The Taiwanese semiconductor industry is among the most important in the world. According to a report by Deloitte, the global semiconductor market is expected to see global sales of up to USD 588 billion in 2024. By comparison, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) reported that Taiwan's semiconductor output is expected to exceed USD 155 billion in 2024, 26.36% of the global output and produces approximately 90% of the world’s most advanced semiconductors.

The IC Taiwan Grand Challenge is an initiative started by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) to bolster Taiwan's IC startup ecosystem and attract global tech talent and investment. As part of the Taiwan Chip-based Industrial Innovation Program (Taiwan CbI) which is a collaborative effort by Taiwanese government ministries to leverage Taiwan's semiconductor expertise by integrating chips with critical innovations; the IC Taiwan Grand Challenge competition seeks out talented global tech startups to join the dynamic and competitive semiconductor industry.

The IC Taiwan Grand Challenge is open for startups, university teams, and individual entries who focus on IC design innovations as well as chip-based innovative applications. Special attention is given to applicants in Smart Data & AI, Smart Mobility, Smart Manufacturing, Smart Medtech, and Sustainability. The event is supported by leading companies in the semiconductor industry including: TSMC, PSMC, arm, Siemens, Pegatron, Inventec, and more.

The winners will receive USD 30,000 cash prize to help them kick off their efforts in collaborating with Taiwan's local industries; mentoring programs by various experts from Taiwan’s world-famous semiconductor industry; Platform to Production support to take their vision from prototyping to production; and Resources & Services from key stakeholders of Taiwan's overall startup ecosystem to support winners of the challenge to ensure their success in Taiwan.

Held in a multi-batch format, the winners of the first batch of the IC Taiwan Grand Challenge were announced on September 9, 2024. Selected from a total of 72 teams representing 15 countries, the winners were:

• Quinas Technology (ULTRARAM)
  Country of Origin: UK
  Category: Smart Data & AI
  Quinas Technology (ULTRARAM) developed UltraRAM, an award-winning novel storage device that is a UK spin-out from the Physics and Engineering department of Lancaster University in collaboration with Department of Physics at Warwick. It has been described as a memory storage technology that "combines the non-volatility of a data storage memory, like flash, with the speed, energy-efficiency, and endurance of a working memory, like DRAM".
• Galaverse USA
  Country of Origin: US
  Category: Smart Mobility
  Galaverse is founded by a group of semiconductor veterans from USA and Europe with talents covering critical resources of business development and engineering team of design, manufacture, and fabrication. By leveraging the advantages of large bandwidth, low latency, and complementary deployment; Galaverse is able to boost the latest evolution of high frequency radio technologies to achieve Ubiquitous computing.
• Ranictek
  Country of Origin: Taiwan
  Category: Smart Mobility
  Ranictek is an IC design company founded in November 2022 & headquartered in Taiwan. Focused on developing 5G/6G base station chips and satellite communication chips, Ranictek provides both energy-saving and cost-effective baseband chip solutions for their customers. With their chip solutions, Ranictek is able to make contributions for accelerating the deployment of 5G/6G base stations and Satcom.
• Newsight Imaging
  Country of Origin: Israel
  Category: Smart Manufacturing
  Newsight Imaging is an Israeli semiconductor startup founded in 2016 with the goal of making 3D technology accessible for mass market applications across many industries, ranging from Automotive, Industry 4.0, Smart City & Robotics to Water Safety & Healthcare. Newsight Imaging is a designer, developer, and manufacturer of advanced 3D CMOS sensor chips and spectral sensors – from chip to full sensing unit.
• Polaris Electro-Optics
  Country of Origin: US
  Category: Sustainability
  Polaris Electro-Optics aims to define the standard for moving information. With patented materials and design innovations, the technologies of Polaris Electro-Optics enable the highest speed, most energy efficient integrated photonics products. Multiple markets need to move data with higher speed and greater energy efficiency and their solutions can be applied for various industries including datacenters/ cloud, AI, high-performance computing, communications, wireless, and quantum computing.
• Voltraware Semiconductor
  Country of Origin: Taiwan
  Category: Sustainability
  Voltraware is a fabless semiconductor company specializing in the research and development of ICs for wireless power transfer applications. Their Magnetic Resonance (MR) based technology can charge multiple devices at a distance. Voltraware assists customers in integrating wireless charging solutions into their products using exclusive design tools for coil and electric circuits, firmware algorithms, and specialty IC.

Registration for the next batch of IC Taiwan Grand Challenge began on September 4, 2024 and interested teams planning to collaborate with Taiwan's semiconductor industry can register now. Please note that only teams established after January 1, 2016 are eligible to register.

Sign up here:
>>>https://ictaiwanchallenge.org/