EVOLUTION OF TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES FOR TAIWAN'S SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY: FORMATION OF RESEARCH CONSORTIA

Pao-Long Chang and Chien-Tzu Tsai

Industry and Innovation, 2000, vol. 7, issue 2, 185-197

Abstract: As the world enters the twenty-first century, technology is now more than ever the key factor in the promotion of industrial development and economic growth. This presents an enormous but unavoidable challenge for developing countries; they must carry out their industrial technology development in such a way as to create strong high-tech industries that can successfully compete in the global market, while moving their national economies in the direction of prosperity. In light of these challenges, an overall technology development strategy has become the critical success factor for an industry in terms of technology acquisition, diffusion and application. Over the course of the past three decades, Taiwan has regarded the semiconductor industry as one of the most strategically important of the high-tech industries. Since starting with a few downstream assembly plants in the 1960s, the semiconductor industry has developed into a comprehensive industrial system with vertical and horizontal division of labor. It has gone through various growth stages, involving foreign-capital-based assembly, manufacturing technology transfer, growth of local plants, industrial system expansion and upgrading by industrial cooperation. The corresponding strategies for technology development cover technology introduction, technology transfer and cooperative R&D, with gradually escalating technological capabilities successfully encouraging industrial growth. The semiconductor industry has not only become the leading industry of the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, but it has also generated revenues ranked fourth highest in the world. This article studies strategies adopted at different stages by Taiwan's semiconductor industry in its technological development, focusing specifically on the research consortium strategy and the case of the industry consortium, the Advanced Semiconductor Technology Research Organization (ASTRO).

Date: 2000
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DOI: 10.1080/713670256

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