Dr. Rick Tsai was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer in 2005, a role after serving president and chief operating officer. Prior to his post as chief operation officer, he served as TSMC worldwide marketing and sales. Before that, Dr. Tsai served two terms as executive vice president of operations. Between these two terms Dr. Tsai spent a short time away from TSMC, working as president of Vanguard International Semiconductor. From 1997 to 1999, Dr. Tsai served as executive vice president of operations, where he was responsible for six TSMC fabrication plants, as well as associated testing service and product assurance.

Dr. Tsai's work with TSMC began in 1989 and includes many distinguished roles: vice president responsible for operation of Fabs 3 and 4; senior director of Fab 3 responsible for design, construction, start-up, volume production and fab operation; and finally as director of Fab 2, Module A, responsible for operation, profit and loss, and process development.

Prior to joining TSMC, Dr. Tsai moved through the ranks during his 8 years at Hewlett-Packard in Ft. Collins, Colo., including R&D project manager, manufacturing engineering project manager, and as a member of the technical staff. His responsibilities at Hewlett-Packard included 1um CMOS VLSI process integration, yield improvement, process development and process reliability.

Dr. Tsai received his B.A. degree of science in physics from National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan and holds a Ph.D. degree in material science and engineering from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.