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Liang Mong Song

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Liang Mong Song
梁孟松
Born1952 (age 71–72)
Taiwan
EducationNational Cheng Kung University
University of California, Berkeley
TitleCo-CEO of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation

Liang Mong Song is a Taiwanese electronic engineer. He is the co-chief executive office of the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. He was previously an engineer at TSMC and Samsung Electronics.[1][2]

He is known as one of the "Six Knights of TSMC R&D".[3]

Education

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Liang obtained a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering of National Cheng Kung University, and then studied under Chenming Hu at the University of California, Berkeley.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] After obtaining a doctorate in electrical engineering, Liang was elected as a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.[11][12][13] He was responsible for the memory-related work of ultra-micro semiconductors.[14][15]

According to the data of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Liang owns 181 semiconductor technology patents, all of which are key technical research.[16] He has published more than 350 technical papers in Taiwan and the United States.[17]

Career

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Work at TSMC

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After returning to Taiwan in 1992, Liang served as an engineer and senior R&D director of TSMC. He is credited with nearly 500 TSMC patents,[18][19] and was responsible for or participated in the most advanced development of each generation of TSMC's manufacturing processes.[20] In 2003, TSMC defeated IBM with its own technology.[18] Among the TSMC R&D teams commended by the Executive Yuan, Liang Mengsong, who was responsible for the 130-nanometer "copper process" advanced module, ranked second in contribution only behind his boss, Chiang Shang-yi.[21]

In February 2009, Liang Mong Song left TSMC and joined National Tsing Hua University as a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Institute of Electronics. He left for South Korea more than half a year later.[6][16][18]

Switch to Samsung Electronics

[edit]

Under the conditions that Samsung Electronics offered Liang three years' salary equivalent to his ten years of service at TSMC,[4] Liang agreed to join Samsung[22][23] and at the same time took away more than 20 employees, including those from his old TSMC engineering department.[6][21]

To comply with the period stipulated in the non-compete clause, Liang began to work as a visiting professor at Sungkyunkwan University under Samsung in October 2010, and actually taught at Samsung's internal corporate training university - Samsung Semiconductor Institute of Technology.[24] On 13 July 2011, Liang officially joined Samsung as the chief technology officer of Samsung's LSI department and was also the executive vice president of Samsung's wafer foundry.[5]

At that time, Samsung was at the R&D bottleneck of switching from the 28 nm process to the 20-nanometer process. Liang advocated that Samsung abandon the 20 nm process and directly upgrade from the 28 nm process to the 14 nm process.[4] In the end, Samsung's 14 nm process was mass-produced about half a year earlier than TSMC.[9]

After Liang assisted Samsung in successfully developing the 14 nm process, Samsung won the first batch of orders for the Apple A9[6][25] and Qualcomm's order,[26] which were originally exclusive to TSMC in the Apple processor-related market. This caused TSMC's stock price to fall for a time, losing 80% of Apple's orders and losing US$1 billion. In October 2011, TSMC launched a four-year-old lawsuit against Liang, accusing him of supposedly leaking TSMC's business secrets to Samsung.[4][9][14][24]

TSMC Lawsuit

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During his tenure at Samsung Electronics, Liang rapidly narrowed the technology gap between Samsung and TSMC, which caused TSMC to believe that Liang was suspected of leaking trade secrets and filed a lawsuit against him. TSMC alleged in the lawsuit that from 2005 to 2009, Samsung Electronics' annual foundry revenue was less than US$400 million. Since 2010, after Samsung began to be OEM for Apple's A-series processors, its foundry revenue increased to US$1.2 billion (of which US$800 million was Apple related), reaching US$3.95 billion in 2013.[27] South Korea entered the wafer foundry industry where a few companies have the ability to compete and by 2018, Samsung's foundry revenue climbed to approximately US$10 billion, and was attempting to surpass TSMC in the 3 nm process.[4] TSMC believed that Samsung's development was closely related to Liang joining. TSMC stated even if Liang did not leak any trade secrets, he helped advise them on the direction to take which would save a lot of time and resources.[9][19][28]

An expert technical investigation report commissioned by TSMC showed that because Samsung's product technology was licensed from IBM, its product features were originally the same as those of IBM, but very different from those of TSMC.[21] In the years after 2009, the differences between the product features of Samsung and TSMC were sharply reduced and became extremely similar. External experts in the survey report used state-of-the-art electron microscopes to compare in detail the main structural features and component materials of the latest four-generation products of IBM, TSMC and Samsung.[9] The results showed that Samsung and TSMC's products are highly similar[21][9] so TSMC determined that Liang had leaked relevant business secrets to Samsung[24] causing it to catch up with TSMC.[18][21]

TSMC's lawsuit against Liang failed in the first instance of the Intellectual Property Court of Taiwan. The court agreed with Liang's attorney Wellington Koo and ruled that the non-compete period had expired and his right to work should not be deprived.[29][30] TSMC appealed against the verdict. In the second instance the court sided with TSMC as it found Sungkyunkwan University had a special relationship with Samsung.[30][8] Liang refused to accept the appeal, and the final verdict of the Supreme Court was Liang could not continue to provide services to Samsung in any way until after the end of 2015. The judgment was also the first time in Taiwan's court history that senior corporate executives were prohibited from working for a competitor company after the non-compete period has expired. Some media commented it as a "historic judgment".[5][19][21]

Move to SMIC

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In 2015, Liang had left Samsung. In 2017 he was hired at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation Co-CEO. After he joined, SMIC improved the yield of its mass production and shrank the size of its chips. He pushed for smaller chips which prompted clashes with SMIC executives and shareholders who also wanted to focus on less-advanced but profitable areas.[1]

