TSMC: The Taiwanese Titan
How Asia’s semiconductor giant came to rule the world
Everyone is familiar with tech companies like Google and Microsoft, but a surprising number of people have never heard of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC).
TSMC is essentially a contract manufacturer of chips designed by firms without their own semiconductor fabrication facilities (fabs). Because chip manufacturing is a highly expensive, technical, and hard-to-scale process, firms call upon TSMC to make their chips for them.
TSMC products are ubiquitous — you can find them in Teslas, Apple products, gaming consoles, and even in military drones and Boeing airliners. Indeed, the Taiwanese tech giant, not Intel, is the world’s most valuable chipmaker by market capitalisation. By this measure, they’re also the 9th largest company in the world at the time of writing. Production halting at TSMC could cause the collapse of the entire electronics industry, as well as wreaking havoc on the global economy.
So how did the firm emerge as the powerhouse it is today?
Government Support
It is important to credit the Taiwanese government for laying the foundations of TSMC’s success.
