TSMC became a global chip powerhouse by manufacturing chips for other companies and never competing with them. Founded by Morris Chang on 21 February 1987, it…
A pure-play foundry: make chips designed by customers and never sell chips of its own. Backed by Taiwan's government and Philips, with a 6-inch fab leased from ITRI.
Listings in Taipei and New York gave TSMC access to capital. It was the first Taiwan company on the NYSE.
No. WaferTech, a joint venture with Altera, ADI and ISSI set up in 1995-96, was TSMC's first American plant.
TSMC became the first pure-play foundry to formally offer a commercial 0.18-micron copper process in December 1999.
In October 2001 it became the world's first full-scale 300mm fab producing 0.13-micron chips with production-worthy yields.
He took back the CEO job and raised capital spending into the downturn, a bet that paid off at 40nm and 28nm.
Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate joins dies and memory on a silicon interposer. A niche in 2012, it is now at the heart of AI accelerators.
TSMC made Apple's A8 in 2014 and became its sole A-series supplier from the A10 in 2016.
Around the 7nm generation in 2018. Morris Chang retired that June; Mark Liu became chairman and C.C. Wei CEO.
5nm went into volume production, TSMC announced Arizona, and U.S. rules cut off Huawei from 15 September.
TSMC marked 3nm volume production at Fab 18 in Tainan on 29 December 2022, weeks after raising its Arizona plan to US$40B.
N2, TSMC's first nanosheet-transistor process, entered volume production in the fourth quarter of 2025. A16 and A14 follow.
TSMC added US$100 billion on 16 July 2026, taking Arizona to US$265 billion: 10 fabs, 2 packaging plants and R&D.
Reports say TSMC will reach about 120,000 2nm wafers a month by end-2026 as customers raise orders. August revenue rose 53% year on year.
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