Semiconductor History | NSYSU, 22 July 2022 — YAGEO Joins Kaohsiung’s Talent Pact

On 22 July 2022, National Sun Yat-sen University unveiled its College of Semiconductor and Advanced Technology Research inside the International Research Building. YAGEO was one of seven companies that signed the industry–university pact at the ceremony. The group joined a ten-year commitment of NT$900 million from local technology companies. Alongside YAGEO were ASE, Laser Tek, OSE, WinWay, Taiflex, and Thinking Electronic. That roster made the new college more than a wafer-fabrication story. Its first two institutes paired advanced semiconductor packaging with precision electronic components—the latter aimed directly at the passive parts, materials, and electromechanical systems that let active chips work reliably. For YAGEO, the signing linked a global passive-component business to a local training pipeline. The company’s resistors, capacitors, and other components sit beside semiconductors in finished electronics, yet their manufacturing and materials problems demand their own specialists. The college had been approved in January 2022 and offered 120 places for its first intake. Its curriculum combined university study with extended company internships and research, letting participating firms help define topics, provide equipment access, and co-supervise students. This was a specifically southern Taiwan compact. All seven partners had operations in the Kaohsiung area, and the program focused on packaging, testing, and electronic components—fields already embedded in the city’s industrial base. The ceremony occupied the first floor and Kwang Chung Hall on the second floor of the International Research Building. The college later made its home on the sixth floor of the same building, giving the partnership a durable address rather than leaving it as a one-day signing. The moment also widened the meaning of “semiconductor talent.” A reliable electronic system depends not only on the transistor density inside a chip, but also on the passive components, substrates, interconnects, packaging, testing, and manufacturing knowledge around it. The cover is a 2017 aerial view of National Sun Yat-sen University beside Sizihwan; it shows the compact campus where the International Research Building became the venue for this 2022 pact, not the ceremony itself. Photo: 黃明寶, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons