February 21, 1987

Morris Chang founds TSMC

Morris Chang founded Taiwan SemiconductorA material whose conductivity can be controlled — silicon semiconductors are the basis of almost all computer chips. Manufacturing Company on February 21, 1987 — pioneering the pure-play foundry model.

What it was for

Morris ChangTSMC manufactures chips for Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, and Qualcomm without designing its own products — enabling fabless chip companies worldwide. It became the world's most advanced semiconductorA material whose conductivity can be controlled — silicon semiconductors are the basis of almost all computer chips. fab operator.

People

  • Morris Changfounder

Companies

  • TSMC

Why it's here

TSMC's foundry model reshaped how the entire chip industry is structured.

Why it mattered

It let startups design chips without building billion-dollar fabs.

What it solved

Integrated device manufacturers hoarded fab capacity and IPInternet Protocol — the addressing and routing layer that moves packets across networks..

Media

  • Morris Chang
    ImageMorris Chang

    總統府, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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