TSMC

In 1985, Morris ChangMorris ChangMorris Chang is a semiconductor entrepreneur and the founder of TSMC, who pioneered the pure-play foundry business model.Open the full entry became president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). He recalled that a few weeks after he arrived in Taiwan, 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.⁠[1]

On February 21, 1987, TSMC was incorporated in Taiwan as a company limited by shares under the legal name Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited, headquartered in the Hsinchu Science Park. It opened for business that month with US$220 million in capital.⁠[2][3]

TSMC’s founding shareholders were the Executive Yuan Development Fund (48.3%), 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 of the Netherlands (27.5%) and a group of nine other Taiwanese companies (24.2% combined). Chang recalled that Philips was the only willing significant investor at the time; TSMC acquired its main process technologies and other research support through a variety of arrangements with Philips.⁠[4][1]

TSMC manufactures integrated circuits to customer specifications without designing or marketing products of its own; the company describes itself as the world’s first pure IC foundry.⁠[4][5]

TSMC’s first fab, Fab I, was leased from the Electronic Research and Service Organization (ERSO), a unit of ITRI; it opened in mid-1988 with a capacity of 15,000 six-inch wafers per month. Construction of Fab II began in April 1988 and was completed in April 1990; at full operation it could produce 40,000 six-inch CMOS wafers per month.⁠[4]

Chang recalled that between 1987 and 1991 TSMC depended mainly on big companies giving it “leftovers,” that the company had losses only in 1987 and 1990, and that it grew without looking back from 1991 on. Early customers included IntelIntelIntel is a semiconductor company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore in 1968; it introduced the 4004 microprocessor in 1971, its x86 processors have long powered personal computers, it has pursued a foundry strategy since 2021, and Lip-Bu Tan has been its chief executive officer since 2025.Open the full entry, Motorola and Texas Instruments, which outsourced the manufacturing of older-technology chips to TSMC.⁠[1][3]

In 1990, TSMC reached an agreement with Intel to make DRAMs for Intel, which was dissolved in 1991; in 1991, it agreed to act as a foundry for some EPROMs of Advanced Micro Devices. TSMC’s revenue was NT$2.2 billion (about US$82 million) in 1990 and NT$1.9 billion (about US$70 million) in 1989.⁠[4]

On September 5, 1994, TSMC’s common shares were listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.⁠[2]

In July 1997, TSMC broke ground on Fab VI, its first fab in the Tainan Science-Based Industrial Park. On October 8 of that year, TSMC’s American Depositary Shares (ADSs) were listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TSM.⁠[6][2]

By the end of 1997, TSMC operated two six-inch fabs (Fab I and Fab II) and three eight-inch fabs (Fab III, Fab IV and Fab V); WaferTech, its joint venture in the United States, was scheduled to begin ramping up in mid-1998.⁠[6]

On May 10, 2005, TSMC announced that Rick Tsai would become president and chief executive officer effective July 1 of that year; Morris Chang, previously chairman and CEO, would devote his full time to being chairman.⁠[7]

On March 9, 2007, Philips and TSMC announced a phased plan to facilitate Philips’ orderly exit from its TSMC shareholding. Philips then owned 16.2% of TSMC’s share capital, worth about US$8.5 billion; the plan included selling up to US$1.75 billion of shares in Taiwan, offering up to US$2.5 billion of shares in the United States as ADSs, a TSMC tender-offer buyback of about US$1.5 billion of shares in 2007 followed by cancellation, and further buybacks between 2008 and 2010. Philips’ representatives on TSMC’s board resigned.⁠[8][9]

On August 14, 2008, Philips sold its remaining approximately 383 million TSMC common shares through a block trade to long-term financial investors, after which it no longer owned a stake in TSMC; this concluded the multi-phased exit plan announced in March 2007.⁠[10][11]

On June 11, 2009, TSMC’s board unanimously re-elected Morris Chang as chairman and appointed him chief executive officer concurrently, effective the next day; Rick Tsai became president of the New Business Development Organization, reporting directly to the chairman and CEO.⁠[12]

