An Evolutionary Perspective of IC Industry Development in Taiwan

Taiwan has successfully developed an IC industry through the efforts of the government and industry itself over the past thirty years. One of key factors that decades of rapid and continuous economic growth and prosperity was driven prominently by the development of an IC industry to let Taiwanese being proud of it. The purpose of this research is to explore the development track of IC industry to know how it worked. This paper reviews the development and transformation process of IC industry in Taiwan. This process will be examined from the longitudinal aspects through synthesizing the literature reviews and observations. It is categorized by three stages: labor-intensive stage, technology-intensive stage and capital-intensive stage for analysis. This study showed that a far-sighted strategy to establish a sound infrastructure of industrial development environment is necessary and sufficient for an emerging new industry especially for high technology. This paper found that the silicon technology cycle in Taiwan is seven years. The closed and dynamic networking relationship among government, university, industry and foreign leaders is instrumental in developing the IC industry in Taiwan.