Forging Taiwan's Silicon Shield

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2022

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Taiwan is at the center of a global feud. Its main defense may be what some call its "Silicon Shield" — its powerful semiconductor industry. On today's show, the story of how one economic hero helped to transform Taiwan's economy and create the "Taiwan Miracle."

Subscribe to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:03.4	I don't know what a semiconductor does.
0:08.8	I don't understand it.
0:10.6	I've never understood it.
0:13.1	Well, semiconductor is a very simple way, right?
0:17.9	Sure, very simple.
0:19.5	If you are Min Wu, who runs a multi-billion dollar semiconductor company in what is now
0:26.0	the semiconductor capital of the world, Taiwan.
0:29.4	Semi means a half.
0:31.3	So this is not a conductor, but the end of certain conditions and they can conduct in
0:37.6	the current.
0:39.0	Semiconductors are these little electronic building blocks that can do all kinds of different
0:42.7	things.
0:43.7	Semiconductors are key to making microchips and microchips are critical parts of everything,
0:49.5	phones and laptops and satellites and even nuclear weapons.
0:53.6	But Min Wu fell in love with semiconductors way back in the 1960s when no one knew
0:59.3	exactly what they would become.
1:01.4	Min just knew that he was thrilled by the technology.
1:04.4	Min, when this was a new technology, like this was you were learning about it at school.
1:10.5	How did you explain this to your parents or your grandma even?
1:15.5	Well, fortunately, I don't have to explain to them because they have no interest in finding
1:20.6	out what I'm doing.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.