Zhang Rujing

Zhang Rujing (; born 1948), alternatively known as Richard Chang Ru-gin, is a Taiwanese business executive and electrical engineer who is the founder of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), the largest contract chip manufacturer in China. He is known as "the father of China's foundry industry" and China's "godfather of semiconductors".

Early life and education Zhang was born in 1948 in Nanjing, Jiangsu (then in the Republic of China), to a steelworker, Zhang Xilun, and his wife, Liu Peijin. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "Finite element analysis of lateral current spreading in DH semiconductor injection lasers".

Career In 1977, at 29 years old, Zhang began working at the semi-conductor giant Texas Instruments alongside experts in integrated circuits with his first boss, Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Jack Kilby.

Establishment of SMIC

Returning first to mainland China at age 50, Zhang began searching for locations for a Chinese semiconductor factory. He decided to travel back to Taiwan and founded Shida Semiconductor with the help of his contacts at Texas Instruments. By May, Zhang had recruited hundreds of engineers to Shanghai and construction of the plant began in August 2000. Zhang also moved both his mother (then over 90 years of age) and his American wife to mainland China. Zhang also reportedly built a 1,500 unit housing area for his employees and a bilingual K-12 school for children of employees. Along with a compensation of $200 million USD and 10% equity given by SMIC to TSMC in 2009, Zhang, then 61, was prohibited from operating in the chip industry for a period of three years. In 2018, Zhang established SiEn (Qingdao) Integrated Circuits which, in 2021, began producing 8 inch silicon wafers and was testing 12 inch production.