Mapping and Comparing Technological Paths : Lessons from Ic Foundry Firms

This is a comparative case study of two Taiwan-based integrated circuit (IC) foundry firms, UMC and TSMC, aiming to examine how firms differently develop and build their technological paths over time. The technological path is as an evolutionary, organization-level process of innovation, characterized by both the path-dependent and path-creating natures that build on each other. We draw on the topic modeling approach, complemented by qualitative procedures, to map and visualize the technological paths of UMC and TSMC, using patent documents collected from the USPTO. Two distinctive patterns of path dynamics were identified – technology widening (in UMC) and technology deepening (in TSMC); The former focusing on the combination of existing and new technologies to explore new applications, and the latter exhibiting a persistent development of a particular technology to achieve technological breakthroughs. Our central contribution lies on examining the micro processes through which firms develop their technologies and using the topic modeling approach to map and visualize the technological paths