TSMC is the world’s largest contract chipmaker and is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was founded in 1987 by Morris Chang. It pioneered the dedicated foundry model, in which a company manufactures integrated circuits designed by other companies instead of primarily selling chips under its own consumer brand.
TSMC manufactures semiconductors for customers across industries, including smartphones, computers, communications, automobiles, and high-performance computing. Advanced process technologies allow it to produce very small and complex chips for major designers such as Nvidia, Apple, and AMD.
Because TSMC is publicly traded and operates at enormous scale, it is frequently included in comparisons of the world’s most valuable companies. “Contract chipmaker” describes its business model, while “chip designer” describes companies that create processor architectures and designs but may outsource manufacturing.