Qualla: Hsinchu Science Park

Hsinchu Science Park: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit T Gordon Cheng, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1976, a Taiwanese government minister named Shu Shien-Siu returned from a tour of technology hubs in the United States, Europe, and Japan with an idea that would reshape the global economy. Shu, who was also the former president of National Tsing Hua University, wanted to build Taiwan's own Silicon Valley. Not a metaphorical one - a literal recreation, placed strategically next to two of the island's best engineering universities, designed to lure back the Taiwanese scientists and engineers who had left for American labs and never returned. Four years later, on December 15, 1980, the Hsinchu Science Park opened on the eastern edge of Hsinchu City. Within a generation, this industrial park would become the single most important piece of real estate in the semiconductor industry, home to the foundries that manufacture the chips powering nearly every electronic device on Earth.

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Image: T Gordon Cheng | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hsinchu Science Park: A Minister's Blank Check

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chang.ms, CC BY-SA 4.0. The park's origin story reads like a heist film cast with bureaucrats. Shu Shien-Siu conceived the idea. President Chiang Ching-kuo assigned the construction. Li Kwoh-ting, representing the Executive Yuan, recruited Morris Chang from Texas Instruments to lead the Industrial Techn...

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Image: Chang.ms | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hsinchu Science Park: The Foundry That Changed Everything

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit T Gordon Cheng, CC BY-SA 4.0. Hsinchu Science Park houses more than 500 high-tech companies across six campuses spanning 1,471 hectares, but two companies define its global significance: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and United Microelectronics Corporation. Both were born at the nearby Industrial...

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Image: T Gordon Cheng | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hsinchu Science Park: Six Campuses and a Space Agency

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Weberwang at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The original Hsinchu campus straddling East District and Baoshan has expanded into a constellation of six sites: Zhunan and Tongluo in Miaoli County, Longtan in Taoyuan, Yilan in Yilan County, and a Biomedical Science Park in Zhubei, Hsinchu County. Each campus serves a different...

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Image: Weberwang at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hsinchu Science Park: The Price of Progress

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 總統府, CC BY 2.0. Growth at Hsinchu was not without friction. Local residents protested water and air pollution from the manufacturing processes - semiconductor fabrication uses large quantities of chemicals and ultrapure water, and the waste streams are difficult to manage. The park activated its...

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Image: 總統府 | CC BY 2.0