Last week, TSMC reportedly opened an investigation into ex-employee Lo Wen-jen, who moved from retirement to a position at Intel. Lo held a position as the vice president of corporate strategy before retiring from TSMC in July. Lo was once involved in the research into mass production of chips at the Taiwanese chipmaking giant and spent over two decades at the company.
As reported by Bloomberg, Intel denies claims that this hiring was made to take trade secrets from TSMC. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg, “It’s rumor and speculation. There’s nothing to it. We respect IP.”
TSMC isn’t the only party looking to protect its IP. Kung Ming-hsin, the economy minister for Taiwan, reportedly said, “The Ministry of Economic Affairs will cooperate (with prosecutors) by explaining the current control mechanisms for Taiwan’s core technologies and by assessing whether there are any concerns related to the national security law.”
As this is just being investigated, no formal charges or allegations have come forward just yet.
TSMC is in a unique position. It is currently at the forefront of node process technology and has been for some time, and it’s one of the largest companies in Taiwan. It has a strong seat in the broader worldwide technology table, with companies like Nvidia and AMD getting their chips from TSMC. Intel even uses TSMC for some of its chips, but manufactures many at its own fabs as well.
Intel used to have the lead when it came to chip manufacturing, but lost it in recent years after a multi-year delay with 10 nm (later called Intel 7, confusingly).
One of the bigger worries for TSMC and Taiwanese officials is about losing the edge when it comes to TSMC’s node process. Effectively, the smaller the node process, the higher the density of transistors, which results in more powerful or more efficient chips. TSMC’s technology has led to its demand, so losing an edge here would negatively affect the company as a whole.
Intel itself is also in a unique position. Intel’s ex-CEO said he bet the company on 18A, its upcoming process node. Intel has received renewed support from the US government and even companies like Nvidia after a painful few years. Its chip fab business is of great interest to the US, which is ever looking to increase homegrown manufacturing. In fact, the US government could take even more Intel stock if the company loses its chip manufacturing business.
Whether there’s much to this investigation or it’s posturing by TSMC to strike fear into anyone that might think about doing something as what’s alleged, is not yet clear.
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