TSMC is the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer and a frequent top market-cap company in Taiwan.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, usually called TSMC, manufactures chips designed by other companies. This business model is known as a foundry model: customers create chip designs, while TSMC produces them in specialized fabrication plants.
TSMC does not primarily sell branded consumer processors under its own name. Instead, it serves major technology companies and manufactures chips for applications such as smartphones, data centers, artificial intelligence, automobiles, and high-performance computing.
The company was founded in Taiwan in 1987 by Morris Chang. Its position in advanced semiconductor manufacturing has made it strategically important to the global technology industry. Its market capitalization has often made it Taiwan’s most valuable listed company, although exact rankings vary with share prices.