Huawei keeps trying to poach TSMC engineers by offering to triple their salaries
With its 61.7% share of the global semiconductor foundry market, TSMC is the world's most valuable semiconductor company and the largest independent semiconductor foundry.
A hot potato: Huawei has been dealing with the consequences of US sanctions for years now. To try and stay competitive, the Chinese giant has been poaching employees from other companies, with those within the Taiwanese semiconductor industry being a particularly enticing target. Huawei is certainly making offers that are hard to refuse, including salaries said to be up to three times higher than those at TSMC.
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With its 61.7% share of the global semiconductor foundry market, TSMC is the world's most valuable semiconductor company and the largest independent semiconductor foundry. It got to this position thanks to its advanced manufacturing capabilities.
It's not surprising, then, that Huawei is desperate to poach some of TSMC's top engineers. The Chinese company has been sanctioned by the US, having been placed on the Entity List in 2019, restricting its access to US technology and components without a special licence. It is also limited in its ability to acquire semiconductors made with US technology, even from foreign manufacturers such as TSMC.
"Please come work for us, we'll pay you loads!"
According to French publication Le Monde, Huawei has been trying to hire TSMC engineers every few months, a way of not only securing these employees' vast experience, but also in the hope of acquiring some of TSMC's trade secrets. As noted by Tom's Hardware, TSMC enforces strict project compartmentalization, thereby ensuring no single employee has wide access to its sensitive information. Therefore, Huawei and SMIC – China's leading chipmaker, which is also on the Entity List – have been casting their recruitment nets wide over TSMC in the hope of learning all they can about its confidential tech.
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