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TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited) is a semiconductor foundry: companies provide chip designs, and TSMC manufactures them. It is primarily the manufacturer behind chips designed and sold by other companies, not a consumer chip brand selling products under its own name.

What does TSMC do?

TSMC makes semiconductors on silicon wafers using customers’ integrated-circuit designs. A company that designs chips but hires another company to manufacture them is often called fabless; TSMC’s foundry model gives those companies access to semiconductor manufacturing without requiring them to own and operate a fabrication plant.

TSMC describes itself as a pure-play foundry. Its 2025 Annual Report says it does not design, manufacture, or market semiconductor products under its own name. That does not mean TSMC owns or sells every finished device containing a chip it manufactured: customers and other businesses handle their own products and sales.

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What is a semiconductor foundry?

A foundry is a company that manufactures chips to customers’ specifications. The customer develops the chip design; the foundry uses its production processes and facilities to make the design into semiconductor devices. This differs from an integrated device manufacturer (IDM), which combines chip design and manufacturing within the same company.

TSMC pioneered the pure-play foundry model when it was established in 1987. According to its company profile, the model helped the global fabless semiconductor industry grow.

What products and services does TSMC provide?

TSMC’s output is business-to-business manufacturing and related technical services, rather than retail electronics. Its 2025 Form 20-F lists fabrication processes including CMOS logic, mixed-signal, radio-frequency, embedded memory, and BiCMOS.

Manufacturing is supported by services such as design assistance, mask-making, testing, and advanced packaging. TSMC’s services page also describes TSMC 3DFabric silicon stacking and packaging, eFoundry web applications, and CyberShuttle prototyping.

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How large is TSMC?

Figures below are company-reported for 2025 in TSMC’s profile and 2025 Annual Report, released in April 2026. They describe the company’s scale for that year, not a guarantee of future output.

Measure TSMC-reported 2025 figure
Products manufactured 12,682 different products
Manufacturing technologies used 305 distinct technologies
Customers served 534
Annual capacity More than 17 million 12-inch-equivalent wafers
Wafer revenue from advanced processes 74%; TSMC defines advanced processes here as geometries of 7 nm and smaller

TSMC also estimated the worldwide semiconductor market excluding memory at US$611 billion in 2025, up 19% from 2024. Separately, it estimated the “Foundry 2.0” sector at US$305 billion, up 16% from 2024. Foundry 2.0 is TSMC’s own market definition: it includes packaging, testing, mask-making and related technologies, as well as integrated device manufacturers excluding memory. These are company estimates, not universal market definitions.

Where does TSMC manufacture chips?

TSMC’s reported 2025 manufacturing footprint covered Taiwan, China, the United States, and Japan, with a specialty fab under construction in Dresden, Germany. Ownership differs by facility: TSMC Arizona and TSMC Nanjing are wholly owned subsidiaries, while Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM) is majority-owned. The company also provides customer support, account management, and engineering services through offices in North America, Europe, Japan, China, and South Korea.

In the United States, TSMC reported that its first Arizona facility began volume production of 4 nm technology in the fourth quarter of 2024. Construction of a third Arizona facility began in 2025, according to the 2025 Annual Report. The company also discusses further investment plans; plans should not be read as completed facilities or production milestones.

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What do TSMC’s process-node announcements mean?

In its 2025 Form 20-F, TSMC reported that its 2 nm technology entered volume production in 2025. The same filing said risk production for 16-angstrom technology was expected in 2026. That was a company expectation stated in the filing, not confirmation that risk production subsequently occurred.

What is TSMC’s full name and stock ticker?

The legal name is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited; TSMC is its common abbreviation. Its common shares trade on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2330, and its American Depositary Shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker T.

TSMC in one sentence

TSMC is a Taiwan-based pure-play semiconductor foundry that manufactures chips from customer designs and provides related services such as packaging, mask-making, design support, and testing.

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