In 1492, Queen Isabella of Spain drove out the Moors and supported Christopher Columbus in discovering the New World, evoking a pivotal moment in the Age of Discovery.
It has been half a century since the semiconductor industry began in the 1970s. At first, semiconductors were just a supporting component developed by large corporations to enhance the functionality of their system products. However, the formation of the industry began with Intel in Silicon Valley.
2030 will inaugurate a "Silicon Era" of quarter-finals competition among industrial nations, as applications such as electrical vehicles, connected cars, and artificial intelligence (AI) are advancing at exponential speeds.
In the decade since AlphaGo was introduced, neural networks in machine learning have been gradually applied to various industrial and commercial scenarios. One of the applications related to material development is the optimization of the material production process, which has been in industrial practice for some time.
There are three ways to grow the economic scale in the modern-day semiconductor industry: continuous miniaturization of processes, advanced packaging, and the application of new materials.
The importance of the semiconductor industry to Taiwan is self-evident. Among them, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) holds a high global market share in advanced processes defined as below 10 nm. Therefore, whether it's Apple's mobile application processors, AI server GPUs, or custom ASICs required for cloud data centers, most of those advanced chips ultimately depend on TSMC's production.
The model FPA-1200NZ2C from Canon, a nanoscale imprinting machine, has been making headlines recently, although it first appeared in academic journals as early as 2015. The resurgence of an eight-year-old model in the news can be attributed to its imminent entry into broader semiconductor production applications.
Recently, the Japanese semiconductor equipment manufacturer Canon released the nanoimprint lithography (NIL) machine FPA-1200NZ2C, capable of achieving a 5-nanometer process node. Nanoimprint lithography is one of the methods in semiconductor manufacturing to transfer circuit design patterns onto wafers, with another well-known and widely used method being photolithography or optic lithography.
Cash subsidies targeting research and development (R&D) investments and R&D consortiums are conducive to the development of semiconductor technologies, so governments can play a more proactive role in using this mechanism to galvanize R&D activities in the semiconductor industry. There can be variations in the ways of executing subsidies for R&D activities.
Tax breaks, depreciation acceleration, research and development investment subsidization, and fiscal subsidies are typical forms of fiscal incentives for encouraging semiconductor industry investments, equipment procurement, and research and development.
During the reorganization of global supply chains, opportunities are being created for countries that are semiconductor markets in which system manufacturers are based. Semiconductors, as the most critical component and device in systems, have become the subject of import replacement efforts that countries with system manufacturing capabilities are eager to undertake.
