Interestingly, in the 1970s, before any fabs on the island, Taiwan arranged for semiconductor engineers from the iconic but slowly dying American company RCA to

Interestingly, in the 1970s, before any fabs on the island, Taiwan arranged for semiconductor engineers from the iconic but slowly dying American company RCA to transfer their technology to a visiting Taiwanese team, establishing what would later become TSMC. RCA pioneered so much: radio, TV, color TV, NBC... And just as it was starting to decline and die, its semiconductor knowledge was transferred to Taiwan! Asianometry has a great video on YouTube detailing the creation of TSMC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fVrWDdll0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fVrWDdll0g