Background
Chang Chung-Mou was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang province on 10 July 1931, Chang had originally planned to become an author, however, his father persuaded him otherwise.
忠谋 张
Chang Chung-Mou was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang province on 10 July 1931, Chang had originally planned to become an author, however, his father persuaded him otherwise.
In 1949, at the height of the Chinese Civil War, Chang moved to the United States to attend Harvard University, but later transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received his BS in 1952 and his MS degree a year later, both in mechanical engineering. In 1964, Chang earned a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
In the US, he worked for Texas Instruments for a period of 25 years from 1958 to 1983. At one point he was responsible for the company’s worldwide semiconductor business. In 1984, he left Texas Instruments to become the president and CEO of the General Instrument Corporation.
In 1986, the Taiwan government recruited Chang to become chairman and president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). As head of the government- sponsored organization whose purpose was to encourage and drive industrial and technological development in Taiwan, Chang founded TSMC at a critical time when corporations were increasingly looking to outsource manufacturing to Asia. As a result, TSMC became one of the world’s most profitable chipmakers. Chang left ITRI in 1994 to serve as chairman of Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation, while still continuing to serve as chairman of TSMC.
Founded in Hsinchu (Xinzhu), Taiwan, TSMC manufactures chips on a contract basis for a diverse client base. The largest independent fabricator of wafers for logic semiconductors, TSMC under Chang’s leadership has constructed state-of-the-art plants with the lowest break-even operating levels in the industry. In addition, the company has led the way in research and development and in its production, continually developing and utilizing the most advanced processes to increase the speed and enhance the performance of chips. In 2008, the firm announced that they would be spending US$5 billion to expand their Hsinchu plant and add further research and development capabilities.
Today, Chang serves on the advisory boards of the New York Stock Exchange, Stanford University, and the University of California at Berkeley. In 1998 he was selected by BusinessWeek as one of the ‘Top 25 Managers of the Year’ and ‘Stars of Asia’. During the same year he was named by BancAmerica as ‘One of the Most Significant Contributors in the 50 Years of Semiconductor Industry’. In addition he has received honorary doctorates from Chiao-Tung University, Tsinghua University, the Central University in Taiwan and Polytechnic University in the United States.