TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, became the world’s largest contract chipmaker by market capitalization.
TSMC was founded in Taiwan in 1987 by Morris Chang and pioneered the dedicated foundry business model. Instead of designing and selling its own branded consumer processors, it manufactures chips designed by other companies, including major technology firms.
This model allows customers to avoid owning and operating their own advanced fabrication plants. TSMC invests heavily in expensive process technology and production capacity, while customers such as Nvidia, Apple, and AMD supply chip designs.
TSMC is important to the market-cap rankings because advanced chips used in smartphones, servers, graphics systems, and artificial intelligence depend on its manufacturing capabilities. It is also commonly distinguished from Intel and Samsung, which both design and manufacture significant numbers of their own chips.