Hi everyone! This is Cheng Ting-Fang, your #techAsia host this week, waving hello from Taipei! I just returned from a brief trip to Tokyo, where I enjoyed fresh sashimi and sizzling barbecue. The summer heat was scorching and as intense as Taiwan's tropical humidity. It's been years since I have seen Tokyo through a tourist's eyes and this time a few things stood out. On ordinary weekdays, children are a rare sight in the city and on trains. And outside of izakayas and tourist-frequented restaurants, Japan's dining spots are remarkably quiet. But this has been an eventful summer, with the U.S. announcing new tariff rates for most countries. Upcoming tariffs of 100% on foreign-made semiconductors are creating further uncertainties for the second half of 2025. Several tech industry executives told me they have modest expectations for the remainder of the year - traditionally a peak season for many sectors. In fact, many would consider it a best-case scenario if they can simply match the revenue and profit levels of 2024. This week, Taiwan's chip sector also came under the spotlight after Nikkei Asia exclusively reported that TSMC had taken legal action against several former employees for attempting to illicitly obtain sensitive information on 2-nanometer chip technology. The story was quickly picked up by major international and local outlets, including Bloomberg, the Financial Times, Reuters and CNBC. This marks the first-ever case involving national core sensitive technologies to be investigated under Taiwan's National Security Act, which was enacted in 2022 to protect its flagship chip industry from foreign threats. The incident has sparked discussions about how trade secrets are protected. TSMC is well known for having strong systems to guard its proprietary information. One chip industry contact shared a story on this that I always remember: "If you accidentally drive the wrong way in a parking lot for just three to five seconds, you and your managers will get an email alert right away telling you you're going in the wrong direction." However, most tech industry executives agree that replicating advanced chip manufacturing, especially processes like TSMC's cutting-edge 2-nanometer tech, is far from simple. The production lines require thousands of intricate steps, precise fine-tuning of tools and chemicals and, crucially, the accumulated expertise of thousands of skilled engineers. Stealing documents or testing data is nowhere near enough to recreate such complexity. It's similar to the challenge for any newcomer to build extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines produced by ASML, the maker of the world's most advanced chipmaking tools, as Nikkei Asia earlier reported. I am reminded of an interesting conversation I once had with Jos Benschop, executive vice president at ASML, during a visit to the company's headquarters in Veldhoven in the Netherlands. When asked how easy it would be to copy such machines, Benschop described the know-how behind these tools as an iceberg. "What you see is the tip of the iceberg. You might think, 'Okay, I can make the same iceberg,' but 90% of it is under the water, and you can't see it." | 
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