新竹科學工業園區，浦東，Hong Kong的Green，台灣東北角的觀光特區Zaha Hadid

1980年代初期的新竹科學工業園區......21世紀的浦東半導體製造公司

A Silicon Valley Campus with Chinese Characteristics

Paul Mozur/The Wall Street Journal

SMIC’s campus in Shanghai’s Pudong area features several restaurants that cater to the company’s Taiwanese employees.

Paul Mozur/The Wall Street Journal

Villas in the residential zone of SMIC’s Pudong campus.

Like most of China’s high-tech manufacturers, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. is located in an outsized and relatively isolated technology park.
But unlike the bulk of China’s electronics manufacturers, which set up cramped dormitories and massive dining facilities to manage legions of workers who come to do basic assembly, SMIC’s campus is actually pleasant.
Located within walking distance of its production facilities, apartment buildings in SMIC’s residential zone are brightly painted and framed by well-manicured trees. A short stroll across a canal leads to an area populated by villas that seem more suited to an American Sun Belt suburb than a technology park in Shanghai’s Pudong district.
Nearby is even a church, set up by SMIC’s Christian founder Richard Chang, where many employees worship on Sundays.

Paul Mozur/The Wall Street Journal

Inside the church set up on SMIC’s campus by the company’s Christian founder, Richard Chang.

For decades, people in advanced economies have fretted over losing jobs to China. But when he was setting up SMIC in the year 2000, Mr. Chang, an American, realized that to build a Chinese company in a technologically advanced field that was dominated by foreign technology, he would need to bring the workers over along with the jobs. Taking a page from Silicon Valley, he made the creation of an attractive campus a key part of his recruitment strategy.
While you won’t find refrigerators full of free organic juice or break rooms lined with pool tables at SMIC, the company’s Pudong compound has the sort of family-friendly vibe that is key to pulling in top-level talent in Asia. And so far, the strategy has paid off: According to a 2012 study by Harvard Business School, the amenities the company offers helped it attract roughly 1,000 foreign workers within its first few years, including 500 Taiwanese and 300 Americans.
While some of China’s most advanced technology and Internet companies, including search engine Baidu and telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei, have built attractive campuses to lure in talent, none have gone quite as far as Mr. Chang in providing a total environment for employees.

Paul Mozur/The Wall Street Journal

A playground nestled among trees in the residential zone of SMIC’s campus in Pudong.

The contrast in work environment between SMIC and other large-scale Chinese tech companies like Apple-supplier Foxconn is striking. At Foxconn’s Shenzhen-based Longhua plant, for example, workers typically stream out the campus in the morning into Internet cafes or for a bleary-eyed breakfast after the night shift. Contrast that with the scene at SMIC’s compound one morning last week, where China Real Time saw employees’ parents taking their grandchildren to play on a playground in the center of the residential area, not for from a company-run bilingual secondary school (subsidized for employees) that sends kids to well-known U.S. colleges every year.
“Our school is getting very popular in Shanghai. We’re always getting calls from our customers (about) whether we can put their kids in our school,” SMIC Chief Financial Officer Gareth Kung said in an interview, adding, “frankly some people join SMIC just because of the school.”
And for the company’s employees from Taiwan, which has become one of the world’s most important sources of chip producers, four Taiwan restaurants stand just a block down from the school.

Paul Mozur/The Wall Street Journal

SMIC’s bilingual school, subsidized for the children of employees.

Whether SMIC can be successful enough to make this a model for other Chinese companies remains to be seen. Long a key target for China’s economic planners, domestic success in the semiconductor and chip industries has thus far remained elusive. China is still a long way away from challenging the advanced technology produced in Taiwan, South Korea and the United States. Yet in the past few years it has managed to established a small foothold. Thanks to subsidies to companies that design chips and the rise of Chinese companies that make cheap smartphones which do not require the most advanced chips, China now has the beginnings of an integrated electronics supply chain that could lead to better jobs, higher wages and more sustainable growth.
As China’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturer, SMIC has been lifted by the trend. Relatively unknown chip design companies like Spreadtrum Communications Inc. that rely on SMIC to create their chips helped SMIC’s revenue from Chinese customers grow 34.1% in 2012 from the year before. SMIC expects the chip design industry in China to grow around 19% through 2016, compared with total industry growth of 8%. In 2012 revenue from China stood at $578 million versus $187 million in 2009.
All of this is good news for government’s dreams of a semiconductor industry more heavily anchored in China that could eventually grow abroad. But prognostications about the next boom in China’s semiconductor sector have proven wrong in the past, China’s chip sector remains focused around communications chips instead of processors and other chips, and the global market remains dominated by a whole host of large and well-financed companies with a history of high-level innovation. Nonetheless SMIC’s campus offers a glimpse of what work in China could look like if the country succeeds in building out the leading edge of its electronics industry.
– Paul Mozur. Follow him on Twitter @paulmozur


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 2010.6.18 聯合報專輯A20

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Zaha Hadid

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid, DBE is an Iraqi-British architect. She received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004—the first woman to do so—and the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011. Wikipedia

 東北角觀光特區 3年後活起來 2010/02/28 03:03 記者許玉君／台北報導　　　


經建會委員會議預定周一通過「促進東北角海岸地區土地利用暨景觀風貌改善方案」，將比照峇里島模式，由政府規畫逾500公頃的「觀光特區」，引進國際級業者投資，最快3年後正式營運，這是國內第一次將景觀保護區土地收歸國有、發展觀光。
行 政院院長吳敦義上任後打「庶民經濟」，去年底提出活化東北角風景區土地利用、改善環境景觀的想法，3個月後交通部火速提出「改善庶民生活行動方案─促進東 北角海岸地區土地利用暨景觀風貌改善興辦事業計畫」，將著手改造東北角風景區，成為國內新觀光特區，最快民國102年底可對外營運。
經建會副主委黃萬翔說，這是國內第一次以發展觀光為目的，將景觀保護區內的土地收歸國有，未來將結合當地風情、衡量市場與財務情況，引進國際級觀光業者投資。如果成效不錯，可將這種發展模式拓展到全台具潛力的觀光景點。
官員指出，以往開發觀光區往往是民間業者自己找地、申請土地變更、進行環評，從著手投資到正式開張，常耗時5年、10年，被抗議「申請一張證照要蓋幾百個章」，但東北角活化方案，是第一次由政府主動整理完整的大面積土地，對外進行土地標售，省去冗長的行政流程。
這種方式像比照印尼政府打造峇里島，畫設「觀光特區」交由國際級五星級、六星級的飯店業者整體運用。
交通部已選定台北縣貢寮鄉內的澳底、和美與福隆一帶約528公頃的土地，透過區段徵收的方式，將區內私有地收歸國有，再由內政部辦理分區土地變更，配合當地風情規畫住宅區、旅館區等整體設計，目前初估所需經費為105億元。
官員指出，這塊區域包含部分景觀保護區與農業區，不是所有土地都能進行地目變更，內政部未來會進一步清點，將可以利用的區域盡速進行都市計畫變更。
至於區域內的地主有兩種選擇，第一是依照公告市值「換錢」，第二是將限建土地「換地」，提升土地的利用價值。