭爆發後,幾百家歐美日跨國企業退出俄羅斯市場,以一元轉讓、甚至贈送的架構賣給當地的財團或是資深員工,在俄羅斯經營數十年的基業瞬間瓦解,母公司承受巨額的虧損,損失極為慘烈。

台積電是中美晶片戰爭的戰略標的,華盛頓與北京政府對台積電有高度需求,政治壓迫無法如願則會施出政治手段懲罰,中美兩國政府對著台積電的棒子與胡蘿蔔用到極致,台積電夾在中間,順了姑意失嫂意。張忠謀已經退休,但是劉德音與魏哲家兩人所領導的台積電經營團隊,早已疲於奔命於白熱化的產業競爭與熱烈炒賣半導體題材的華爾街之間,卻必須想出庖丁解牛的高超手法,在中美政治鬥爭的槍林彈雨之間求活,的確是前無古人、可能也是後無來者的超高難度挑戰。

北京政府對於台積電亞利桑那廠盛大的裝機典禮,當然不能袖手旁觀,在台灣九合一地方選舉期間,「掏空台積電」就成為選舉期間一度熱議的話題,中國與台灣網軍圍繞台積電展開了一場熱戰。大陸安邦智庫針對這個議題出具的研究報告,是中國攻擊台積電美國廠的總結,安邦智庫以台積電員工帶貓帶狗攜家帶眷移居美國出發,再解剖台積電對美國市場、美國技術的依賴,認為「台積電在美國建廠並不只是簡單的增量投資,而是一次會對台灣地區造成重大產業衝擊的產業和人才轉移。」拉開了美國「掏空」台積電的進程,這道門一旦打開就難以關上,很可能成為不可逆的進程。

不過,現在談台積電的美國廠、或者日本九州熊本廠的海外投資,會「掏空」台灣總部,都還是捕風捉影的臆測,實質上的效應是在九合一劇烈的選舉中產生打擊對手的效應,以及在中國國內凝聚半導體產業內部團結之用。台積電亞利桑那廠固然為了設廠,將台灣周邊的供應鏈生態系都在美國複製打造,但是亞利桑那新廠產能只有2萬片、加上張忠謀已經預告的三奈米廠,加總還不到台積電總體產能的5%,所謂帶貓帶狗移居的500名台灣員工,不論是佔7萬名全體員工、或是近5萬名科技工程師,比例都極低。

還有,亞利桑那廠預計到2024年才開始量產,實際考量了美國員工難尋,成本遠高於台灣等不利因素,因此從新廠規劃、員工訓練、裝機、到量產,都比台灣南科的五奈米廠要慢超過一年,這是台積電對台美兩地半導體製造進度的「套利管理」,在台灣母廠能夠徹底把握五奈米製程,再使用於亞利桑那廠(九州熊本廠是採用FinFET技術生產的二八奈米成熟製程),如此確保美國與日本新廠能夠順利量產,快速達到與台灣工廠同樣的良率,降低並控制跨國管理的成本於一定的範圍之內。

台積電用「相對先進的製程」來規劃美日新廠,不只確保了股東權益,符合美日政府的期待,還能維持最高的內部管理績效,而美日新廠的經營團隊,甚至可能就地強化與台積電的客戶、供應商之間更密切的策略聯盟,更進一步掌握最先進的半導體技術與產品的先進趨勢,這是台積電穩走地緣政治鋼索發展出的獨門絕技。只要台積電在全球擴張的進程中,能夠維持全球無可挑戰的製造管理水平,現有的海外設廠規畫不僅不會被掏空,甚至還能對母公司帶來關鍵的回饋。

台積電庖丁解牛的策略,給夾在中美供應鏈脫鉤夾縫中的台商絕佳範例,關鍵是母公司必須掌握最先進的核心能力,在各國、或是各地方政府之間找到「管理套利」的空間,在與政府談判時爭取較大的財政補貼與政策彈性,公司管理團隊也要謹守分寸,將鎂光燈與舞台聚焦給拜登總統等政治領袖。台資企業的領導人與經營團隊必須認清事實,政治平衡術是跨國經營企業成敗的關鍵之一,走好政治鋼索才有未來,這是所有企業經營者無可逃避的必備技能。
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