TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, was founded in 1987 and became a major global manufacturer of advanced chips.
Morris Chang established TSMC in Hsinchu, Taiwan, with support from the Taiwanese government and Philips. Its pioneering pure-play foundry model allowed companies to design semiconductors without owning their own fabrication plants. TSMC manufactures chips designed by customers rather than selling only its own branded processors.
The company produces advanced chips for customers including Apple and Nvidia, among others. Its factories use increasingly sophisticated process technologies, and its manufacturing scale has made it strategically important to the global technology industry. TSMC’s strong earnings and central role in AI and mobile hardware have helped make it one of the world’s most valuable semiconductor companies.
TSMC is not the same as Apple, which designs many of the chips used in its devices, or Samsung, which both designs and manufactures semiconductors. Market capitalization measures the value investors assign to the company, not the physical number of chips it produces.