Artifact Details

Title

Yang, Ding-Yuan oral history

Catalog Number

102745994

Type

Document

Description

Dr. Ding-Yuan Yang was one of the founding members of ERSO, and led the group of young Taiwanese semiconductor engineers trained at RCA in the late 1970s. Upon his return to Taiwan, Dr. Yang organized Electronics Research and Services Organization’s (ERSO) demonstration laboratory and later became chief of that institution's computer development group where he led ERSO's entry into the specialized chipset market.

The growth of Taiwan's electronics market, and the success of TSMC, UMC, and other ERSO spinoffs, encouraged Yang and seven other engineers from ERSO to enter private industry. In 1987, Yang established Winbond Electronics Corporation. Unlike TSMC and UMC, Windbond was a fully independent company free of ERSO controls. ERSO also sent Yang to study Business Administration at Stanford University. Yang's relationship with ERSO and ITRI (he was later named as the head of planning and marketing for ITRI) enabled Winbond to start up its operations based on a license for ERSO's CMOS chip technology.

Under Yang’s leadership, Winbond continued to develop its technology and emerged as one of the Asian IC industry's top innovators into the mid-1990s. Dr. Yang talks about the major milestones in the growth of the Taiwanese IT industry as well as his own contributions to the same in this oral history.

Date

2011-02-23

Contributor

Lin, Ling-Fei, Interviewer
National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C., Sponsor
Yang, D.Y. (Ding-Yuan), Interviewee

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Extent

39 p.; 76 p.

Copyright Holder

Computer History Museum

Category

Transcription

Subject

semiconductor history; Winbond Electronics; United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC); Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC); DRAM; static random-access memory (SRAM); Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI); Electronic Research & Service Organization (ERSO); RCA technology transfer project; Shih, Chintay; Chang, Ching-Chu (C.C.); Technical Advisor Committee; Chang, Morris; Johnson, Walter; Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor; Harris; bipolar; Hu, Ding-Hua; minicomputers; Microcomputers; Vanderschmitt; Hewlett-Packard; electronic watch; Television; basic input/output system (BIOS); IBM; Digital Equipment Corporation; design rules; Wang Laboratories, Inc.; Intel; Microsoft; Motorola; Control Program for Microcomputers (CP/M); Acer; Shih, Stan; The Federal Communications Commission (FCC); motherboards; mask design; chip technology; Toshiba Corporation; production management; Silicon Valley; Two Trillion & Twin Star; TFTs (thin film transistors); LCD

Collection Title

Oral history collection

Series Title

Taiwanese Information Technology (IT) pioneers

Lot Number

X6290.2012