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🐂 TSM — Company Profile (Teaching)

Teaching site, not investment advice. Specific market cap / stock price / financial figures change frequently and are intentionally omitted; use the SEC + Yahoo Finance links below to pull real-time data yourself.

📌 Basics

Dimension Content Source
Core business World's largest pure-play foundry (no in-house products) — 3nm / 5nm / 7nm advanced nodes + CoWoS advanced packaging — serves NVDA / AMD / AAPL / GOOGL / AVGO / MRVL / nearly the entire industry 20-F FY25
Founded / HQ 1987 / Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan wiki
CEO C.C. Wei (CEO since 2018/06; became Chairman & CEO 2024/06, succeeding Mark Liu in the Chairman role) Company announcement
Primary listing Dual-listed: NYSE ADR (TSM, 1 ADR = 5 common shares) + Taiwan Stock Exchange (2330.TW) —
Foreign filer Yes (Taiwan company; files 20-F with SEC, not US 10-K) SEC
Fiscal year Calendar year (Jan 1 – Dec 31) —

💡 Real-time market cap / share price / per-node revenue mix: see SEC primary + IR links below.

ADR ratio note: TSM 1 ADR = 5 Taiwan shares — must distinguish when computing market cap (verify_facts.sh v3 has a known gap on ADR ratio — see LEDGER note).

🏭 Supply Chain Coordinates (Part 1-C6 framework)

Upstream (Who TSM Depends On)

Supplier What flows Key dependency
ASML EUV (industry-wide monopoly) + DUV lithography Irreplaceable
AMAT + LRCX + KLAC + TOELY Deposition / etch / inspection / coating equipment Multi-vendor oligopoly
SKH / MU / SSNLF HBM3E (memory placed on CoWoS) Three-source
SNPS + CDNS EDA + IP Duopoly
Taiwan + US Arizona + Japan Kumamoto + Germany Dresden fab footprint Diversified manufacturing Strategic

Downstream (Who Depends on TSM)

Customer Relationship Concentration
AAPL All iPhone A-series + Mac M-series SoC fabricated by TSM #1 customer — ~25% of TSM revenue
NVDA GPU full line + Blackwell + future Rubin all at TSM (incl. CoWoS packaging) Top-5 customer, fastest growing
AMD EPYC + MI + Ryzen full line Top-5
GOOGL + AVGO All 7 generations of TPU Critical AI customer
QCOM + MRVL + MTK (2454.TW) + nearly all fabless Phone / network / embedded chips Highly diversified tail
INTC Some advanced products (Intel using TSM as backup alongside its own 18A) New, strategic shift

Competitors

  • Advanced foundry (3nm and below): SSNLF Samsung Foundry (#2 share but 3nm yield 1-2 years behind TSM); INTC Foundry (18A ramping, behind TSM by one node)
  • China substitutes: SMIC (mainly 7nm DUV, restricted by ASML EUV export controls) / Huawei partnership on Ascend 910C
  • Mature nodes: UMC (2303.TW, Taiwan United Microelectronics) + GFS GlobalFoundries (12nm+) — does not pursue advanced nodes

💼 Business Model + Value Capture (Part 1-C7 view)

  • Revenue mix: Smartphone ~33% (mainly AAPL) / HPC / AI ~52%+ (NVDA / AMD / GOOGL / customer ASIC; surpassed smartphone in 2024) / IoT ~6% / Auto ~5% / Other ~4%
  • Gross margin: 50%+ (advanced nodes higher GM; 2025 raised long-term GM target to 53%+)
  • Pricing power: 3nm / 5nm strong; NVDA / AAPL pay a premium — extremely strong (no alternative)
  • Substitution difficulty: Strongest physical-layer moat — 30 years of process accumulation + customer PDK + yield / customer base positive feedback

(For specific quarterly revenue / AI share / capex data, see the latest SEC 20-F.)

🏰 Moat Assessment (Part 3-C2 Buffett 5-step lens)

Type Strength (0-1) Source
Brand 0.8 "TSMC" = global synonym for "foundry"
Switching cost 1.0 Customer PDK + verification + yield lock-in for 5-10 years
Network effects 0.6 Customer base → yield → more customers (positive feedback)
Scale + cost 1.0 60%+ share of global advanced foundry; largest R&D + capex scale

Composite: 3.4 / 4 → extremely strong moat, but Taiwan Strait geopolitics is the core reverse risk

⚠️ Key Reverse-Trigger Conditions (Part 3-C5 anti-thesis view)

  • Trigger 1 (low probability, catastrophic): Taiwan Strait event → fab shipments interrupted 6-12+ months — full global AI chain halts (with partial relief from US / Japan / Germany fabs)
  • Trigger 2 (annual): SSNLF Samsung 3nm/2nm yield catches up to TSM — partial AAPL / NVDA single-source shift
  • Trigger 3 (event): INTC Foundry 18A ramp succeeds + major customers (NVDA / Qualcomm) actually tape out — long-term share risk
  • Trigger 4 (quarterly): AAPL iPhone unit sales decline sharply — TSM's #1 customer revenue impacted
  • Trigger 5 (low probability): SMIC + Huawei jointly breakthrough on EUV self-sufficiency — physically very difficult in 5-10 years (LEDGER F-111)

🔗 Teaching Cross-References

📚 SEC Primary Filings (look it up yourself)

Real-time quote: Yahoo Finance TSM (ADR) / TWSE 2330.TW

Teaching use · numbers change — learn the method, not the specific figures · investment decisions are based on your own research + risk tolerance