Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, a major market-capitalization company, is commonly abbreviated TSMC.
TSMC was founded in Taiwan in 1987 by Morris Chang. Its central innovation was the dedicated foundry model: it manufactures chips designed by other companies instead of competing with customers by selling its own branded processors.
That arrangement allowed semiconductor designers to focus on architecture and product development while relying on TSMC for advanced manufacturing. Companies associated with TSMC production include major designers in smartphones, personal computers, graphics, and artificial intelligence.
TSMC's importance to the global technology industry helped make it one of the world's most valuable listed companies. The acronym is sometimes confused with TSM, the ticker symbol used for TSMC's American depositary receipts. TSMC identifies the company; TSM identifies a particular traded security.