Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was founded in 1987.
TSMC was established in Hsinchu, Taiwan, by Morris Chang with support from the Taiwanese government and Philips. Its defining business model was the dedicated semiconductor foundry: TSMC manufactures chips designed by other companies instead of competing with those customers by selling its own branded processors.
That separation helped create the modern fabless semiconductor industry. Companies such as Apple, Nvidia, and AMD can design chips while outsourcing physical production to specialized manufacturers. TSMC’s advanced process technologies and large-scale fabrication capacity made it a critical supplier for smartphones, computers, data centers, and artificial-intelligence systems.
TSMC is often confused with an integrated device manufacturer such as Intel, which historically designed and manufactured many of its own processors. TSMC’s corporate name includes “Taiwan,” but its customers and production footprint are global, with facilities in Taiwan and overseas locations.