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The Taiwan Firm That Makes the World’s Tech Run

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  On the northwest coast of Taiwan sits the world’s most important company that you’ve probably never heard of.  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co ., or TSMC, is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of the semiconductor chips—otherwise known as integrated circuits, or just chips—that power our phones, laptops, cars, watches, refrigerators and more. Its clients include Apple, Intel, Qualcomm, AMD and  Nvidia . Inside its boxy off-white headquarters in sleepy Hsinchu County, technicians in brightly hued protective suits—white and blue for employees, green for contractors and pink for pregnant women—push polished metal carts under a sallow protective light. Above their heads, “claw machines”—nicknamed after the classic arcade game—haul 9-kg plastic containers containing 25 individual slices, or “wafers,” of silicon on rails among hundreds of manufacturing stations, where they are extracted one by one for processing, much like a jukebox selecting a record. Only after six to eight

Neuromorphic Computing

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Neuromorphic computing is a method of computer engineering in which elements of a computer are modeled after systems in the human brain and nervous system. The term refers to the design of both hardware and software computing elements. Neuromorphic engineers draw from several disciplines -- including computer science, biology, mathematics, electronic engineering and physics -- to create artificial neural systems inspired by biological structures. There are two overarching goals of neuromorphic computing (sometimes called neuromorphic engineering). The first is to create a device that can learn, retain information and even make logical deductions the way a human brain can -- a cognition machine. The second goal is to acquire new information -- and perhaps prove a rational theory -- about how the human brain works.