TSMC
The world's largest contract chipmaker, making leading-edge chips for Apple, Nvidia, AMD and more.
Public · NYSE:TSM- Sector
- Semiconductors
- Based in
- Hsinchu, Taiwan
- Founded
- 1987
- Invested
- Jun 2023
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company makes chips that other companies design. Customers such as Apple, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm and Broadcom rely on it to manufacture their most advanced processors, and it produces the large majority of the world's leading-edge chips.
TSMC also leads in advanced packaging, which stacks and connects multiple chips together, a key step in building AI accelerators. Most of its factories are in Taiwan, with newer fabs in Arizona, Japan and Germany.
Morris Chang founded TSMC in 1987 and pioneered the "pure-play foundry" model, making chips only for customers and never competing with them. It trades on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, and its shares trade in the US as ADRs under the ticker TSM.
As of 29 Sep 2026
Why I own it
Nearly every leading-edge chip gets made by TSMC, whoever designs it. Nvidia, Apple, AMD and Broadcom all depend on it.
I don't need to pick which chip designer wins. If the world needs orders of magnitude more compute, most of it passes through TSMC's fabs. The geopolitical risk is real, and I accept it for a company this central.
Then · Jun 2023
Since I invested
- Held for
- 3 years, 4 months
- Status
- Active
- Share price, past year
- +54%
- In the notebook
- 2 notes
Thesis check since 29 Sep 2026
1 development supports it, 1 challenges it
- ChallengesIntel pulls ahead of TSMC on ASML's priciest lithography tool
- SupportsTSMC's Q3 result lands on 15 October
Checked against the thesis by Jev, an AI model. Can be wrong.
From the notebook
All notesConnections
Intel pulls ahead of TSMC on ASML's priciest lithography tool
ASML is the only maker of the EUV machines both Intel and TSMC need for their most advanced chips, and the two customers are now moving at very different speeds. Intel and ASML have processed more than one million wafers using High NA EUV, including production layers for Intel's Panther Lake chips. TSMC won't deploy the same tool until 2030, a four year gap that hands Intel rare bragging rights in a foundry race it has mostly been losing.
Since this note:ASML −5.2%Intel −10.3%TSMC −3.1%(S&P 500 +0.6%)
Coming up
TSMC's Q3 result lands on 15 October
TSMC reports third-quarter earnings on 15 October, Taiwan time, having guided revenue to $44.6bn-$45.8bn and flagged pressure on margins. That guidance reflects temporary pressure from 2-nanometer technology ramp-up costs, even as AI-driven orders keep volumes climbing. The call is the first real test of whether advanced-node demand from Nvidia, AMD and Apple is still outrunning TSMC's capacity to build it.
Since this note:TSMC −0.3%Nvidia −0.2%AMD +0.8%(S&P 500 +1.3%)
ASML
Intel
Nvidia
AMDWritten by AI from share prices, the companies' posts and the news. Can be wrong; not financial advice.
