Sandra Watson, president and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority, revealed at the Plug and Play May Summit in Sunnyvale on May 19 that the state's relationship with TSMC began with an unsolicited approach during her first trip to Taiwan in 2013 — a cold call that has since grown into one of the largest semiconductor investments in US history.

A labor dispute at Samsung Electronics is sharpening a debate with implications well beyond South Korea: how semiconductor companies balance worker compensation against the capital-intensive investment cycles that determine who leads in chips.The article requires paid subscription.Subscribe Now