TSMC is the Taiwan-based company known as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was founded in 1987 by Morris Chang. Its business model focuses on manufacturing chips designed by other companies, rather than competing with most customers by selling its own branded processors. This dedicated-foundry approach became a central part of the modern semiconductor industry.
TSMC manufactures advanced chips for customers including Nvidia, Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm. Its factories, known as fabs, use highly specialized processes to create billions of microscopic transistors on silicon wafers.
Because demand for advanced computing, smartphones, data centers, and artificial intelligence affects expectations for chip production, TSMC’s share price can strongly influence its market capitalization. TSMC is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and its American depositary shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange.