Foxconn, a significant Apple supplier and iPhone manufacturer, announced on Tuesday that it has hired Chiang Shang-yi, a former senior executive of Chinese and Taiwanese chipmakers SMIC and TSMC, to head its expanding drive in the chip industry.
The largest contract electronics manufacturer in the world, Foxconn, is best known for producing iPhones and other Apple goods, however it has recently diversified its business by stepping up its chip production.
In September of last year, it established a joint venture with India's Vedanta to establish semiconductor and display production units there. It had already purchased a chip factory from Taiwan chipmaker Macronix International.
In a statement, Foxconn announced that Chiang had been appointed to the newly established position of semiconductor strategy officer.
His extensive industry knowledge, according to the corporation, will offer "invaluable assistance" and technical direction for the group's global semiconductor deployment plan.
Foxconn Chairman Liu Young-way said in the statement, "We are happy to have such a seasoned semiconductor expert join us at this critical moment in the group's development.
The biggest contract chip manufacturer in the world, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), employed Chiang as vice president of research and development.
He most recently served as vice chairman of Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), China's biggest and most technologically sophisticated chipmaker.
About a year after joining SMIC for the second time, Chiang left his employment there in November of last year.
Given Taiwan's worries about losing chip expertise to its enormous neighbour, which has failed to duplicate the island's success in semiconductor manufacturing, his transfer to China was contentious.
