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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Competitor Analysis

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Competitor Analysis. Artificial Intelligence Lab, University of Arizona Dr. Hsinchun Chen. Outline. Bibliometric Analysis Citation Network Analysis Assignee-level Analysis Inventor-level Analysis Technology Topic Analysis Topics of TSMC

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Competitor Analysis

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  1. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company: Competitor Analysis Artificial Intelligence Lab, University of Arizona Dr. Hsinchun Chen

  2. Outline • Bibliometric Analysis • Citation Network Analysis • Assignee-level Analysis • Inventor-level Analysis • Technology Topic Analysis • Topics of TSMC • Topics in the technology field of 257 of the US Patent Classification • Topic comparisons between TSMC and Competitors • Conclusions

  3. BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS • The bibliometric analysis reveals the following facts: • TSMC has issued 5,193 patents to the USPTO during 2000 and 2012. • TSMC has issued a significantly large portion of patents (3,397) in the technology field of 257, which is Active solid-state devices (e.g., transistors, solid-state diodes). • Under this technology field, TSMC has issued the sixth most patents since 2007 among 2,993 assignees.

  4. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) • Top 10 technology fields of TSMC (US Patent Classification First-Level Categories) • Data collection for patents in US Patent Classification of 257 * A patent can belong to more than one classification category. ** Name variations of assignees were resolved by NLP-based fuzzy string matching. The total number of assignees has been reduced from 4,517 to 2,993. (See Appendix 1).

  5. Numbers of patents between 2000 and 2012 • TSMC issued the largest patents of 512 in 2001. Since then, the company issues around 450 patents every year. • The trend analysis shows the slight decreases in patenting activities between 2008 and 2011. In particular, there was a big drop in 2009.

  6. Top 20 assignees in the technology field of 257 • There are 2,993 assignees between 2007 and 2012. • During the past five years, TSMC has issued the sixth largest patents (1,203) to the field of 257. • 1,365 inventors of TSMC are involved in these patents.

  7. The numbers of patents between 2007 and 2012 • The numbers of patents of the top 10 assignees are shown. • TSMC (6th), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (1st), and IBM (2nd) are highlighted. In early 2007, the numbers of patents between TSMC, IBM, and Samsung were similar. However, after the second quarter of 2008, Samsung and IBM issued a lot more patents (around 3 times more) than TSMC did.

  8. CITATION NETWORK ANALYSIS • Assignee-level and inventor-level analyses were conducted. • We observe from citation network analysis that TSMC has been one of key players in the technology field of 257. The company seems to be heavily related with IBM and Intel Corporation. • TSMC ranked 3rd by PageRank, which is a measure to identify important nodes in a network. (Google has used PageRank to identify important web pages on the Web.) • TSMC also ranked 3rd by Betweenness Centrality, which identifies influential nodes in terms of spreading information between other nodes.

  9. Assignee networks by PageRank * The citation network was drawn by PageRank under the US Classification of 257. ** The top 3 assignees are highlighted, which are IBM(1st), SamsungElectronics (2nd), and TSMC (3rd). *** The thinker and darker in red the color, the stronger relationship between assignees. Cluster 1 in red represents the relationships between the top 10 assignees. They have stronger relationships each other than other assignees. In particular, TSMC (3rd), Intel Corporation (6th), and IBM (1st) have strong relationships in patenting activities. Cluster 2 in green represents another group of assignees that have strong relationships. 2 1

  10. Assignee networks by PageRank cont’d TSMC is the third most important assignee under US Classification of 257. IBM and Samsung Electronics are the top 2 assignees in terms of PageRank score. Although Samsung Electronics has the most patents under this classification, its impact is next to that of IBM. On the contrary, the analysis reveals that TSMC is ranked 3rd by importance, though it is at 6th by the total number of patents.

  11. Assignee networks by Betweenness Centrality * The citation network was drawn by betweenness centrality under the US Classification of 257. ** The top 3 assignees are highlighted, which are IBM(1st), SamsungElectronics (2nd), and TSMC (3rd). *** The thicker and darker in red the color, the stronger relationship between assignees. The cluster in red shows the relationships between the top 10 assignees. They have stronger relationships each other than other assignees. Likewise, TSMC (3rd), IBM (1st), and Intel Corporation (5th) have strong relationships in patenting activities. Cree, Inc.(9th) and Sony Corporation (10th) circled in green were named on the top 10 list. (They were 12th and 15th in terms of PageRank.)

  12. Assignee networks by Betweenness Centrality cont’d TSMC is the third most influential assignee in the technology field of 257. IBM and Samsung Electronics are the top 2 assignees in terms of betweenness centrality score. Although Samsung Electronics has the most patents under this classification, its influence on other inventors is somewhat limited. On the contrary, the analysis indicates that TSMC is one of the top 3 leading assignees in this category.

