Taiwan Pay Showdown: MediaTek NT$4.31M vs TSMC NT$3.39M — the Designer Beats the Foundry by 27% on the Like-for-Like Metric

Silicon Levels — Taiwan Within-Country Showdown. The conclusion first: on Taiwan’s standard like-for-like metric — the MOPS/TWSE non-supervisory employee average — MediaTek pays NT$4.310M and TSMC pays NT$3.391M. The pure designer beats the foundry by 27%. The 2025 all-employee update keeps the order: MediaTek NT$4.60M, TSMC NT$4.09M. And the NT$6.28M figure that headlines as “TWSE No. 1” for ASE Technology Holding describes a holding company of about 109 people — it cannot be ranked. Every figure here comes from MOPS/TWSE disclosures and Levels.fyi Taiwan data verified on 2026-10-21/22.

30-Second Summary

• The main event (2024, non-supervisory average): MediaTek NT$4.310M (median NT$3.438M) vs TSMC NT$3.391M — a +27% gap.
• 2025 all-employee update: MediaTek NT$4.60M vs TSMC NT$4.09M (TSMC +22.9% YoY). Same order.
• ASE’s NT$6.28M is a false No. 1. ASE Technology Holding is the listed holding company with roughly 109 HQ employees, not the ~100K-person operating group. The operating company’s (ASE Inc) non-supervisory figure was not retrieved and is left as a stated gap.
• Senior layer: TSMC Senior SWE total comp NT$2.84M; HWE median NT$3.05M (stock NT$0, bonus ~38% of total). No MediaTek Senior median was captured — the Senior showdown cannot be run.
• The mechanism is composition: a pure-design workforce has no fab operators in its average. The average measures workforce mix as much as pay policy.

Metric Mapping — the Condition That Makes This Comparison Honest

Taiwan publishes several average-pay metrics, and mixing them rigs the ranking. This article uses three, each with its own population:

The main event uses row one. Row two is the 2025 update only. Row three appears only in the Senior section. No ranking mixes rows.

Figure 1: Non-supervisory employee average pay, 2024, same MOPS/TWSE metric. Source: MOPS/TWSE disclosures, accessed 2026-10-21.

The Main Event: NT$4.31M vs NT$3.39M

MediaTek’s non-supervisory average is NT$4.310M. Its median is NT$3.438M — the distance between mean and median is how much the upper end pulls the average up.

TSMC’s non-supervisory average is NT$3.391M.

The gap is NT$0.919M, or +27%. It is the same direction this series found in the foundry article: a design company’s average sits above a manufacturer’s average. The reason is not simply pay policy. TSMC’s workforce includes fab operations staff at very large scale; MediaTek’s is almost entirely design and software engineers. Composition builds the average.

That does not make TSMC’s average static. As the 2025 figures show, TSMC’s average is rising fast on AI-cycle bonuses.

2025 Update: TSMC +22.9%, Same Order

On the TWSE all-employee metric — a different metric from the main event, including insurance, pension and welfare — MediaTek posts NT$4.60M and TSMC NT$4.09M, with TSMC up 22.9% year on year. The order does not change.

*Figure 2: All-employee average pay, 2025, TWSE. ASE Holding covers ~109 HQ staff at the holding company — not a comparable population. Source: TWSE via Focus Taiwan / Taipei Times, 2026-06-03.

Why ASE’s NT$6.28M Must Not Be Crowned

The largest number in that chart belongs to ASE Technology Holding: NT$6.28M, up 40% year on year, reported as No. 1 across all TWSE-listed companies.

Its population is the listed holding company — about 109 employees at the holding level (per BigGo’s note). That is an average of executives and core HQ staff, not of the roughly 100K-person operating group. Ranking a holding company against operating companies is exactly the population-mixing this series refuses to do.

A fair three-way comparison becomes possible only with ASE Inc’s (the operating company’s) MOPS non-supervisory figure. That figure was not retrieved in this pass, and the gap is stated rather than filled. NT$6.28M is a true number about 109 people; it is not evidence that ASE is “Taiwan’s best-paying chip company.”

The Senior Layer: TSMC Pays in Bonuses

At the Senior rung, only TSMC has captured data — and averages stop applying.

A TSMC Senior Software Engineer (grade 32) earns NT$2.84M in total comp. The TSMC Hardware Engineer median total comp is NT$3.05M, composed of base and bonus with NT$0 stock; bonuses are roughly 38% of the total.

So at Taiwan’s champion, the Senior lever is the bonus, not equity — the structural opposite of US fabless packages, where stock can be half of Senior total comp (in this series’ fabless ranking, $166K of Broadcom’s $335K Senior total was stock).

