Huawei goes '007' and TSMC gets a grant

Hi everyone, This is Cheng Ting-Fang, your #techAsia host for the week saying hello from Taipei!

Roughly a week ago, I was hiding under the big dining table in my apartment. Taiwan had just been struck by its largest earthquake since 1999, and with trembling hands the first thing I did was send a message to Nikkei Asia's editors via Slack: "Taiwan just had a big quake and I think we might need a story!" (We did.)

The second thing I did was try to check with Taiwan's two largest chipmakers, TSMC and UMC, to see if their production had been affected.

One of my friends working in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan's tech hub, told me he was on a conference call with clients on the U.S. West Coast when the earthquake hit at 7:58 a.m. on April 3. After being evacuated, many employees were back at work within 20 minutes, despite some damage to meeting rooms and ceilings.

Another friend described the strict protocols at chip factories. After a quake or other similar event, facility and equipment engineers are expected to be at their workplace within an hour. This urgency is how chipmakers like TSMC rescue precious wafers and minimize disruption to their operations. The Taiwanese chip giant reported 70% recovery of its most critical equipment within 10 hours of the recent earthquake. The response highlighted the intense -- some might say excessive -- work ethic that has helped Taiwan secure its position as the world's most efficient chip producer.

Speaking of brutal work cultures, I remember tech industry insiders always talking about Huawei's "996" protocol -- working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. Now, as the Chinese titan battles a U.S. crackdown, 996 has become 007, some industry managers say, meaning working hours are from