Although the central government of Taiwan is the largest individual shareholder,[11] the majority of TSMC is owned by foreign investors.

[21] Programmable logic device companies Xilinx and previously Altera also make or made use of TSMC's foundry services.

[22] Some integrated device manufacturers that have their own fabrication facilities, such as Intel, NXP, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments, outsource some of their production to TSMC.

[dubious – discuss] TSMC has a global capacity of about thirteen million 300 mm-equivalent wafers per year as of 2020 and produces chips for customers with process nodes from 2 microns to 3 nanometres.

TSMC was the first foundry to market 7-nanometre and 5-nanometre (used by the 2020 Apple A14 and M1 SoCs, the MediaTek Dimensity 8100, and AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors) production capabilities, and the first to commercialize ASML's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology in high volume.

Only Philips was willing to sign a joint venture contract with Taiwan to put up $58 million, transfer its production technology, and license intellectual property in exchange for a 27.5 percent stake in TSMC.

Alongside generous tax benefits, the Taiwanese government, through the National Development Fund, Executive Yuan, provided another 48 percent of the startup capital for TSMC, and the rest of the capital was raised from several of the island's wealthiest families, who owned firms that specialized in plastics, textiles, and chemicals.

[30] In May 2014, TSMC's board of directors approved capital appropriations of US$568 million to increase and improve manufacturing capabilities after the company forecast higher than expected demand.

[39] Over the objection of the Tsai Ing-wen administration, in March 2017, TSMC invested US$3 billion in Nanjing to develop a manufacturing subsidiary there.

[49] To mitigate business risks in the event of war between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China, since the beginning of the 2020s, TSMC has expanded its geographic operations, opening new fabs in Japan and the United States, with further plans for expansion into Germany.

[50] In July 2020, TSMC confirmed it would halt the shipment of silicon wafers to Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturer Huawei and its subsidiary HiSilicon by 14 September.

[51][52] In November 2020, officials in Phoenix, Arizona in the United States approved TSMC's plan to build a $12 billion chip plant in the city.

The decision to locate a plant in the US came after the Trump administration warned about the issues concerning the world's electronics made outside of the U.S.[53] In 2021, news reports claimed that the facility might be tripled to roughly a $35 billion investment with six factories.

[61][62] In July 2022, TSMC announced the company had posted a record profit in the second quarter, with net income up 76.4 percent year-over-year.

[64] In the third quarter of 2022, Berkshire Hathaway disclosed purchase of 60 million shares in TSMC, acquiring a $4.1 billion stake, making it one of its largest holdings in a technology company.

[69] In October 2024, TSMC informed the United States Department of Commerce about a potential breach of export controls in which one of its most advanced chips was sent to Huawei via another company with ties to the Chinese government.

In 2014, TSMC was at the forefront of the foundry industry for high-performance, low-power applications,[88][89] leading major smartphone chip companies, such as Qualcomm,[90][91] Mediatek,[91][92] and Apple,[36][38] to place an increasing amount of orders.

[88] While the competitors in the foundry industry (primarily GlobalFoundries and United Microelectronics Corporation) have encountered difficulties ramping leading-edge 28 nm capacity,[92] the leading Integrated Device Manufacturers such as Samsung and Intel that seek to offer foundry capacity to third parties were also unable to match the requirements for advanced mobile applications.

[96] However, monthly sales for 2014 peaked in October, decreasing by 10% in November due to cautious inventory adjustment actions taken by some of its customers.

[105][106] On 300 mm wafers, TSMC has silicon lithography on node sizes: It also offers "design for manufacturing" (DFM) customer services.

[118] In July 2020, TSMC signed a 20-year deal with Ørsted to buy the entire production of two offshore wind farms under development off Taiwan's west coast.

[119] In July 2021, both Apple and Intel were reported to be testing their proprietary chip designs with TSMC's 3 nm production.

[124] In 2020, TSMC announced a planned fab in Phoenix, Arizona, intended to begin production by 2024 at a rate of 20,000 wafers per month.

As of 2020, TSMC announced that it would bring its newest 5 nm process to the Arizona facility, a significant break from its prior practice of limiting US fabs to older technologies.

[127] In December 2022, TSMC announced its plans to triple its investment in the Arizona plants in response to the growing tensions between the US and China and the supply chain disruption that has led to chip shortages.

[129][130][131] In July 2023 TSMC warned that US talent was insufficient, so Taiwanese workers will need to be brought in for a limited time, and that the chip factory will not be operational until 2025.

The companies along with minor individual investors placed US$1.2 billion into this venture, which was at the time the single largest startup investment in the state of Washington.

[139] As of 2024, the facility employs 1100 workers and supports node sizes of 0.35, 0.30, 0.25, 0.22, 0.18, and 0.16 micrometers, with an emphasis on embedded flash process technology.

Three European companies (Robert Bosch GmbH, Infineon Technologies, and NXP Semiconductors) invested in the plant in return for a 10% share each.