Semiconductor giant SMIC rewards senior Taiwanese executive with hefty compensation as China builds up chip sector’s hi-tech talent pool

[soAsian]

China’s top chip maker quadruples salary for senior Taiwanese executive

SMIC co-chief executive Liang Mong-song’s annual pay reached US$1.53 million in 2020, up 450 per cent from a year earlier, as China spends lavishly to woo and retain talent in its semiconductor industry.

www.scmp.com

Liang Mong-song is getting 3.4 mil USD. what is China's offering to a regular engineer from TSMC?

"Liang revealed that he leads a team of 2,000 engineers who are tasked to complete the development of process nodes from 28-nanometre to 7-nm – a mission that could take other companies more than 10 years to complete." is that possible without ASML's EUV and in 10 years?

 

[tonyget]

EUV is not required for 7nm node, TSMC's first gen 7nm use DUV

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Look at the revenue SMIC 14nm has generated thus far. Very small due to difficult yields. I'm glad to see SMIC pushing on but I would not get too excited about it. Clearly SMIC has not cracked the TSMC ultrafast FinFET yield code. Hiring TSMC workers is good but no one TSMC person has the secret recipe. TSMC has been very good at compartmentalizing their trade secrets.

 

[Paul2]

Look at the revenue SMIC 14nm has generated thus far. Very small due to difficult yields. I'm glad to see SMIC pushing on but I would not get too excited about it. Clearly SMIC has not cracked the TSMC ultrafast FinFET yield code. Hiring TSMC workers is good but no one TSMC person has the secret recipe. TSMC has been very good at compartmentalizing their trade secrets.

Indeed, TSMC does give 7 digit salaries for their top engineers, and that the primary reason for most process people to stick there when they get to gm/vp level, but otherwise TSMC's remunerations are laughably low for a job requiring 20 years of your life. Senior process engineers were earning $54k USD around 5 years ago.

It's process RnD where most of earning potential is, and where TSMC gets people to sign the most ridiculous NDA in the industry, but try to get there...