No MediaTek Senior median was captured in the source data. The Taiwan Senior showdown therefore cannot be run, and no estimate stands in for it.

What This Showdown Actually Measures

First, average-pay comparisons are also workforce-composition comparisons. Put a designer next to a manufacturer and the composition effect arrives before any pay-policy effect. The same caution governed this series’ memory article, where Samsung Electronics (all divisions) was compared with SK hynix (a near-pure memory business).

Second, check the population behind any No. 1. Holding-company averages always print high. ASE’s NT$6.28M is accurate — about 109 people.

Third, pay structure is local. Taiwan’s champion pays Seniors through bonuses; US fabless pays through stock. The phrase “total comp” hides different machines in different countries.

Sources and Limits

All figures are collected here, once. Non-supervisory averages (2024) and company values are from MOPS/TWSE disclosures as compiled in this series’ foundry/fabless dataset (accessed 2026-10-21): MediaTek NT$4.310M average / NT$3.438M median (n=11,566 non-supervisory employees in the underlying ESG/TWSE dataset), TSMC NT$3.391M. The 2025 all-employee figures are from Focus Taiwan (CNA), 2026-06-03, https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202606030013 ; Taipei Times, https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/focus/breakingnews/5459921 ; BigGo Finance, https://finance.biggo.com/news/XZwCh54BpwxG186Nh2xj — MediaTek NT$4.60M, TSMC NT$4.09M (+22.9% YoY), ASE Technology Holding NT$6.28M (+40% YoY, No. 1 of all TWSE-listed). The ~109-employee holding-company population for ASE is BigGo’s note in the same coverage. Senior figures are Levels.fyi Taiwan via the foundry/fabless dataset: TSMC SWE Senior (grade 32) NT$2.84M, HWE median NT$3.05M (stock NT$0, bonus ~38%). Limits: the 2024 non-supervisory metric and the 2025 all-employee metric have different definitions and populations and must not be trended against each other; holding-company and parent figures describe different populations from operating groups; ASE Inc’s (operating company) MOPS non-supervisory average was not retrieved (gap); no Levels.fyi Taiwan Senior median exists for MediaTek or ASE in the captured data (gap); filing averages cover listed-parent employees only, not consolidated groups.

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FAQ

Q1. Who pays more in Taiwan, MediaTek or TSMC? On the like-for-like MOPS/TWSE non-supervisory average (2024), MediaTek: NT$4.310M vs TSMC NT$3.391M, +27%. On the 2025 TWSE all-employee metric, MediaTek NT$4.60M vs TSMC NT$4.09M. Part of the gap is workforce composition — MediaTek has no fab operators in its average.

Q2. Isn’t ASE the No. 1 at NT$6.28M? No. ASE Technology Holding’s NT$6.28M (2025, TWSE all-employee) covers the listed holding company — about 109 HQ employees — not the ~100K-person operating group. The operating company’s like-for-like non-supervisory figure was not retrieved, so ASE stays out of the ranking.

Q3. What does a TSMC Senior engineer earn? Per Levels.fyi Taiwan: Senior SWE (grade 32) total comp NT$2.84M; Hardware Engineer median total comp NT$3.05M, with NT$0 stock and bonuses at roughly 38% of the total. No MediaTek Senior median was captured, so there is no same-rung comparison.

Q4. Why is MediaTek’s median (NT$3.438M) so far below its average (NT$4.310M)? Because the distribution is top-heavy: high packages at the upper levels pull the mean above the median employee’s pay. The median is the midpoint employee; the average is the number headlines use. Both are published here so readers can see the gap.

One Last Question

When a headline crowns a “best-paying company,” do you check whose average it is — the operating workforce, or a 109-person holding company? And in Taiwan’s case: would you take MediaTek’s higher average, or TSMC’s bonus-driven Senior package?

Silicon Levels is VLSI Korea’s series comparing semiconductor pay on public data. The rule is one: same metric, same population, labeled — or no comparison.

More from the Silicon Levels series

• EDA Pay Ladder: Synopsys vs Cadence vs Siemens
• Memory Pay: Samsung vs SK hynix vs Micron
• Fabless Senior Pay Ranking
• Foundry Pay: TSMC vs Samsung vs Intel
• Materials Pay Transparency Report
• Equipment Pay: KLA, Applied, Lam, ASML, TEL
• Country Pay Showdowns: Korea, Taiwan, US, Netherlands, Germany
• Japan & Europe Pay: Tokyo Electron vs Renesas, ASML

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