Author: Luh-Maan Chang（張陸滿）
- Professor Emeritus, National Taiwan University (NTU) and Purdue University
- Endowed Professor for High-Tech Facility Engineering, NTU College of Engineering
- Director, High-Tech Facility Research Center, NTU Department of Civil Engineering
Taiwan’s academic and research communities, and semiconductor industry are currently facing a severe shortage of human resources. This shortage not only constitutes a long-term concern for all, but has also become, in the short term, a major obstacle to Taiwan’s continued leadership in advanced semiconductor chip manufacturing, particularly as global competition in advanced manufacturing—where every second counts—continues to intensify.
In response to this challenge and in an effort to increase the supply of qualified human resoures, delegations led by Professor Louis Ge (葛宇甯), former Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at the College of Engineering, National Taiwan University, and Professor Gene Yu (游景雲), the current Chair, previously visited several top universities in Southeast Asia. Through international exchange, these visits were aimed to broaden and strengthen future channels for workforce’s recruitment, training, and cultivation [1,2,3].
To jointly safeguard and further enhance Taiwan’s excellency in semiconductor manufacturing and in civil engineering technologies closely tied to semiconductor fabrication facilities [4,5], it is essential to further investigate the sources of frequent innovation in front-end semiconductor R&D—namely, North America.
Building upon the regional connections established in Southeast Asia, such investigation would extend Taiwan’s engagement toward the origin of leading-edge semiconductor technologies in North America.
In North America, engineering schools and civil engineering education at top universities have long been deeply integrated with high-tech industries. Civil engineering is no longer confined to traditional infrastructure development; rather, it has become an invisible backbone and an indispensable pillar supporting semiconductor massive production and yielding rate performance.
Therefore, with further encouragement from Dean Mao-Hsiung Chiang (江茂雄) of the College of Engineering, along with the aforementioned former and current Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering, the author conducted two independent visits. From November 1 to 8, 2024, and from October 27 to November 6, 2025, the author visited the following six universities in North America to examine their relationships between civil engineering disciplines in engineering schools/colleges and semiconductor manufacturing:
- Arizona State University at Tempe, USA
- Concordia University at Montreal, Canada
- Purdue University at West Lafayette, USA
- University of California, San Diego, USA
- University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA
- University of Texas at Austin, USA
Through in-depth interviews, touring laboratories as well as interactive seminars conducted during these visits, this report will highlight general background of each visited university and engineering college, their civil engineering disciplines and related programs, academic contents, forward-looking R&D activities relevant to semiconductor development, and overall comparative strengths.
After prudent analyses, selected key findings will be presented and accompanied by detailed references and online links. Hopefully, this report can provide useful guidance and reference for future planning and follow-up actions across diverse sectors.
Given the extensive scope and volume of information collected, this international exchange report will be divided into two parts.
Part 1 will introduce the following three universities visited in November 2024:
I. Arizona State University at Tempe, USA
II. Concordia University at Montreal, Canada
III. Purdue University at West Lafayette, USA
Part 2 will introduce the following three universities visited in October–November 2025:
IV. University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), USA
V. University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA
VI. University of Texas at Austin, USA
Full Report (PDF): Part I | Part II
For further details, please refer to Professor Chang's full report (Parts I & II), available via the PDF links.