Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was founded in 1987 by engineer Morris Chang.
Chang established TSMC in Taiwan after a long career in the semiconductor industry, including senior work at Texas Instruments. His central idea was to create a dedicated foundry that manufactured chips designed by other companies rather than competing with customers by selling its own branded processors.
That foundry model became a defining feature of modern chip production. Companies could design semiconductors while outsourcing fabrication to TSMC, allowing specialized firms to grow without owning expensive factories.
C. C. Wei is a later TSMC chief executive, not its founder. Jensen Huang co-founded Nvidia, another major semiconductor company. TSMC’s advanced manufacturing plants produce chips used in smartphones, computers, data centers and other technologies.