Taiwan's premier chipmaker, TSMC, said Thursday it has started expanding staff at its R&D department and 12-inch wafer production facilities.

Although the crisis is still far from over, TSMC is apparently lacking brainy, skilled staff to do research, and they need quite a few new workers.

"There's still a general freeze on hiring, but we're seeing a shortage in our research and development department, and will need hundreds of employees there," says TSMC's VP for human resources, P.H. Chang.

At the same time, TSMC has sacked a further 200 souls just a few days ago.  Chairman Morris Chang probably didn't get much sleep yesterday, as 100 of his former employees decided to organize a protest - in front of his home.

Also, according to Reuters, TSMC is planning to spend about $300 million on new production equipment in Q2. (Ran out of ideas after 300, didn't you Xerxes? sub.ed.)

More here.