TSMC
TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is a dedicated semiconductor foundry founded in 1987 by Dr. Morris Chang. Its official about page calls it the world’s first dedicated semiconductor foundry and credits it with pioneering the pure-play foundry model — manufacturing its customers’ products exclusively rather than selling its own chips (official About TSMC page).
Business model and manufacturing footprint
Per the official About TSMC page:
- Business model: TSMC occupies the manufacturing stage of the semiconductor value chain, making chips designed by its customers for end markets including high performance computing, smartphones, IoT, automotive, and digital consumer electronics; supporting services include advanced packaging, mask making, and the Open Innovation Platform ecosystem.
- Manufacturing footprint: six 12-inch GIGAFAB fabs, four 8-inch fabs, and one 6-inch fab in Taiwan; 12-inch fabs through subsidiaries in Nanjing and Arizona, a 12-inch fab in Japan (JASM), 8-inch fabs in Washington State and China, and a specialty fab under construction in Dresden, Germany.
- Technology and capacity: the page’s 2025 figures show 12,682 different products made with 305 technologies for 534 customers, with annual capacity above 17 million 12-inch equivalent wafers.
TSMC trades on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (ticker 2330), and its American Depositary Shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker TSM). The numbers above follow the official page’s own accounting; read current figures from the official pages.
Discussion in the show
Weekly #001’s chapter “Hugging Face 的价值，以及英伟达为何要为产业托底” (“The value of Hugging Face, and why NVIDIA underwrites the industry”) touches on model companies building their own chips. Guizang said “it is basically all TSMC and Samsung foundries — the industry is extremely concentrated further down the stack”, adding that design is getting easier while manufacturing capacity is short, framing manufacturing as the bottleneck (Chinese transcript). This is a host’s characterization of the industry, not TSMC’s own position.
Frequently asked questions
What does TSMC do?
TSMC is a wafer foundry: it neither designs nor sells its own brand of chips but manufactures chips designed by its customers, and it was the world’s first dedicated foundry (official About TSMC page).
Who founded TSMC, and when?
Dr. Morris Chang founded TSMC in 1987 (official About TSMC page).
What does pure-play foundry mean?
It describes a business model where a company only provides chip manufacturing services and does not sell its own branded chips. TSMC pioneered this model, serving customers across computing, smartphone, and automotive markets (official About TSMC page).
Where does TSMC trade?
TSMC trades on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under 2330, and its ADSs trade on the New York Stock Exchange under TSM (official About TSMC page).