Definition: TSMC

(Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, Ltd. Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan) With more than 60,000 employees, TSMC is the world's largest "pure-play" semiconductor foundry, which means it only manufactures chips for its customers using their designs. It is also considered the most important chip company on the planet because it makes 90% of the state-of-the-art chips for the top tech companies, including Apple and NVIDIA. More than half of TSMC's output is for AI GPUs and accelerators. However, Samsung's Taylor, Texas plant is expected to make AI chips for Tesla in 2027. See foundry.

Founded in 1987 by Morris Chang, TSMC was the first company dedicated to making chips for "fabless" chip companies. It was also first to produce state-of-the-art five-nanometer chips and one of the first for 3 nm. See EUV machine, TSMC 3DFabric and GlobalFoundries.

A $165 Billion Investment in Arizona
TSMC took the above photos in late 2022 in North Phoenix, Arizona that would employ 6,000 people. Given China's perpetual threat to take over Taiwan, TSMC's Arizona investment is essential for the U.S. tech sector.

The goal of having the first fab operational by 2025 was met, and TSMC is producing chips with 4 nm nodes. The second fab is expected to go online in 2027 for 2 and 3 nm nodes, while four more wafer fabs, two advanced packaging facilities and one R&D facility are planned for the future. In 2026, TSMC acquired 900 more acres near the original 1,149. Until TSMC has an Arizona packaging facility, chips go back to Taiwan for final packaging. See Amkor and TSMC 3DFabric.

These plants are extremely complex and setting them up is an enormous undertaking, and in a foreign country no less... America. See chip feature size and chip capital of America.