TSMC is the world’s largest contract semiconductor manufacturer and a major supplier to leading chip designers.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, usually called TSMC, was founded in Taiwan in 1987 by Morris Chang. Its pioneering pure-play foundry model allowed companies to design chips without owning the expensive factories needed to manufacture them. TSMC produces chips for customers rather than selling mainly its own branded processors.
This model helped separate chip design from chip fabrication. Companies such as Nvidia, AMD, Apple, and Qualcomm can develop products while relying on TSMC for manufacturing at advanced process nodes. The company’s technology is important for smartphones, data centers, personal computers, vehicles, and artificial-intelligence systems.
TSMC is not the same as a semiconductor designer. Nvidia designs many of the AI accelerators that TSMC manufactures, while Intel historically designed and manufactured its own processors. TSMC is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and its global importance means that industry analysts closely track its capital spending, production capacity, and process-technology roadmap.