Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abstracts
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- Part I Concepts and measurements in innovation
- Part II Institutional and spatial aspects of information and knowledge flows
- 5 Tacit knowledge in production systems: how important is geography?
- 6 The self-aware firm: information needs, acquisition strategies, and utilization prospects
- 7 Theorizing the gendered institutional bases of innovative regional economies
- 8 Multinationals and transnational social space for learning: knowledge creation and transfer through global R&D networks
- 9 Brain circulation and regional innovation: the Silicon Valley–Hsinchu–Shanghai triangle
- Part III Institutions and innovation systems
- Index
- References
9 - Brain circulation and regional innovation: the Silicon Valley–Hsinchu–Shanghai triangle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abstracts
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- Part I Concepts and measurements in innovation
- Part II Institutional and spatial aspects of information and knowledge flows
- 5 Tacit knowledge in production systems: how important is geography?
- 6 The self-aware firm: information needs, acquisition strategies, and utilization prospects
- 7 Theorizing the gendered institutional bases of innovative regional economies
- 8 Multinationals and transnational social space for learning: knowledge creation and transfer through global R&D networks
- 9 Brain circulation and regional innovation: the Silicon Valley–Hsinchu–Shanghai triangle
- Part III Institutions and innovation systems
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
After earning a master's degree in electrical engineering at Texas Tech University, Jimmy Lee, like thousands of other immigrant engineers, was drawn to Silicon Valley in the late 1970s. Lee worked for nearly a decade at established companies such as Signetics and National Semiconductor as well as at a start-up, International CMOS Technology, before joining a classmate from National Taiwan University, K. Y. Han, to start their own semiconductor firm, Integrated Silicon Solutions, Inc. (ISSI). After bootstrapping the start-up with their own funds and those of Taiwan-born colleagues, they raised over $9 million, mainly from Asian venture capital funds managed by overseas Chinese engineers.
Lee and Han exploited their connections in both Silicon Valley and Taiwan to grow ISSI. They recruited former colleagues and classmates in the United States to the R&D center in Santa Clara, and they lined up a manufacturing partnership with the recently established foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (TSMC). They also incorporated a subsidiary in Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park to oversee assembly, packaging, and testing. In the firm's early years, Han traveled to Taiwan monthly to monitor its manufacturing operations. He soon decided to join thousands of other “returnees” and moved his family home to run ISSI-Taiwan. Lee remained in the Silicon Valley as CEO and Chairman.
ISSI grew rapidly in the early 1990s by selling high-speed SRAMs to motherboard firms that were supplying Taiwan's fast-growing personal computer (PC) industry.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Economic Geography of Innovation , pp. 190 - 210Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
References
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