TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company)

TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is a Taiwanese contract chipmaker founded in 1987 by Morris Chang. Its annual report on Form 20-F records that it was incorporated on 21 February 1987 as a joint venture of the Taiwanese government and private investors, listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange on 5 September 1994, and listed its ADSs on the New York Stock Exchange on 8 October 1997. It is headquartered in the Hsinchu Science Park and had 90,557 employees at the end of December 2025.

The company describes itself as the pioneer of the "pure-play" foundry model, manufacturing only its customers' products. Because it sells no chips under its own brand, it is a manufacturer that does not compete with the companies whose designs it builds. TSMC says that in 2025 it made 12,682 different products using 305 distinct technologies for 534 customers.

Whose chips it makes

The 20-F names no customers, but it shows the shape of the revenue clearly. In 2025 the ten largest customers accounted for 78% of net revenue, the largest single customer for 19% and the second largest for 17%. By geography, counted by where customers are headquartered, North America was 75%, China 9% and Japan 4%. By platform, high performance computing, which includes AI applications, grew sharply over three years.

HPC revenue rose 48% in 2025. Among the entries on this site, the NVIDIA H100 is made on TSMC 4N and the Blackwell B200 on TSMC 4NP. Apple does not name its manufacturer, but the teardown firm TechInsights identified the iPhone XS's A12 as a TSMC part, and the Mac's Apple M1 is also reported to be made by TSMC.

The share of advanced processes

Split by process, the share of wafer revenue from 7 nm and below rose from 58% in 2023 to 74% in 2025. The start of 7 nm volume production itself belongs to the entry on TSMC 7 nm (2018).

According to the 20-F, 2 nm entered volume production in 2025, and risk production of its 16-angstrom technology is expected in 2026. Annual capacity exceeded 17 million 12-inch-equivalent wafers in 2025.

Fabs outside Taiwan

The 20-F places most fabs in the Hsinchu, Central Taiwan and Southern Taiwan science parks, with two in the United States, one each in Shanghai and Nanjing, and one in Japan. In the 2020s the company has been opening new sites in the US, Japan and Europe.

Key events

• 21 February 1987: Incorporated as a joint venture of the Taiwanese government and private investors.
• 5 September 1994: Listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
• 8 October 1997: ADSs listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
• 2018: 7 nm volume production begins.
• November 2020: TSMC Arizona established.
• December 2021: JASM established in Kumamoto.
• June 2023: ESMC established in Dresden.
• December 2024: JASM enters volume production; the first Arizona fab does so at the end of the same year.
• 2025: 2 nm enters volume production. The US Commerce Department's Validated End-User authorisation for the Nanjing fab expires in December and is replaced by an annual export licence.

Key figures

Fiscal year ended December 2025 (IFRS), from the 20-F.

• Net revenue: NT$3,809.1 billion (US$121.4 billion), up 31.6%
• Gross margin: 59.9% (56.1% the year before)
• Net income attributable to shareholders of the parent: NT$1,697.6 billion (US$54.1 billion)
• Capital expenditure: NT$1,272.4 billion (US$40.9 billion); US$52–56 billion expected for 2026
• R&D: NT$246.4 billion (6.5% of net revenue)

TrendForce estimates that in the second quarter of 2026 TSMC took 72.5% of top-ten foundry revenue, against 5.9% for Samsung's foundry business and 5.4% for SMIC. That is a share of revenue, not of capacity or output.

The weight of being the neutral manufacturer

The pure-play model works because customers who only design chips grow up around it. The 2025 figures, with HPC at 58% of revenue and the two largest customers together at 36%, show HPC demand, AI included, reaching TSMC's fabs through a very small number of large customers. The 20-F itself lists dependence on a few large customers, and further concentration as customers consolidate, among its risks.

That concentration has also become a geopolitical matter. The 20-F says that after the US tightened controls on advanced computing chips in January 2025, TSMC may need an export licence before shipping products made on processes of 16 nm or below to specified destinations. It also discloses that in October 2024 it notified US and Taiwanese authorities that one type of a customer's chip it had manufactured might have been diverted to a restricted entity. The new fabs in the United States, Japan and Germany answer customers' and governments' calls for more diverse supply chains, but, as the 20-F acknowledges, the majority of its net revenue still comes from its operations in Taiwan.