TSMC Founder Dr. Morris Chang is First-Ever Recipient of IEEE's Distinguished Robert N. Noyce Medal for 2000; TSMC Chairman and Foundry Pioneer Honored for Industry Contributions.

Business Editors

HSINCHU, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 26, 2000

Dr. Morris Chang, founder and chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC), received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) first-ever Robert N. Noyce Medal for his vision and leadership in pioneering the silicon integrated circuit foundry industry. Dr. Chang received the award during the IEEE's annual honors ceremony on June 24 in Vancouver, B.C., Canada from Bruce A. Eisenstein, the current president of the IEEE.

The IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal was established to honor exceptional contributions to the microelectronics industry.

"The IEEE is honored to present the first-ever Robert N. Noyce award to Dr. Morris Chang," said Mr. Eisenstein. "Going forward, this award will be presented to individuals who, like Dr. Chang, have demonstrated contributions in multiple areas including technology development, business development, industry leadership, developments of technology policy and standards development."

The award, sponsored by Intel Corporation and the Intel Foundation, honors the late Robert Noyce, co-inventor of the integrated circuit, co-founder of both Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. Dr. Noyce was also a founder of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and president and CEO of SEMATECH from 1988 until his death in 1990.

"Mr. Robert Noyce was one of most influential individuals in the global semiconductor industry. I am therefore gratified to be the recipient of an award in his honor," said Dr. Chang. "This award is a significant recognition by the members of the IEEE that the foundry model is indeed a major business and technology movement within the IC industry. The success of this movement is further reflected, not just in TSMC's success, but also in the success of the flourishing fabless semiconductor market."

The Robert N. Noyce medal also includes a US$20,000 honorarium, which Dr. Chang will donate to the TSMC Education and Culture Foundation. Founded in 1998, the TSMC Education and Culture Foundation is dedicated to expanding TSMC's role as a corporate citizen in expression of concern for Taiwan's social development through grants to organizations engaged in education, community service, art and cultural activities.

About Morris Chang

Dr. Morris Chang founded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world's first dedicated IC foundry, in 1987 as the crowning achievement of his career in the semiconductor industry - a career with roots that span half a century.

Dr. Chang was raised in Shanghai, China, where he graduated from high school in 1948. He then came to the United States and earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1952 and 1953, respectively. He worked at Sylvania until 1958, when he joined Texas Instruments where he remained for the next 25 years. Two and a half of those years were spent on a TI Fellowship at Stanford University, where he earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1964.

When he returned from Stanford, Dr. Chang converted from technical management to general management at TI. Over the years he was general manager of germanium transistors, general manager of silicon transistors, and then was named TI's integrated circuits manager in 1966. In 1972, Dr. Chang became TI's group vice president, in charge of the semiconductor division, the largest semiconductor operation in the world at the time. From 1978 to 1980 he was group vice president in charge of consumer products and then spent two years as TI's senior vice president responsible for quality, education and productivity.

Dr. Chang resigned from TI in 1983 to join General Instruments as president and CEO. In 1985, he was recruited by the Republic of China (ROC) to serve as president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), a ROC national-level, government-established non-profit organization for applied research in industrial technology. He founded TSMC in 1987 but continued to work with ITRI, serving as that organization's chairman of the board from 1988 to 1994. Today, Dr. Chang serves as chairman of TSMC, Wyse Technology and Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation, which he founded in 1994.

Last December, Dr. Chang was honored with the Fabless Semiconductor Association's first Exemplary Leadership Award, following which they renamed the award in his honor.

About TSMC

TSMC is the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, providing the industry's leading process technology, library and IP options and other leading-edge foundry services. With the mergers of WSMC and TASMC (effective June 30, 2000), TSMC is constructing or operating 11 fabs and has substantial capacity commitments at three additional facilities jointly operated by TSMC and its partners. In 2000, TSMC expects to have the capacity for nearly 3.4 million 8-inch equivalent wafers. Fabrication processes offered by TSMC include CMOS logic, mixed-mode, volatile and non-volatile memory, and BiCMOS. TSMC's corporate headquarters are in Hsin-Chu, Taiwan. More information about TSMC is available through the World Wide Web at http://www.tsmc.com.

About IEEE

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) helps to advance global prosperity by promoting the engineering process of creating, developing, integrating, sharing and applying knowledge about electrical and information technologies and sciences for the benefit of humanity and the profession. It is headquartered in Placataway, New Jersey.