07FEB2021 Taiwan should join semiconductor alliance against China: analyst
Wang also warned that Taiwan should beware of China’s efforts to poach talent, given the latter’s goal of becoming 70 percent self-sufficient in chip production by 2025. “Judging from the past experience, China’s poaching efforts will only increase,” he said.
According to a report in the Nikkei Asian Review in August 2020, China succeeded in luring more than 100 TSMC engineers in the span of just one year, offering them double the amount they were earning in Taiwan. China has redoubled its efforts to develop its semiconductor industry, since U.S. sanctions have restricted its ability to acquire semiconductor chips, Wang said.
Meanwhile, the American semiconductor industry has been urging the new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to form a semiconductor alliance with like-minded countries to prevent tech espionage by China, he said. The Taiwan government should guide the country’s tech companies to join such an alliance, in order to protect Taiwan’s technological advantage and national strategic security, Wang said.
https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202102070010
China’s largest and most global players in the automotive chips sector came to be Chinese through acquisition. Some of these acquisitions may have struggled to go through in today’s climate, but the fact they were done earlier shows some foresight on these Chinese companies’ part. At the same time, in fields like autonomous driving, homegrown companies are rising.
The acquired companies are in a good position to take advantage of the growing EV and AV industries, but the home grown companies may struggle to compete with the size and scale of their foreign counterparts.
Nexperia, ISSI, and Omnivision have all kept their HQs in their respective home countries, but are concurrently operating strong R&D or manufacturing facilities in China—and in my experience Chinese owners are rarely hands off. ISSI and Omnivision have design teams in China, whereas Nexperia operates packaging R&D on the mainland.
There is nothing nefarious about this, it is quite normal and makes sense. But technical know-how is transferred naturally as part of the work process, so even if these companies switch owners in the future I expect some skills and knowledge will have been transferred to Chinese employees.
https://pathofex.com/where-china-is-gearing-up-in-automotive-semiconductors-%c2%b7-technode/