TSMC was founded in 1987 as the world’s first dedicated semiconductor foundry.
The company was established in Hsinchu, Taiwan, by Morris Chang. Its business model separated chip design from chip manufacturing: customers could design processors while TSMC supplied the specialized factories and production expertise needed to make them.
That model changed the semiconductor industry. Many technology companies could develop advanced chips without building and operating their own fabrication plants. TSMC later became a crucial supplier for processors used in smartphones, personal computers, graphics systems, and artificial-intelligence infrastructure.
TSMC is also known as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. It should not be confused with a chip-design firm or with Taiwan’s stock exchange. Its importance, manufacturing scale, and advanced process technologies have made it one of the companies most often compared with the world’s largest market-cap leaders.