| Type | Non-profit research institute |
|---|---|
| Industry | R&D |
| Founded | 1973 |
| Headquarters | Hsinchu County and Hsinchu City |
| Key people | Ching-Yen Tsay, Chairman Jyuo-Min Shyu, President |
| Revenue | $475 million |
| Employees | 6000+[1] |
| Website | http://www.itri.org.tw |
The Industrial Technology Research Institute (Chinese: 工業技術研究院, abbreviated 工研院; ITRI) is a non-profit research institute located in Taiwan under the supervision of the Republic of China Ministry of Economic Affairs. It conducts research and development in applied technologies to advance private sector growth. Founded in 1973, it gave birth to numerous key technologies now employed by the companies at the nearby Hsinchu Science Park and was instrumental in fostering the "Taiwan Miracle" and propelling Taiwan to become one of the "Four Asian Tigers".
Contents |
ITRI was founded under the direction of Minister of Economic Affairs Sun Yun-suan and leadership of its first president Chao Chen Wang. A driving motivation was to transform Taiwan's existing export industries, which were developed in the 1960s and centered on textiles, shoes, plastic toys, and agriculture, to the more sustainable fields of petrochemicals, machine tools, and electronics.
ITRI played a key role in creating the semiconductor and electronics industry in Taiwan. United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), spun off from the ERSO division of ITRI, was launched in 1980 in Hsinchu Science Park.[2] It was Taiwan's first mainstream semiconductor company. UMC was followed by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation in 1986, the Taiwan Mask Corporation in 1988, and the Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation in 1994.[3] TSMC's first semiconductor wafer fabrication plant was set up on the ITRI campus in 1985.[4] TSMC Chairman Morris Chang was concurrently Chairman and President of ITRI from 1986 to 1994.
With over 6,000 employees and an operating budget of about US$510 million (half from the MOEA and half from private sources), ITRI is the largest research institute in Taiwan.[5] The largest ITRI campus is at Jhudong, Hsinchu County (the Chung-Hsing Campus). ITRI also has smaller research campuses in Hsinchu City (the Guangfu Campus) and Tainan (the Southern Branch). ITRI maintains overseas offices in San Jose, Tokyo, Berlin, and Moscow.
The core of ITRI's operations consist of basic research and development conducted in various applied technologies. Most of the research staff at ITRI have graduate degrees.[1] Research projects are conducted with close cooperation and partial funding from small and medium-sized companies. The results of the research are transferred to these sponsors for further development and eventual manufacture for industry. Some successful research units have spun off into successful companies of their own.
In addition to its own research units, ITRI rents out and provides logistical support to fledgling industrial enterprises (including its own spin-offs) at its "Incubation Center" and Open Laboratory program. ITRI also has an international division to seek out partners for the benefit of Taiwanese industries. ITRI has signed research alliances with leading foreign companies and universities such as Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, MIT and the University of California, Berkeley.[6][7]
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan said that the government-financed Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) will help domestic manufacturers churn out some 100,000 electric motorcycles in four years.[8]
ITRI is organized into six core laboratories, five focus centers, several linkage centers, and various other supporting units.[9]
Core Laboratories:
Focus Centers:
Linkage Centers:
Business Development Units:
Other Supporting Units:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||