Which Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer is commonly abbreviated TSMC?

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is the manufacturer commonly abbreviated TSMC.

TSMC was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu, Taiwan, by Morris Chang. It pioneered the dedicated semiconductor foundry model, manufacturing chips designed by other companies rather than competing primarily through its own branded processors.

This model allowed companies such as Apple, Nvidia, AMD, and Qualcomm to design chips while relying on TSMC’s fabrication plants for production. TSMC has become a crucial supplier for advanced processors used in smartphones, computers, data centers, and artificial-intelligence systems.

TSMC frequently ranks among the world’s most valuable companies by market capitalization. It is sometimes confused with a chip designer, but its central role is contract manufacturing. The company does create manufacturing technologies and process nodes, while many customers supply the underlying chip designs.