TSMC manufactures many advanced chips designed by Nvidia and Apple at its Taiwan facilities.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, commonly called TSMC, is the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry. A foundry manufactures chips for customers that design the processors but generally do not operate their own leading-edge fabrication plants.
TSMC was founded in 1987 by Morris Chang in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Its business model helped popularize the separation between chip design and chip manufacturing. This allowed companies such as Nvidia, Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm to focus on architecture and product development while using TSMC’s production technology.
TSMC is frequently confused with Nvidia because the companies are both central to the artificial-intelligence chip industry, but they perform different roles. Nvidia designs many processors and accelerator systems; TSMC manufactures chips for Nvidia and other customers. TSMC’s advanced manufacturing processes and large capital investments have made it one of the world’s most strategically important technology companies.