Researched
Foundry Model (TSMC)
TSMC, founded in Taiwan on 21 February 1987, makes chips only for others, so fabless firms design without building fabs; it holds about 70% of the market.
Open in the interactive tree →The split between fabless designers and pure-play foundries concentrates the cost of leading-edge fabs in a few makers. TSMC was the first to bring ASML's EUV lithography into high-volume production, moved to 2 nm in late 2025, and counts Nvidia, Apple, Broadcom and Qualcomm among its customers.
Prerequisites
- Planar Process1959
- Moore's Law1965
- Wafer Stepper~1978
Unlocks
- EUV Lithography2019TSMC was the first foundry to bring EUV into high-volume production
- 2 nm Chips & High-NA EUV2025Foundry customers pooled the demand that pays for each new node, 2 nm included