Morris Chang

Education in the United States

After high school, Chang decided to pursue engineering; because there were no universities dedicated to science or technology in Hong Kong, his father arranged for him to attend college in the United States. Chang Ssu‑hou (張思侯), Chang's uncle and a professor at Northeastern University, assisted him in applying to Harvard University, where he was admitted. In July 1949, Chang enrolled at Harvard College, where he was the only Chinese student out of its 1,100 undergraduates and placed in the top ten percent of the class his freshman year.[9] He majored in applied physics and engineering sciences, but, in order to gain better career prospects in engineering, transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in his sophomore year.[7]

To defray tuition expenses, Chang won a scholarship at MIT and worked as a copy typist and research assistant under MIT professor Joseph Kaye. He took on the university's maximum course load and stayed during the summer to attend summer classes, finishing his undergraduate degree in two years instead of the expected three. He graduated from MIT with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 1952, a Master of Science in 1953, and a Master of Engineering (M.E.) in 1955.[10]

Chang did not pass two consecutive doctoral qualification examinations and eventually left MIT without obtaining a PhD.[8] In 1955, he turned down a job offer from Ford Motor Company and joined Sylvania Semiconductor, then known as a small semiconductor division of Sylvania Electric Products.[11] He was tasked with improving germanium transistor yields, besides device development.[7] In 1958, he moved to Texas Instruments (TI), which was then rapidly rising in its field. After three years at TI, he rose to manager of the engineering section of the company. It was then, in 1961, that TI decided to invest in him by giving him the opportunity to obtain his PhD degree, which he received in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1964 after only about two years of study.[12] He earned his doctorate under John L. Moll, William E. Spicer, and Gerald Pearson. His dissertation was titled, "Optical absorption and photoluminescence of doped GaAs and (InxGa1-x)As".[13]

Taiwan

In the early 1980s, while still at Texas Instruments, Chang witnessed TI's factory in Japan achieving twice the chip production yield as TI's factory in Texas.[17] Observing that the staff and technicians in Japan are better qualified and had lower turnover, and failing to recruit the same caliber of staff in the United States, he concluded that the future of advanced manufacturing appeared to be in Asia.[17]

After he left General Instrument Corporation, Sun Yun-suan, Premier of the Republic of China (ROC), recruited him to become chairman and president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan, where the ROC government is now based, having lost the mainland.[19] This marked his return to the ROC, initially thought to last for a few years, three decades after he left during the chaotic Chinese Civil War mainly between the People's Republic of China and the ROC.[17]

As the head of a government-sponsored non-profit, he was in charge of promoting industrial and technological development in Taiwan. Chang founded TSMC in 1987 thanks to transfer of production technology and license of intellectual property from Philips in exchange for 27.6 percent equity and financing from the government's National Development Fund, Executive Yuan for 48.3 percent stake.[20][21] This is the beginning of the period where firms increasingly saw value in outsourcing their manufacturing capabilities to Asia. Soon, TSMC became one of the world's most profitable chip makers. Chang left ITRI in 1994 and became chairman of Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation from 1994 to 2003 while continuing as chairman of TSMC. In 2005, he handed TSMC's CEO position to Rick Tsai.[22]

In June 2009, Chang returned to the position of TSMC's CEO once again.[23] The same year, Chang performed the role of Master Dragon in the first episode of “Let’s Go Guang!”, an animated Chinese-learning program for children.[24] In 2016, MIT named Building E52 the “Morris and Sophie Chang Building” in honor of Chang and his wife. Building E52 is the original home of the MIT Sloan School of Management and headquarters of the MIT Department of Economics.[25][26]

On June 5, 2018, Chang announced his retirement from TSMC, succeeded by C.C. Wei as CEO and Mark Liu as chairman.[27][28] Chang was awarded the Order of Propitious Clouds, First Class in September 2018.[29]

Chang has served as Presidential Envoy of the Republic of China (Taiwan), under the name Chinese Taipei, to APEC several times. He represented Chen Shui-bian in 2006.[30][31] Tsai Ing-wen appointed Chang to the same role six times from 2018 to 2023.[32][33][34][35]

In an interview with the Brookings Institution in 2022, Chang said the US federal government’s efforts to increase onshore chip manufacturing by spending tens of billions of dollars would be a very expensive and wasteful exercise in futility. He believed the US would increase onshore semiconductor manufacturing somewhat at a very high cost, and produce at high unit costs, rendering it unable to compete with factories like TSMC. Chang said TSMC chairman Mark Liu decided to invest US$12 billion in Arizona at the urging of the US government.[36][37]