TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer and a major supplier to leading technology companies.
TSMC pioneered the dedicated foundry model, in which a company manufactures semiconductor designs created by other firms. This allows customers such as Nvidia, Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm to focus on chip design while using TSMC’s advanced fabrication facilities.
The company was founded in Taiwan in 1987 by Morris Chang. Its factories, known as fabs, produce chips using increasingly sophisticated process technologies. Because advanced semiconductors are essential to smartphones, data centers, cars, and artificial intelligence, TSMC is frequently included in discussions of the world’s most valuable companies.
TSMC is not the same kind of business as Nvidia. Nvidia designs chips, while TSMC manufactures chips for customers and generally does not sell its own branded processors.