SMIC co-CEO offers to resign as company hires former TSMC exec

[TaiShang]

SMIC co-CEO offers to resign as company hires former TSMC exec - CnTechPost

SMIC co-CEO Liang Mong Song said that he had no prior knowledge of SMIC's hiring of Chiang for the position of vice-chairman and believed that he was no longer respected and trusted.

cntechpost.com

With SMIC hiring former TSMC COO Chiang Shang-yi, its co-CEO Liang Mong Song offered to resign at a board meeting.

According to the Securities Times, Liang said that he had no prior knowledge of SMIC's hiring of Chiang for the position of vice-chairman and believed that he was no longer respected and trusted.

(Liang Mong Song)

In the evening of December 15 Beijing Time, SMIC announced that Chiang was appointed as Vice Chairman of SMIC's Board of Directors for the period from December 15, 2020 to the annual general meeting in 2021.

According to the announcement, Chiang is entitled to an annual fixed cash remuneration of US$670,000 and an annual incentive under his employment contract.

Chiang, 74, is a 45-year veteran of the semiconductor industry and a leader in the semiconductor industry, having served as co-chief operating officer at TSMC.

(Chiang Shang-yi)

According to SMIC, Chiang was involved in the development of CMOS, NMOS, Bipolar, DMOS, SOS, SOI, GaAs laser, LED, electron beam lithography, and silicon-based solar cell projects.

At TSMC, he led the development of key nodes such as 0.25μm, 0.18μm, 0.15μm, 0.13μm, 90nm, 65nm, 40nm, 28nm, 20nm and 16nm FinFET, which enabled TSMC to develop its industry position from a technology follower to a technology leader.

Chiang first joined SMIC in December 2016 as an independent non-executive director. During his tenure, SMIC advanced its new process from 28nm to 14nm, while making breakthroughs in 12nm process development.

In June 2019, SMIC announced that Chiang would not be re-elected due to personal reasons and other work commitments.

Soon after, Chiang joined Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor as CEO, but this year, Wuhan Hongxin, with an investment of over $100 billion, was revealed to have never completed its plant civil works.

Chiang's latest statement to the public has said that he still has a strong passion for semiconductors and is enthusiastic about advanced packaging technology and chiplets.

"Now that SMIC's advanced process technology has reached 14nm, N+1 and N+2, I believe that I can realize my dream in advanced packaging and system integration at SMIC at least 4-5 years faster than at Hongxin." He said.

Chiang said the key to his decision to join SMIC is that SMIC has a foundation in advanced packaging, while advanced process technology has advanced to 14nm, N+1, and N+2, enabling him to realize his dream in advanced packaging and system integration.

"I'm just quite simply an engineer, and I have the right to pursue my ideals and career goals, especially technically." He said.

 

[siegecrossbow]

So much bickering and infighting even in the face of adversity... If SMIC doesn’t succeed then we know why. We’ve got countless historical examples, like the Southern Ming for instance.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Didn't Chiang drive HSMC into the ground and then flee or something?

 

[TaiShang]

Didn't Chiang drive HSMC into the ground and then flee or something?

This is his bio at tsmc:

Shang-Yi Chiang’s insight and expertise have transformed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) from a technology follower to a driving force with one of the most advanced research and development (R&D) teams, helping it become the world’s largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry. Known for taking well-calculated risks and making bold decisions, Dr. Chiang created an environment at TSMC for developing innovations that have made digital technology commonplace in society, profoundly impacting productivity, education, entertainment, and healthcare. Under Dr. Chiang’s direction, TSMC’s R&D organization grew from 148 people to 5,500 and has set milestones in semiconductor technology scaling at nodes from 0.25 microns all the way down to 28 nanometers. Game-changing initiatives implemented under Dr. Chiang’s leadership include a dedicated full/half node R&D roadmap, allowing customers to further reduce wafer cost. He also developed a strong lithography and electron-beam mask technology team that has advanced lithography, patterning, resist, and mask technologies for industry-leading high-density application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)/system-on-chip (SoC) technologies for foundry customers and the logic semiconductor industry. Also important to ASIC/SoC applications has been TSMC’s high-density and energy-efficient interconnect efforts, where Dr. Chiang led his team to the industry’s first high-volume development of copper low-dielectric constant interconnects at 0.13 µm and subsequent nodes. Dr. Chiang also initiated a major direction change in three-dimensional (3D) IC technology to focus on “chip on wafer on substrate” (CoWoS) as a stepping stone to full-scale 3D-IC. This established TSMC as the leader in 3D-IC technology with industry-first high-volume production of CoWoS. This paved the way for system-level scaling for many emerging applications and has driven semiconductor industry growth.

An IEEE Life Fellow and recipient of Business Week magazine’s Star of Asia award (2001), Dr. Chiang is currently advisor to the chairman at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Los Gatos, CA, USA.

 

[8888888888888]

Looking at the history of SMIC, it look like they tried to do the way of how the usual Chinese manufacturers sell their products. Making the product cheap and tried selling it cheap instead of high end quality. With Trump ban on US high end chips they will be in the shot light now.

 

[Beast]

I don't know how trust worthy these ex TSMC director is. Sounds like a massive conflict of interest. Will they be trojan horse?

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Anyone can see that this is just a flex by Liang to advance his position by frightening the market and getting Beijing's attention - politicking 101.

 

[8888888888888]

Beijing might replace him seeing that he didn't make SMIC a world class chip maker.