Before assuming his current position, Dr. Hou held several key leadership roles. He served as Vice President of Design and Technology Platform from 2011 to 2018, and later as Vice President of Technology Development starting in August 2018. Earlier in his career, from 1997 to 2007, he established TSMC’s technology design kit
The Shift to System-Level AI Drives Next-Generation Silicon
At its 2026 Technology Symposium, TSMC delivered a clear message: the AI era has entered a new phase. The primary constraint is no longer model capability, but the systems required to run those models at scale. Addressing this shift will demand significant advances in semiconductor technology, spanning compute, memory, interconnects,… Read More
All in One Bluetooth Audio: A Complete Solution on a TSMC 12nm Single Die
The rapid evolution of wireless audio has placed unprecedented demands on system integration, power efficiency, and performance. Against this backdrop, the webinar “All-in-One Bluetooth Audio: A Complete Solution on a TSMC 12nm Single Die” offers a timely and technically rich exploration of how modern semiconductor design… Read More
Elon Musk Needs to Put His Fab Money Where his Mouth is!
To me this is going to be one of the bigger Chicken Little moments in the history of semiconductors. Mostly because we are now a click driven society and the media is plagued by so called influencers that live and die by clicks. In my 40+ years as a semiconductor professional I have witnessed many of these Chicken Little moments with … Read More
Two Paths for AI in Semiconductor Manufacturing: Platform Integration vs. Point Solutions
Semiconductor manufacturing has become one of the most data-intensive industrial environments in the world, and AI is rapidly becoming central to how fabs operate and optimize. Yet, rather than converging on a single model for AI adoption, the industry is evolving along two distinct paths. One centered on platform-scale… Read More
Carbon in the Age of AI Chips: What the Semiconductor Industry Needs to Know This Earth Day
Stephen Russell: Senior Technical Fellow, TechInsights
Every April, Earth Day prompts a flurry of corporate sustainability pledges and green-tinted press releases. But for the semiconductor industry in 2026, the conversation has moved well past pledges. Carbon accountability is now a procurement requirement, a regulatory… Read More
TSMC Technology Symposium 2026 Overview
Yes, it is that time of year again, the 2026 TSMC Technology Symposium kick-off event in Silicon Valley. TSMC has never been in a better position to forecast the future of semiconductor technology and the industry itself. TSMC closely collaborates with the top semiconductor companies around the world and the top players in the … Read More
Is Intel About to Take Flight?
The Pan Am–Boeing playbook and what Musk’s Terafab order could mean for Intel Foundry
“We either build the Terafab or we don’t have the chips.” That’s Elon Musk, speaking to Reuters, stating a supply constraint as plainly as anyone has stated one. TSMC is sold out. Samsung is committed. The existing supply chain can’t expand fast… Read More
Disaggregating LLM Inference: Inside the SambaNova Intel Heterogeneous Compute Blueprint
SambaNova Systems and Intel have introduced a blueprint for heterogeneous inference that reflects a significant shift in how modern large language model (LLM) workloads are deployed. Instead of relying on a single accelerator type, the proposed architecture assigns different phases of inference to specialized hardware:… Read More
TSMC to Elon Musk: There are no Shortcuts in Building Fabs!
The opening of the TSMC 2026 earning call series brought no surprises. CC Wei has done more than 30 such calls since taking the CEO position in 2018 and he never fails to disappoint. Once again, CC Wei reported numbers above guidance driven by strong demand and flawless execution. This illustrates the benefit of TSMC’s close collaborations… Read More


ASML High-NA EUV is Not Ready for High-Volume Production