On November 12, 2013, TSMC’s board appointed Mark Liu and C.C. Wei as presidents and co-chief executive officers reporting to the chairman; Morris Chang, then 82, stepped down as CEO and remained chairman.⁠[13][14][15]

On March 28, 2016, TSMC signed an investment agreement with Nanjing to invest US$3 billion to establish TSMC (Nanjing) Co. Ltd., building a 12-inch fab with planned capacity of 20,000 wafers per month, scheduled to begin 16nm production in the second half of 2018.⁠[16]

On October 2, 2017, Morris Chang announced that he would retire after the annual shareholders’ meeting in early June 2018, leaving the board and taking no part in management; Mark Liu would then become chairman and C.C. Wei chief executive officer under a dual-leadership structure.⁠[17][15]

TSMC says that in 2018 it became the first foundry to start volume production of 7nm FinFET (N7) technology.⁠[18]

On May 15, 2020, TSMC announced its intention to build and operate an advanced fab using 5-nanometer technology in Arizona in the United States, with capacity of 20,000 wafers per month, spending of approximately US$12 billion from 2021 to 2029, production targeted for 2024, and more than 1,600 high-tech jobs created directly.⁠[19]

TSMC says that in 2020 it became the first foundry to move 5nm FinFET (N5) technology into volume production.⁠[20]

On December 6, 2022, TSMC held a ceremony in Arizona marking the arrival of its first manufacturing equipment, attended by guests including U.S. President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Apple CEO Tim Cook and NVIDIANVIDIANVIDIA is an American semiconductor and computing technology company that provides graphics processing units, artificial intelligence infrastructure, networking interconnects, and computing software, and is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker NVDA.Open the full entry president and CEO Jensen Huang, and presided over by Morris Chang together with Mark Liu and C.C. Wei. TSMC also announced that it had begun building a second fab scheduled to start 3nm production in 2026; the first fab was scheduled to begin N4 production in 2024, and the two fabs represented a total investment of approximately US$40 billion.⁠[21]

On December 29, 2022, TSMC held a 3nm volume production and capacity expansion ceremony at its new Fab 18 site in the Southern Taiwan Science Park, announcing that 3nm technology had entered volume production with good yields; compared with 5nm, 3nm offers up to 1.6 times the logic density and 30–35% lower power at the same speed. TSMC expected its total investment in Fab 18 to exceed NT$1.86 trillion.⁠[22]

On August 8, 2023, TSMC, Bosch, Infineon and NXP announced the joint venture ESMC in Dresden, Germany, 70% owned by TSMC and 10% by each of the three partners, with the fab to be operated by TSMC. The fab was planned for 40,000 12-inch wafers per month, with total investment expected to exceed 10 billion euros and production targeted to begin by the end of 2027.⁠[23]

On December 19, 2023, TSMC announced that chairman Mark Liu would not seek nomination for the next board term and would retire after the 2024 shareholders’ meeting; Liu had joined TSMC in 1993 and had been chairman since June 2018. The board’s nominating committee recommended vice chairman C.C. Wei as the next chairman.⁠[24]

On February 24, 2024, TSMC held an opening ceremony for its majority-owned subsidiary Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM) in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, whose minority investors are Sony Semiconductor Solutions, DENSO and Toyota. Production at the first fab was targeted to begin by the end of 2024; the second fab was scheduled to begin construction by the end of 2024 and operations by the end of 2027. The two fabs would offer 40, 22/28, 12/16 and 6/7 nanometer technologies with total capacity of more than 100,000 12-inch wafers per month, total investment exceeding US$20 billion, and support from the Japanese government for the expansion.⁠[25]

In April 2024, TSMC began engineering wafer production with N4 technology at its first Arizona fab.⁠[26]

On June 4, 2024, TSMC’s shareholders elected a 16th board of directors of ten members, seven of them independent; the new board unanimously elected C.C. Wei as chairman and chief executive officer.⁠[27]

On August 20, 2024, ESMC held a groundbreaking ceremony for its Dresden fab, attended by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The fab will use 28/22 nanometer planar CMOS and 16/12 nanometer FinFET technologies; the European Commission had approved a €5 billion German measure under EU state aid rules.⁠[28]

