TSMC Wiki

About

TSMC pioneered the pure-play foundry business model when it was founded in 1987, and has been the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry ever since. The company supports a thriving ecosystem of global customers and partners with the industry’s leading process technology and portfolio of design enablement solutions to unleash innovation for the global semiconductor industry.

TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) created the semiconductor Dedicated IC Foundry business model when it was founded in 1987. In 2023, TSMC served 528 customers and manufactured 11,895 products for various applications covering a variety of end markets including high performance computing, smartphones, the Internet of Things (IoT), automotive, and digital consumer electronics. Annual capacity of the manufacturing facilities managed by TSMC and its subsidiaries exceeded 16 million 12-inch equivalent wafers in 2023. These facilities include four 12-inch wafer GIGAFAB® fabs, four 8-inch wafer fabs, and one 6-inch wafer fab – all in Taiwan – as well as one 12-inch wafer fab at a wholly owned subsidiary, TSMC Nanjing Company Limited, and two 8-inch wafer fabs at wholly owned subsidiaries, TSMC Washington in the United States and TSMC China Company Limited. In August 2023, TSMC announced its plan to jointly invest in European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC), in Dresden, Germany, to build a specialty technology fab. ESMC aims to begin construction of the fab in the second half of 2024 with production targeted to begin by the end of 2027. TSMC continues to execute its plan to construct and operate two fabs in Arizona, the United States. Production of the first fab is targeted for the first half of 2025, and construction of the second fab is ongoing. The Company is also building a new fab in Kumamoto, Japan, with production targeted by late 2024.

Reference: www.tsmc.com

History

Founded in Taiwan in 1987 by Morris Chang, TSMC was the world’s first dedicated semiconductor foundry and has long been the leading company in its field. It is listed on both the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE: 2330) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: TSM). Mark Liu serves as Chairman and C. C. Wei serves as CEO and Vice Chairman.

Most of the leading fabless semiconductor companies such as Qualcomm, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), MediaTek, Marvell and Broadcom Inc. are customers of TSMC, as well as emerging players such as Spectra7, Spreadtrum, AppliedMicro, Allwinner Technology and HiSilicon, and many smaller companies. Leading programmable logic device companies Xilinx and previously Altera also make or made use of TSMC’s foundry services. Some integrated device manufacturers that have their own fabrication facilities like Intel, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments outsource some of their production to TSMC. At least one semiconductor company, LSI, re-sells TSMC wafers through its ASIC design services and design IP-portfolio.

The company has been increasing and upgrading its manufacturing capacity for most of its existence, although influenced by the demand cycles of the semiconductor industry. In 2011, the company planned to increase research and development expenditures by almost 39% to NT$50 billion in an effort to fend off growing competition. The company also planned to expand capacity by 30% in 2011 to meet strong market demand. In May 2014, TSMC’s board of directors approved capital appropriations of US$568 million to establish, convert, and upgrade advanced technology capacity after the company forecast higher than expected demand. In August 2014, TSMC’s board of directors approved additional capital appropriations of US$3.05 billion.

It was reported in 2011 that TSMC had begun trial production of the A5 SoC and A6 SoCs for Apple’s iPad and iPhone devices. According to reports, as of May 2014, Apple is sourcing its new A8 and A8X SoCs from TSMC and later sourced the A9 SoC with both TSMC and Samsung (to increase volume for iPhone 6s launch) with the A9X being exclusively made by TSMC, thus resolving the issue of sourcing a chip in two different microarchitecture sizes. Apple has become TSMC’s most important customer.

TSMC’s market capitalization reached a value of NT$1.9 trillion (US$63.4 billion) in December 2010. It was ranked 70th in the FT Global 500 2013 list of the world’s most highly valued companies with a capitalization of US$86.7 billion, while reaching US$110 billion in May 2014. In March 2017, TSMC’s market capitalisation surpassed that of semiconductor giant Intel for the first time, hitting NT$5.14 trillion (US$168.4 billion), with Intel’s at US$165.7 billion.

Reference: TSMC Wikipedia

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