In late 2020, Liang complained he wasn't consulted when SMIC brought in his former boss Chiang Shang-yi as deputy chairman. A letter containing his grievances was published online in Chinese media. He also wrote that he had led a team to complete the development of 7 nm process at SMIC.[1]

In 2022, Liang was still with SMIC and the 7 nm process was completed. Chiang was no longer with SMIC.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Yang, Jie (8 August 2022). "A 70-Year-Old Taiwanese Chip Wizard Is Driving China's Tech Ambitions". The Wall Street Journal.
  2. ^ Deng, Iris (14 March 2024). "Retired SMIC veteran joins China's top memory chip maker CXMT: Report". SCMP.
  3. ^ "專挑對手讓台積電痛…研發六騎士到梁孟松的恨18年前照見證歷史". Archived from the original on 19 September 2023. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e "助力台积电三星崛起" (in Simplified Chinese). 20 December 2019. Archived from the original on 26 December 2020.
  5. ^ a b c "如指紋般的技術特徵」都遭三星模仿！台積電告贏離職研發處長梁孟松" (in Traditional Chinese). 25 August 2015. Archived from the original on 6 August 2016.
  6. ^ a b c d "中芯国际内斗的背后：蒋尚义为何而来？梁孟松为何要走？" (in Simplified Chinese). 18 December 2020. Archived from the original on 25 December 2020.
  7. ^ "中芯风暴：蒋尚义来梁孟松走，台积两老将恩怨未了" (in Simplified Chinese). 17 December 2020. Archived from the original on 26 December 2020.
  8. ^ a b "獵殺叛將－揭密梁孟松投效三星始末" (in Traditional Chinese). 20 January 2015. Archived from the original on 12 April 2020.
  9. ^ a b c d e f "改变全球晶圆格局的男人：梁孟松或加盟中国晶圆厂" (in Simplified Chinese). 24 December 2016. Archived from the original on 12 April 2020.
  10. ^ "梁孟松辞职！中芯国际爆瓜后股价大跌" (in Simplified Chinese). 16 December 2020. Archived from the original on 26 December 2020.
  11. ^ "中芯国际拼了！2000万豪宅+153万美金年薪激励核心人才 刚刚还宣布芯片涨价" (in Simplified Chinese). 2 April 2021. Archived from the original on 3 April 2021. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  12. ^ "中芯国际拼了！送2000万住房 薪资翻4倍" (in Simplified Chinese). 2 April 2021. Archived from the original on 4 April 2021. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  13. ^ "中芯国际拼了！2000万豪宅+153万美金年薪激励核心人才". Sohu (in Simplified Chinese). 2 April 2021. Archived from the original on 4 April 2021. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  14. ^ a b "梁孟松加盟中芯国际" (in Simplified Chinese). 27 November 2017. Archived from the original on 3 January 2018.
  15. ^ "看好梁孟松却不看好中芯国际,梁孟松能否带领公司走向辉煌" (in Simplified Chinese). 27 November 2017. Archived from the original on 3 January 2018.
  16. ^ a b 吳永猛、陳松柏、林長瑞 (12 October 2016). 企業倫理: 精華理論及本土個案分析 (in Traditional Chinese). 臺北市: 五南文化|五南圖書出版股份有限公司. p. 376页. ISBN 978-9571187976. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
  17. ^ "梁孟松是哪里人_梁孟松出生地_梁孟松个人简历 - 工程师故事 - 电子发烧友网". www.elecfans.com. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
  18. ^ a b c d "台積叛將梁孟松背叛三星「跳槽中芯」網友封「半導體呂布」" (in Traditional Chinese). 16 October 2017. Archived from the original on 12 April 2020.
  19. ^ a b c "梁孟松加盟中芯国际，两岸半导体技术战一触即发" (in Simplified Chinese). 26 April 2017. Archived from the original on 29 April 2017.
  20. ^ "台积电前高管梁孟松加盟中芯,或带领攻克14nm工艺" (in Simplified Chinese). 27 April 2017. Archived from the original on 27 April 2017.
  21. ^ a b c d e f "當年一個叛徒投奔三星，害台積電損失300多億...回顧兩大半導體廠8年晶片大戰" (in Traditional Chinese). 22 December 2016. Archived from the original on 30 December 2016.
  22. ^ "14纳米工艺量产，中芯国际重奖高管1.7亿元股权" (in Simplified Chinese). 28 May 2020. Archived from the original on 26 December 2020.
  23. ^ "14nm工艺量产，中芯国际重奖高管1.7亿元股权" (in Simplified Chinese). 28 May 2020. Archived from the original on 26 December 2020.
  24. ^ a b c "叛將帶機密跳槽三星，台積電贏官司輸優勢" (in Serbo-Croatian). 25 August 2015. Archived from the original on 10 December 2018.
  25. ^ "对抗台积电，比IPO募资更重要的是，中芯国际尽快挖角一流人才" (in Simplified Chinese). 7 May 2020. Archived from the original on 26 December 2020.
  26. ^ "Reports: Samsung-powered version of Apple A9 is too hot to handle". 8 October 2015. Archived from the original on 26 December 2020.
  27. ^ "三星力拼台积电，胜算几何？" (in Simplified Chinese). 17 August 2019. Archived from the original on 26 December 2020.
  28. ^ "台积电传奇人物梁孟松投奔大陆，或带领中芯攻克14nm工艺" (in Simplified Chinese). 27 April 2017. Archived from the original on 3 June 2017.
  29. ^ "獵殺台積叛將的女法官 讀懂改穿律師袍的她" (in Traditional Chinese). 2 March 2020. Archived from the original on 27 March 2020.
  30. ^ a b "台积电梁孟松为何走_台积电的厉害之处" (in Simplified Chinese). 27 November 2017. Archived from the original on 3 January 2018.
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