TSMC is Taiwan’s largest semiconductor manufacturer and the world’s leading dedicated chip foundry.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company specializes in producing chips designed by other companies. This business model is known as a pure-play foundry model, because TSMC generally manufactures integrated circuits without selling its own competing branded processor designs.
TSMC was founded in 1987 by Morris Chang with support from the Taiwanese government and Philips. Its manufacturing expertise has made it a crucial supplier for advanced processors used in smartphones, computers, data centers, and artificial-intelligence systems.
TSMC is often compared with Intel and Samsung Electronics, but their business mixes differ. Intel has historically designed and sold its own processors, while Samsung combines chip manufacturing with large consumer-electronics and memory businesses. TSMC’s market value therefore reflects a particularly focused role in the semiconductor supply chain.