In November 2024, TSMC Arizona entered into agreements with the U.S. Department of Commerce for up to US$6.6 billion in direct funding and up to US$5 billion in proposed loans under the CHIPS program, supporting a planned investment of more than US$65 billion in three leading-edge fabs in Phoenix, including A16 technology; the award followed a preliminary memorandum of terms announced on April 8, 2024.⁠[2][29]

In the fourth quarter of that year, TSMC Arizona’s first fab began volume production with N4 technology.⁠[30]

On March 4, 2025, TSMC announced plans to invest an additional US$100 billion in the United States for three new fabs, two advanced packaging facilities and a major R&D team center, bringing its expected total U.S. investment to US$165 billion. C.C. Wei said TSMC had begun establishing advanced chip manufacturing in the United States in 2020 with President Donald Trump’s support.⁠[31]

In April 2025, TSMC Arizona broke ground on its third fab, planned for N2 and A16 technologies.⁠[30]

On August 6, 2025, Apple said that TSMC in Arizona was producing tens of millions of chips for Apple, and that Amkor’s Arizona facility would package and test Apple silicon manufactured at the nearby TSMC fab.⁠[32]

TSMC says its 2nm (N2) technology started volume production in the fourth quarter of 2025 as planned, using its first-generation nanosheet transistor technology.⁠[33]

On June 4, 2026, TSMC’s shareholders’ meeting acknowledged the 2025 business report and financial statements and approved amendments to the articles of incorporation. TSMC’s 2025 consolidated revenue was NT$3,809.05 billion, net income was NT$1,717.88 billion and diluted earnings per share were NT$66.25.⁠[34]

On July 16, 2026, TSMC announced an additional US$100 billion investment in Arizona to build four more fabs for 2-nanometer or more advanced technology; the Arizona Commerce Authority said this brought TSMC’s commitment in the state to US$265 billion, covering ten fabs, two advanced packaging facilities and an R&D center.⁠[35][30]

On October 15, 2026, TSMC announced third-quarter 2026 results: consolidated revenue of NT$1,494.24 billion (US$46.72 billion), up 50.9% year over year and 17.6% quarter over quarter; net income of NT$763.06 billion and diluted earnings per share of NT$29.43, both up 68.7% year over year; a gross margin of 66.4% and an operating margin of 58.7%. 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer technologies accounted for 33%, 28% and 10% of wafer revenue respectively, and 7-nanometer and more advanced technologies for 79% combined.⁠[36]

TSMC expected fourth-quarter 2026 revenue of US$52.3 billion to US$54.3 billion, a gross margin of 65% to 67% and an operating margin of 56.5% to 58.5%, assuming an exchange rate of 31.8 NT dollars to the U.S. dollar; the company said 2026 capital expenditure would remain between US$60 billion and US$64 billion.⁠[36][37]

In 2025, TSMC manufactured 12,682 products using 305 distinct technologies for 534 customers, and the annual capacity of its managed facilities exceeded 17 million 12-inch equivalent wafers; its ten largest customers accounted for 78% of 2025 net revenue and the largest for 19%.⁠[38][2]

TSMC operates six 12-inch GIGAFAB fabs, four 8-inch fabs and one 6-inch fab in Taiwan; outside Taiwan, it runs one 12-inch fab each in Nanjing and Arizona through wholly owned subsidiaries, one 8-inch fab each through TSMC Washington and TSMC China, and one 12-inch fab in Japan through its majority-owned subsidiary JASM; construction of a specialty technology fab in Dresden began in 2024. TSMC Arizona has more than 3,500 employees, and its second fab will use N3 technology with volume production targeted for the second half of 2027.⁠[38][30]

As of February 28, 2026, the National Development Fund owned 6.38% of TSMC’s outstanding shares. C.C. Wei serves as chairman and chief executive officer, with Y.P. Chyn and Y.J. Mii as executive vice presidents and co-chief operating officers.⁠[2][39]

TSMC: Official website: https://www.tsmc.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[38]