TSMC to give each employee NT$20,000 Sports Day bonus

Taipei, Oct. 26 (CNA) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chipmaker, said Saturday that each of its Taiwan-based employees in nonmanagerial roles will get NT$20,000 (US$624) as a special Sports Day bonus.

C.C. Wei (魏哲家), who succeeded his retired predecessor Mark Liu (劉德音) in June as TSMC chairman, received a loud ovation from employees gathered at Hsinchu County Stadium for the company's annual sports day when he announced the bonus.

According to TSMC, about 60,000 employees in Taiwan who joined the company before May 31 are eligible to receive the special bonus, translating to a total financial commitment of about NT$1.2 billion.

The annual Sports Day event, which started in 1993, is something TSMC's employees look forward to because of the sizable bonus that usually comes with it.

Therefore, like the previous Sports Day event, Wei told his employees that the company would give a "small" gift to its employees this year, referring to the NT$20,000 bonus.

While Wei described the gift as "small," this year's Sports Day bonus beat last year's special bonus of NT$16,000 at a time when TSMC saw its bottom line improving on the back of its lead over its peers in advanced chip process development.

In the first nine months of this year, TSMC's net profit totaled NT$798.59 billion, up 33.1 percent compared with the same period last year. The chipmaker has forecast its sales will grow almost 30 percent from a year earlier in U.S. dollar terms this year.

Sports Day was canceled for three years before 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but TSMC still gave employees special bonuses of NT$12,000 in 2020 and NT$16,000 in 2021 and 2022.

TSMC founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) and his wife Sophie Chang (張淑芬), chairperson of the TSMC Charity Foundation, attended the Sports Day as they had done before to get together with TSMC's employees.

Addressing the event, Wei said he was delighted to see many overseas employees from Shanghai, Nanjing, Japan, Europe and the United States unite with their counterparts in Taiwan to spend a happy moment at the sports event, demonstrating their sportsmanship.

Wei said TSMC took on many challenges in its 37-year history and reached a new milestone this year with the efforts in developing the sophisticated 2-nanometer process proceeding very smoothly. The 2nm process is slated to start mass production in 2025, while the chipmaker is also developing the A16 process, an upgraded version of the 2nm process, with commercial production scheduled for the second half of 2026.

Wei said TSMC's overseas expansion plans are also proceeding very well, which shows the chipmaker has taken a critical role in the global semiconductor industry.

In February, through a joint venture -- Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, Inc. (JASM) -- TSMC inaugurated the first wafer fab in Kumamoto, which will start commercial production in the fourth quarter of this year. JASM is owned by TSMC, Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corp., Denso Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp.

Construction of its second advanced wafer fab in Kumamoto, Japan is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of next year with mass production slated for 2027.

In the U.S. state of Arizona, where TSMC is building two advanced wafer fabs and plans a third, Wei said the first plant conducted a trial run in April, using the 4nm process with satisfactory yield rates, and commercial production is scheduled to begin in early 2025.

The second fab in Arizona will roll out chips made on the more sophisticated 3nm and 2nm processes and mass production is scheduled in 2028, and the third facility in Arizona is under planning and aims to produce chips using 2nm or more advanced processes, with production beginning by the end of the decade.

In August, TSMC broke ground on a 12-inch wafer fab in Dresden, Germany through a joint venture called European Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which includes Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG and NXP Semiconductors N.V.

Wei praised Chang for setting up TSMC and building TSMC into a world-class chipmaking company, saying the chipmaker is a global company, instead of only a Taiwanese firm with diversity, equality and inclusive values in focus.

Speaking at the Sports Day event, Chang, who retired from the company in 2018, reiterated trade globalization has died amid escalating geopolitical tensions, and as TSMC has become a hotly contested commodity in the world, it is possible for the company to face more challenges ahead.

Chang said he has faith that TSMC will continue to create miracles in the global semiconductor industry on the back of the leadership of the current excellent management

Chang added that TSMC Sports Day was the happiest moment in a year for him as he was excited to witness its employees showing their spirits, unity and sportsmanship.

TSMC continued to grow under three major pillars: the lead in technologies, the excellence in manufacturing and trust from its clients, Chang said.

The 93-year-old electronics guru is known as the "father of semiconductors" in Taiwan's integrated circuit industry for founding and building TSMC into the world's largest pure-play wafer foundry operator.