  13. Inventor networks of the US Classification of 257 • * The citation network was drawn based on the top 100 most important inventors by PageRank. • ** Inventors of the top 5 assignees are highlighted, which are TSMC, Samsung Electronics, IBM, Toshiba, and Semiconductor Energy Laboratory. • The most important person is Shunpei, Yamazaki of Semiconductor Energy Laboratory in Japan. • There are 7 inventors of TSMC on the top 100 inventor list (See Appendix 1 for the top 60 inventors): • 12th: Chen-Hua, Yu (11.645) • 27th: Fu-Liang, Yang (8.920) • 50th: Chenming, Hu (7.451) • 66th: Andreas, Hase, Thomas, Murphy, and Matthias, Heschel (6.662) • 77th: Yee-Chia, Yeo (6.112) • It seems to look that there are active relationships (Cluster 1) between TSMC and IBM. There is an inventor network (Cluster 2) of Semiconductor Energy Laboratory. 1 2

  14. Inventor networks of US Classification of 257 cont’d TSMC has 7 inventors listed on the top 100 inventors by PageRank. Micron Technology, Inc. and IBM are the top 2 assignees that have the largest number of inventors on the top 100 list. Even though Samsung Electronics has the most largest number of patents in this category, it has only 1 inventor that is on the top 100 inventor list.

  15. Inventor networks of the technology fiedl of 257 • * The citation network was drawn by Betweenness Centrality. The top 30 inventors are shown. • ** Inventors of the top 5 assignees are highlighted, which are TSMC, Samsung Electronics, IBM, Toshiba, and Semiconductor Energy Lab. • The most important person is Shunpei, Yamazaki of Semiconductor Energy Laboratory In Japan. • There are 6 inventors of TSMC on the top 100 inventor list (See Appendix 2 for the top 60 inventors): • 4th: Chen-Hua, Yu (7412117.24) • 44th: Fu-Liang, Yang (1157142.58) • 57th: Wen-Chih, Chiou (1059065.04) • 76th: Andreas, Hase, Thomas, Murphy, and Matthias, Heschel (841019) • Cluster 2 mostly consists of inventors of TSMC. This cluster seems to connect Cluster 1 (mainly consisting of IBM’s inventors) and Cluster 3, which is a bridge to Cluster 4. (See the next slide for Cluster 2 in detail) 1 2 3 4

  16. Inventor networks of the technology field of 257 cont’d Inventors of Cluster 4 are mostly from Semiconductor Energy Lab. Cluster 2 consisting mostly of TSMC is bridging Cluster 1 and Cluster 4 through Cluster 3 which is a mixed network of inventors. TSMC has weakly connected citation networks. In contrary, IBM and Semiconductor Energy Lab have highly condensed (well formed) inventor networks. 1. IBM network 2. TSMC network An enlarged part 3. Mixed network 4: Semiconductor Energy Lab.

  17. Inventor network of the technology field of 257 cont’d TSMC has 6 inventors listed on the top 100 inventors by Betweenness Centrality. IBM and Micron Technology, Inc. are the top 2 assignees that have the largest number of inventors on the top 100 list. Even though Samsung Electronics has the most largest number of patents in this category, it has only 2 inventors that are on the top 100 inventor list.

  18. Findings from citation network analysis • In terms of a simple measure - the number of patents, TSMC was ranked 6th. However, when measuring quality of patents by network metrics of PageRank and Betweenness Centrality, we observe that TSMC has issued higher quality (important and influential) patents than other competitors such as Micron Technology, Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, and Semiconductor Energy Laboratory. • In particular, Chen-Hua, Yu is a key inventor of TSMC. • Chen-Hua, Yu was ranked 4th and 12th in terms of betweenness centrality and PageRank respectively. • We also observe that IBM and Semiconductor Energy Lab. have significantly well formed inventors networks.

  19. TECHNOLOGY TOPIC ANALYSIS • Topic analyses reveal that TSMC has mostly invested in the following three topics: • semiconductor substrate/gate electrode (2000~2001), • semiconductor manufacturing/semiconductor wafer (2006-2007), and • semiconductor device/drain region (around 2011-2012) • TSMC has similar technology topics with Samsung Electronics, IBM, and Micron Technology. • Japanese companies such as Toshiba and Semiconductor Energy Lab. Have their unique technology topics.

