According to United Daily News, Wu Cheng-wen, the head of Taiwan’s National Science Council, believes mainland China’s semiconductor industry is more than ten years behind Taiwan’s. While some believe that Taiwan’s chip sector is only three years ahead of that in mainland China, Wu Cheng-wen says that as TSMC advances to 2nm, its China-based peer can barely produce 7nm chips. But there is a significant catch.
Wu Cheng-wen expressed skepticism during a session at the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee, where he was invited to discuss Taiwan’s research sustainability and policy communication. He responded to questions about a Japanese media report — based on an examination of the application processor in Huawei’s latest smartphone — suggesting that China’s semiconductor capabilities were rapidly closing in on TSMC’s, only lagging by three years. However, Wu believes the gap is still significant, possibly exceeding ten years, especially with TSMC’s continued development of advanced manufacturing processes.
