TSMC is the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry by revenue.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was founded in 1987 by Morris Chang in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Its business model focused on manufacturing chips designed by other companies rather than competing directly with customers by selling its own branded processors.
That foundry model allowed companies such as Nvidia, Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm to design chips while relying on TSMC’s factories for production. TSMC became especially important as chip designs grew more complex and manufacturing required extraordinarily expensive equipment and expertise.
TSMC is not the same as a fabless chip designer. Nvidia and Qualcomm, for example, design semiconductors but generally do not operate the same kind of large-scale manufacturing network. TSMC’s market value is influenced by demand for smartphones, computers, data centers, and artificial-intelligence hardware.