TSMC, headquartered in Taiwan, is commonly ranked among the world’s most valuable companies.
TSMC stands for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. It pioneered the dedicated semiconductor-foundry model, manufacturing chips designed by other companies rather than selling mainly its own branded processors. This makes it a crucial supplier for smartphones, data centers, artificial-intelligence systems, and many other products.
Morris Chang founded TSMC in 1987 in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The company’s business model helped separate chip design from chip fabrication, allowing specialist design firms to use advanced manufacturing without building their own fabs.
TSMC is sometimes confused with semiconductor-equipment maker ASML or chip designer Nvidia. ASML supplies lithography systems, Nvidia designs important processors, and TSMC manufactures chips for customers. Those different roles help explain why several companies in the semiconductor ecosystem can have very large market capitalizations.