Which company operates the TSMC semiconductor foundry, founded in Taiwan by Morris Chang in 1987?

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, operates the semiconductor foundry founded in Taiwan by Morris Chang in 1987.

TSMC pioneered the dedicated foundry model: it manufactures chips designed by other companies rather than selling mainly its own branded processors. This separation allows firms such as Apple, Nvidia, and AMD to design chips while outsourcing production to a specialist manufacturer.

Morris Chang founded TSMC with support from the government of Taiwan and Philips. The company’s headquarters are in Hsinchu, a major center of Taiwan’s technology industry. Its advanced manufacturing processes made it central to smartphones, data centers, graphics processors, and artificial-intelligence hardware.

TSMC is not the same as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s customers. Nvidia and Apple design important chips, while TSMC manufactures many of them. That distinction explains why TSMC can be among the world’s most valuable companies without selling a consumer device under its own name.