  20. Topic Analysis on patents of TSMC * The horizontal axis represents the time period, and the vertical axis shows the number of patents. ** The bigger circle, the more patents. *** The top 2 most popular terms are shown per cluster. **** Clusters are represented as follows:the most popular term/the second most popular term (# of patent in popular year/total # of patents) **** For example, a topic of ‘semiconductor device/drain region (57/536)’ marked by a red star is related with 536 patents in total, and this topic was peaked around 2011 with 57 patents. Likewise, ‘semiconductor manufacturing/semiconductor wafer (103/903)’ marked by a blue star means that there are 903 patents associated with this topic and it was popular around 2005~2006 with 103 of patents. 22 major topics were identified. 5 topics were popular in 2011. (See Slide 20) No. of Patents Year • We observe from the topic analysis that before 2007 TSMC invested a wider range of technology topics (15 topics), since then, the company has narrowed down (7~8 topics) its technology fields.

  21. Topic Analysis on patents of TSMCcont’d * The horizontal axis represents the time period, and the vertical axis shows the number of patents. ** The bigger circle, the more patents. *** The top 2 most popular terms are shown per cluster. **** Clusters are represented as follows:the most popular term/the second most popular term (# of patent in popular year/total # of patents) **** For example, a topic of ‘semiconductor device/drain region (57/536)’ marked by a red star is related with 536 patents in total, and this topic was peaked around 2011 with 57 patents. Likewise, ‘semiconductor manufacturing/semiconductor wafer (103/903)’ marked by a blue star means that there are 903 patents associated with this topic and it was popular around 2005~2006 with 103 of patents. No. of Patents Year • There has been the big three technology topics: semiconductor substrate/gate electrode (2000~2001), semiconductor manufacturing/semiconductor wafer (2006-2007), and semiconductor device/drain region (around 2011-2012). • Patents relating to semiconductor device/drain region has increased in 2011.

  22. Topic Analysis* on patents of TSMC cont’d • Descriptive statistics on clusters Among 22 major topics, 5 were popular in 2011. - semiconductor device/drain region - semiconductor device/ semiconductor substrate - semiconductor substrate/solder bump - integrated circuit/semiconductor device - active region/Shallow Trench Isolation * The EM algorithm with an entropy–based feature selection technique was used. ** Terms were extracted by Markov chain-based NLP technique.

  23. Topic Analysis* on patents in the technology field of 257 * The horizontal axis represents the time period, and the vertical axis shows the number of patents. ** The bigger circle, the more patents. *** The top 2 most popular terms are shown per cluster. **** Clusters are represented as follows:the most popular term/the second most popular term (# of patent in popular year/total # of patents) Topic analysis finds 45 technology topics between 2007 and 2012. The 5 most popular topics are as follows: 1. drain region/gate electrode (1417/6189) 2. semiconductor material/semiconductor structure (1090/4582) 3. semiconductor package/integrated circuit (1105/4530) 4. thin film/integrated circuit (974/4402) 5. light emitting device/light emitting diode (1162/4220) * Top 15 topics are labeled. No. of Patents Year • Most of the topics are on the timeline of 2010 to 2012, meaning that these topics are growing and heavily invested. * See Appendix 4 for all topics.

  24. Topic Areas of TSMC * The horizontal axis represents the time period, and the vertical axis shows the number of patents. ** The bigger circle, the more patents. *** The top 2 most popular terms are shown per cluster. **** Clusters are represented as follows:the most popular term/the second most popular term (# of patent in popular year/total # of patents) We place the topics of TSMC over the topics of patents in the technology field of 257. TSMC has issued most of its patents on the major technology topics. In addition, it seems to look that TSMC has invested a few topics that might be emerging or new technology topics. (See a dotted square)

  25. Topic Comparison: TSMC and Samsung Electronics * The horizontal axis represents the time period, and the vertical axis shows the number of patents. ** The bigger circle, the more patents. *** The top 2 most popular terms are shown per cluster. **** Clusters are represented as follows:the most popular term/the second most popular term (# of patent in popular year/total # of patents) TSMC and Samsung Electronics have quite similar technology topics that they have invested in. However, Samsung Electronics has the broadest topic areas among the above top 5 assignees. Along with the major topics, Samsung Electronics has different topic areas that are a little overlapped with those of TSMC. (See a dotted square), which means a different set of patents from TSMC. • In terms of technology topics, Samsung Electronics is a major competitor to TSMC.

  26. Topic Comparison: TSMC and IBM * The horizontal axis represents the time period, and the vertical axis shows the number of patents. ** The bigger circle, the more patents. *** The top 2 most popular terms are shown per cluster. **** Clusters are represented as follows:the most popular term/the second most popular term (# of patent in popular year/total # of patents) TSMC and IBM have quite similar technology topics that they have invested in. However, IBM has broader topics and more patents on almost every topic than TSMC has. We observe that while having its most patents on the major topics IBM has several patents related to emerging or less competitive topics. • In terms of technology topics, IBM is one of major competitors to TSMC.

