Shang-Yi Chiang

Biography

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.