Spotlight Taiwan Blogs

In 1958, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments invented the integrated circuit, a historical, integral part of modern computing. This year happens to be the IC 60th anniversary of IC creation. Taiwan, as the largest IC manufacturing exporter in the world, celebrated the IC 60th Anniversary with the theme of “Reviewing the Past & Inspiring the Future”.

To celebrate the IC 60^th, MOST (Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology) and SEMI Taiwan jointly organized the IC 60 Master IC Forum and a series of events this September to review the past contributions and inspire future generations.

This Forum invited grandmasters who have made outstanding contributions to IC development to pass down the legacy of experiences and discuss related issues of semiconductor emerging development. The morning speakers featured Dr. Morris Chang, Founder of TSMC and Dr. Simon M. Sze, who developed the floating-gate transistor, now widely used in non-volatile semiconductor memory devices.

Lip-Bu, Tan, CEO of Cadence was invited as special guest to deliver Congratulatory Remarks to over 1,000 attendees including government officials and leaders from worldwide semiconductor in the morning session. Lip-Bu recalled the story of his first venture capital established in Taiwan more than 30 years ago. He congratulated the milestone of Taiwan semiconductor and shared his perspective of future trends for the next 60 years including Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, Quantum Computing, IoT/Edge/Cloud Infrastructure, etc. Those trends will change the future and will be a good opportunity for the Taiwan semiconductor industry. His remark inspired the forum with loud applause.

Besides, MOST especially arranged the “IC60—I See the Future” Exhibition with demonstrations of the history of IC development and many industrial partners, including MediaTek, jointly exhibited their latest AI and 5G innovations and applications.

Brian Sung, head of Cadence Taiwan, one of IC Committee in MOST IC 60 Celebration program, was invited to deliver the Opening Remarks in the Exhibition. He addressed that Taiwan, with great product quality and yields in semiconductor manufacturing, has the most solid foundation to support the development of new applications like AI, IoT, smart manufacturing, etc. The future is full of unlimited possibilities. He encouraged younger students to get the enthusiasm for technology and join the semiconductor industry and change the world.

Brian Sung (right) was invited to host the Opening of IC 60 Exhibition.