Morris Chang

Morris Chang (, Ningbo Wu: Jiann阴平去 Zong阴平去mœü阳舒; born 10 July 1931) is an American businessman and electrical engineer, originally from Ningbo, China. He built his business career first in the United States and then subsequently in Taiwan. He is the founder and former chairman and CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). He is regarded as the founder of Taiwan's semiconductor industry. , his net worth was estimated at US$3.4billion.

Early life in China
Chang was born in the city of Ningbo, situated within Chekiang in China, in 1931. When he was young, he wanted to become a novelist or journalist, though his father persuaded him otherwise. The elder Chang was an official in charge of finance for the Yin county government and later a bank manager. Due to his father's career and the outbreak of World War II/Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), the Chang family moved to Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Chongqing and Shanghai.

Chang spent most of his primary school years in British Hong Kong between the ages of six and eleven. In 1941, the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began and Chang's family went back to Shanghai and Ningbo to live for a few months, eventually making their way to the temporary capital, Chongqing. In 1948, as China was in the height of the restarted Chinese Civil War, a year before People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established and the Republic of China (ROC)'s retreat to Taiwan, Chang again moved to Hong Kong.

Moving to the United States
In 1949, Chang moved to the United States to attend Harvard University. He transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in his sophomore year and received his bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1952 and 1953, respectively. Chang failed two consecutive doctoral qualification examinations and eventually left MIT without obtaining a PhD. 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. He was tasked with improving germanium transistor yields, besides device development.

Three years later, he moved to Texas Instruments in 1958, 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.

Chang worked on a four-transistor project for TI where the manufacturing was done by IBM. This was one of the early semiconductor foundry relationships. Also at TI, Chang pioneered the then controversial idea of pricing semiconductors "ahead of the cost curve", which meant sacrificing early profits ("short term") to gain market share and achieve manufacturing yields that would result in greater profits over an extended timeline ("long-term").

During his 25-year career (1958–1983) at Texas Instruments, he rose up in the ranks to become the group vice president responsible for TI's worldwide semiconductor business. In the late 1970s, when TI's focus turned to calculators, digital watches and home computers, Chang felt like his career focused on semiconductors was at a dead end at TI.

Chang left TI and later became president and chief operating officer of General Instrument Corporation (1984–1985).

Move to 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. 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 future of advanced manufacturing appeared to be in Asia.

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 in Taiwan, where the ROC government is now based, having lost the mainland. 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.

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. 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 to serve as chairman of TSMC. In 2005, he handed TSMC's CEO position to Rick Tsai.

In June 2009, Chang returned to the position of TSMC's CEO once again. On June 5, 2018, Chang announced his retirement, succeeded by C.C. Wei as CEO and Mark Liu as chairman. Chang was awarded the Order of Propitious Clouds, First Class in September 2018.

Chang has served as Presidential Envoy of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to APEC several times. He represented Chen Shui-bian in 2006. Tsai Ing-wen appointed Chang to the same role six times from 2018 to 2023.

In an interview with the Brookings Institution in 2022, Chang said the US government’s efforts to increase onshore chip manufacturing by spending tens of billions dollars would be a very expensive and wasteful exercise in futility, the US would increase onshore semiconductor manufacturing somewhat at a very high cost, high unit costs, and non-competitive in the world market 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.

Personal
Morris Chang obtained American citizenship in 1962. He has represented as special envoy four times on behalf of the Taiwanese delegation to participate APEC Meetings under the name Chinese Taipei.

In 2009, Chang performed the role of Master Dragon in the first episode of “Let’s Go Guang!” a multimedia language program for children by aha!Chinese.

MIT named Building E52 the “Morris and Sophie Chang Building” in honor of Chang and his wife in 2016. Building E52 is the original home of the MIT Sloan School of Management and headquarters of the MIT Department of Economics.

Chang's wife, Sophie Chang, is a cousin of Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn. Chang has two stepdaughters through Sophie, and one daughter from his first marriage.

Affiliations

 * National Academy of Engineering (US)
 * MIT Corporation, MIT's board of trustees, Life Member Emeritus
 * Goldman Sachs member of board of directors (2001–2002)
 * Advisor to the Office of the President of the Republic of China
 * Committee of 100

Honorary doctorates

 * National Chengchi University, 2007
 * Asia University, Taiwan, 2015

Awards and recognitions

 * 1999, Exemplary Leadership Award from the Fabless Semiconductor Association (now Global Semiconductor Alliance), the first recipient of the award; now the award bears his name, "Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award"
 * 2000, IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal for Exceptional Contributions to Microelectronics Industry.
 * 2002 National Academy of Engineering Member
 * 2005, Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth
 * 2007, Computer History Museum Fellow Award, for dramatically accelerating the production of semiconductor-based devices and systems by developing an independent semiconductor manufacturing foundry.
 * 2008 Robert N. Noyce Award from the Semiconductor Industry Association (US)
 * 2011, IEEE Medal of Honor.
 * 2011, Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon from the Republic of China.
 * 2014 SPIE Visionary Award
 * 2018, Order of Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon from the Republic of China.
 * 2024, Order of Dr Sun Yat-sen with Grand Cordon from the Republic of China.