  27. Topic Comparison: TSMC and Micron Technology * The horizontal axis represents the time period, and the vertical axis shows the number of patents. ** The bigger circle, the more patents. *** The top 2 most popular terms are shown per cluster. **** Clusters are represented as follows:the most popular term/the second most popular term (# of patent in popular year/total # of patents) TSMC and Micron Technology have invested similar technology topics. However, Micron Technology has a different set of technology topics from TSMC. (See a dotted square) • In terms of technology topics, Micron Technology is one major competitors to TSMC.

  28. Topic Comparison: TSMC and Toshiba * The horizontal axis represents the time period, and the vertical axis shows the number of patents. ** The bigger circle, the more patents. *** The top 2 most popular terms are shown per cluster. **** Clusters are represented as follows:the most popular term/the second most popular term (# of patent in popular year/total # of patents) TSMC and Toshiba have very different technology topics. Unlike TSMC, Samsung Electronics, and IBM, Toshiba has its unique technology topics, which may have high entry barriers. • In terms of technology topics, Toshiba is not a major threat to TSMC.

  29. Topic Comparison: TSMC and Semiconductor Energy Lab. * The horizontal axis represents the time period, and the vertical axis shows the number of patents. ** The bigger circle, the more patents. *** The top 2 most popular terms are shown per cluster. **** Clusters are represented as follows:the most popular term/the second most popular term (# of patent in popular year/total # of patents) TSMC and Semiconductor Energy Lab. have very different technology topics. Like Toshiba, Semiconductor Energy Lab. has its unique technology topics different from topics of other assignees. • In terms of technology topics, Semiconductor Energy Lab. is not a major threat to TSMC.

  30. Topic Comparison: Top 5 Assignees • We define 3 topic areas by analyzing the top 5 assignees’ technology topics. • Red Ocean: Topics in this area are popular among major assignees. However, there are high competitions. • Heavily participated assignees are TSMC, IBM, SamsungElectronics, and Micron Technology. • Blue Ocean: Japanese companies have led technology development in this area. There seems to exist high entry barriers. • Heavily participated assignees are Semiconductor Energy lab., Toshiba, and Samsung Electronics. • Emerging areas: Major assignees such as Samsung Electronics, Micron Technology, IBM, and TSMC have started to invest in these topic areas. Red Ocean: Popular technology topics, high competition. Blue Ocean: Popular technology topics, low competition. Emerging Areas (Possibly): small size topics, but being invested by major assignees

  31. Findings from Topic Analysis • TSMC has competed with Samsung Electronics, IBM, and Micron Technology. • These competitors have very similar technology topics. • However, Toshiba and Semiconductor Energy Lab. (and Samsung Electronics*) have their own technology topics with high entry barriers. • Samsung Electronics and Micron technology (and IBM*) are the top 2 major assignees that have actively invested in possible emerging technology topics. TSMC IBM Samsung TSMC Micron IBM Samsung Toshiba Micron Semiconductor Energy Lab. Samsung Micron • TSMC has stayed mostly in red ocean areas. On the other hand, Toshiba and Semiconductor Energy Lab. have developed their own technology fields. Although TSMC has a few patents on possibly emerging topics, Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology (and IBM*) have actively invested in these emerging topics. * These assignees have relatively less patents than the listed assignees.

  32. Conclusions • In the technology field of 257, TSMC is one of the top major assignees in terms of the quantity of patents and the impact of them. • TSMC has issued 1,203 patents, which is the sixth largest number. • TSMC is ranked 3rd by both PageRank and Betweenness Centrality. • In general, TSMC has issued higher quality (important and influential) patents than other assignees such as Micron Technology, Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba, and Semiconductor Energy Laboratory. • TSMC has invested major topics, most of which are on highly competitive areas. • Samsung Electronics, IBM, and Micron Technology are the most threatening competitors. • TSMC has less invested in emerging topics than Samsung Electronics, Micron Technology, and IBM. • Unlike Toshiba and Semiconductor Energy Lab., it seems that TSMC does not have its unique technology topics. • It would be recommended that TSMC should develop its unique technology fields like Toshiba and invest more aggressively in emerging topics like Samsung and Micron do.

  33. Appendix 1 – Name variations • There were more than 60 other names of ‘Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.’.

  34. Appendix 2 - the top 60 inventors by PageRank

  35. Appendix 3 - the top 60 inventors by Betweenness Centrality

  36. Appendix 4 – Topics under US Classification of 257

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