TSMC is the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, commonly called TSMC, was founded in 1987 by Morris Chang in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Its business model separated chip design from chip fabrication: customers design processors, while TSMC manufactures them in its advanced factories.
That foundry model enabled companies such as Apple, Nvidia and AMD to develop sophisticated chips without owning comparable fabrication networks. TSMC's leading process technologies and enormous production scale have made it one of the most valuable companies listed in Asia.
“Dedicated foundry” means that TSMC primarily manufactures chips designed by other companies. This differs from an integrated device manufacturer such as Intel, which historically designed and manufactured many of its own processors. Samsung Electronics also operates a major foundry business, but TSMC remains the standard answer to the global foundry-leadership question.