TSMC created the semiconductor foundry model and was founded in Taiwan in 1987 by Morris Chang.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, usually called TSMC, pioneered the idea of manufacturing chips designed by other companies without competing with those customers by selling its own branded processors. This separation allowed semiconductor designers to specialize in architecture while TSMC concentrated on fabrication.
The model became central to the modern chip industry. Companies such as Apple, Nvidia, and AMD design important processors and rely on manufacturing partners, with TSMC becoming the leading producer of many advanced chips.
TSMC is not the same kind of business as a traditional integrated device manufacturer such as Intel, which historically designed and manufactured its own processors. TSMC's importance to leading-edge production has also made it a major factor in discussions of Taiwan's role in global technology supply chains.