Morris Chang

Chang was born on July 10, 1931, in Ningbo, China. By his own account, he was born into a middle-class family that moved every few years during his childhood, and he lived in Hong Kong, Chongqing and Shanghai.⁠[1][2]

In 1949, Chang entered the freshman class at Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry and transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) after a year, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering in 1952 and 1953. By his own account, he then failed MIT’s doctoral qualifying exam and sought a job in industry.⁠[2][3]

In 1955, Chang joined the semiconductor division of Sylvania Electric Products, working on germanium transistors, and stayed about three years.⁠[1][2]

In 1958, Chang joined Texas Instruments (TI), working in production. From 1961, TI paid his tuition and full salary while he studied for a doctorate at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry; he received a PhD in electrical engineering in the spring of 1964 and returned to TI.⁠[1][2][3]

Chang went on to lead TI’s germanium transistor department and by 1972 ran the company’s entire semiconductor business as group vice president for its worldwide semiconductor business. In 1978 he was assigned to run the consumer business, and he left TI in 1983.⁠[1][3]

In the second volume of his autobiography, Chang wrote that his TI years, from age 27 to 52, were the period of his greatest passion, but that he had stayed five or six years longer than he should have.⁠[4]

After leaving TI, Chang became president and chief operating officer of General Instrument Corporation in New York, leaving after about a year. Around that time he separated from his then wife, Christine; he has one daughter from his first marriage.⁠[3][2][1]

In 1985, at the invitation of the Taiwanese government, Chang became president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). He recalled that a few weeks after he took office, K.T. Lee said to him that the government wanted to promote a semiconductor industry in Taiwan and that he seemed ideal to start a new semiconductor company; the idea of a pure-play foundry took shape as he drew up the business plan. In the preface to the second volume of his autobiography, he described coming to Taiwan from the United States in 1985 as keeping an appointment with destiny.⁠[2][1][4]

In 1987, at the age of 55, Chang founded TSMC, a dedicated silicon foundry that manufactures integrated circuits for customers, allowing chip companies to focus on circuit and product design without building costly fabs of their own. He recalled that PhilipsPhilipsPhilips (Koninklijke Philips N.V.) is a health technology company founded in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father, Frederik Philips, and now headquartered in Amsterdam; it was long known for lighting and consumer electronics such as the compact cassette and the CD, and was one of TSMC’s founding shareholders.Open the full entry was the only willing significant investor at the time. He went on to serve as TSMC’s chairman for 31 years.⁠[5][3][2][4]

In 1998, at the age of 67, Chang published the first volume of his autobiography, about 100,000 words long and covering 1931 to 1964.⁠[5][4]

On May 10, 2005, TSMC announced that Rick Tsai would become president and chief executive officer from July 1, with Chang devoting his full time to being chairman.⁠[6]

In 2006, Chang attended the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting for the first time as the president’s envoy, representing then-president Chen Shui-bian.⁠[7]

On June 11, 2009, TSMC’s board unanimously re-elected Chang as chairman and appointed him chief executive officer concurrently from the next day; Rick Tsai became president of the New Business Development Organization.⁠[8]

In 2011, Chang received the IEEE Medal of Honor for outstanding leadership in the semiconductor industry. He is also a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.⁠[1][3]

On November 12, 2013, in line with a succession plan, TSMC’s board appointed Mark Liu and C.C. Wei as presidents and co-chief executive officers; Chang, then 82, stepped down as CEO and remained chairman.⁠[9][10][11]

On October 2, 2017, Chang announced that he would retire after the annual shareholders’ meeting in early June 2018, leaving the board and taking no part in management; he said that founding TSMC and devoting himself to it for about 30 years had been an extraordinarily exciting and happy phase of his life. After his retirement, Mark Liu became chairman and C.C. Wei chief executive officer.⁠[12][11]

On December 6, 2022, Chang presided, together with Mark Liu and C.C. Wei, over the ceremony marking the arrival of TSMC’s first equipment in Arizona, attended by guests including U.S. President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.⁠[13]

On October 21, 2023, President Tsai Ing-wen named Chang as her representative to the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in San Francisco from November 15 to 17; it was his seventh time as the president’s APEC envoy and his sixth on Tsai’s behalf.⁠[14][7]

Chang and his wife arrived in San Francisco on November 14. On November 16, he met U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris for about 20 minutes to discuss economic partnership; earlier that day he also met Lael Brainard, the top White House economic adviser.⁠[7][15]

On April 19, 2024, Chang, then 92, received the Order of Dr. Sun Yat-sen with Grand Cordon for his contributions to the country. His wife, Sophie Chang, who leads the TSMC Charity Foundation in humanitarian and relief work, attended the ceremony. Chang also has two stepdaughters.⁠[16][7][1]

On November 29, 2024, Commonwealth Publishing released the second volume of Chang’s autobiography, covering 1964 to 2018 in nearly 200,000 characters; about a third of the book deals with his TI years, and it also covers General Instrument and ITRI. In the preface he stressed that it is an autobiography rather than a history of TSMC, and credited TSMC’s success to the roughly 160,000 employees who had worked there over time.⁠[4][5]

TSMC: Official website: https://www.tsmc.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[17]

Industrial Technology Research Institute: Official website: https://www.itri.org.tw/ (opens in a new window)⁠[18]