Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
Leadership History
4 leaders · 1987 to present
C.C. Wei is the CEO of TSMC, in the role since 2018. The first chief executive was Morris Chang, from 1987.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C.C. Wei | Chairman and CEO | 2018 | Present | 8 |
| Mark Liu | Co-Chief Executive Officer, later Chairman | 2013 | 2024 | 11 |
| Rick Tsai | CEO | 2005 | 2009 | 4 |
| Morris Chang | Founder, Chairman, and CEO | 1987 | 2018 | 31 |
TSMC reported $121.423 billion in FY2025 revenue, $54.116 billion in net income attributable to shareholders, and 90,557 full-time employees. C.C. Wei is CEO. The company is the leading pure-play foundry for advanced chips. The company is headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
TSMC is a pure-play foundry: customers send finished chip designs, and TSMC turns them into processed wafers and, more and more, packaged multi-chip modules. It earns revenue per wafer, with leading-edge nodes such as 3nm and 2nm commanding much higher prices than mature nodes, plus fees for advanced packaging (CoWoS, InFO, SoIC) and design-enablement services. Because TSMC does not sell competing chips, rival designers such as Apple, Nvidia, AMD and Qualcomm can all trust it with their designs. The model is capital intensive: building and equipping leading-edge fabs costs tens of billions of dollars a year, and that spending, together with yield know-how, is what keeps rivals behind.
Chairman and CEO
2018 – Present
8 years (current)
Wei orchestrated the unprecedented, multi-billion dollar global expansion of TSMC's fabs into Arizona, Japan, and Germany to appease massive Western geopolitical pressure.
As CEO (and now Chairman), he navigates the incredibly tense US-China trade war while maintaining TSMC's absolute monopoly on manufacturing Apple's and NVIDIA's most advanced chips.
Co-Chief Executive Officer, later Chairman
2013 – 2024
11 years
Liu became co-chief executive with C.C. Wei in 2013 and succeeded Morris Chang as chairman in June 2018.
TSMC began building plants in Arizona, Japan and Germany during his chairmanship. He retired in June 2024 and C.C. Wei became chairman.
CEO
2005 – 2009
4 years
Tsai severely mismanaged the 2008 financial crisis, executing massive, deeply unpopular layoffs that enraged Morris Chang, who subsequently forced Tsai out and returned as CEO.
Serving as CEO from 2005 to 2009, he aggressively optimized the company's operational efficiency but critically failed to maintain TSMC's historically pristine employee relations.
Founder, Chairman, and CEO
1987 – 2018
31 years
Chang invented the 'pure-play foundry' business model in 1987, decreeing that TSMC would never design its own chips, thereby ensuring it would never compete against its own massive clients.
As the legendary founder, he built TSMC into the absolute most important company in the global economy, single-handedly establishing Taiwan's dominance in advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
TSMC's main risks are geopolitical concentration in Taiwan, customer concentration, export controls, capital intensity, power and water constraints, and competition from Samsung and Intel Foundry.
TSMC's leadership includes legendary founder Dr. Morris Chang (CEO 1987–2005 and 2009–2018), Dr. Rick Tsai (CEO 2005–2009), Dr. Mark Liu (Co-CEO 2013–2018, Chairman 2018–2024), and Dr. C.C. Wei (Co-CEO 2013–2018, CEO 2018–present, Chairman & CEO 2024–present).
Following the 2008 global financial crisis, then-CEO Rick Tsai instituted workforce layoffs and reduced CapEx that damaged morale and customer trust. At age 77, Morris Chang resumed the CEO role in June 2009, rehired dismissed engineers, and tripled R&D and CapEx to $5 billion, setting up the 28nm victory.
When Morris Chang retired in June 2018, he established a dual-leadership structure: Dr. Mark Liu served as Chairman of the Board overseeing corporate strategy, international affairs, and board governance, while Dr. C.C. Wei served as CEO directing business operations, customer relations, and technology development.
In June 2024, upon Dr. Mark Liu's retirement, Dr. C.C. Wei was elected Chairman of the Board while continuing as Chief Executive Officer, consolidating executive leadership in a single person for the first time since Morris Chang's retirement.
Dr. C.C. Wei earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Yale University, conducted semiconductor research at Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics, and joined TSMC in 1998, leading R&D, mainstream operations, and business development.
Mark Liu navigated unprecedented geopolitical cross-currents, spearheaded TSMC's global fab expansion in the United States, Japan, and Germany, navigated US-China export controls, and championed corporate ESG and green energy procurement.
Known affectionately as "Papa Chiang", Shang-yi Chiang led TSMC's R&D department for decades, establishing the engineering teams that developed 0.13-micron copper interconnects, Gate-Last HKMG at 28nm, and advanced packaging.
TSMC's Board includes a majority of independent directors—such as former British Telecom CEO Sir Peter Bonfield, former NXP CEO Rick Clemmer, and former US Commerce Secretary advisers—providing global governance oversight.
Through an intense engineering meritocracy, competitive stock-based compensation, partnerships with top Taiwanese universities (National Taiwan University, NYCU, NTHU), and comprehensive global engineering exchange programs.
C.C. Wei demonstrated firm pricing power, successfully implementing 5–10% price increases on leading-edge 3nm and 4nm wafers to reflect higher electricity costs, overseas fab construction inflation, and the premium value of defect-free yield.
Morris Chang established four core corporate values: Integrity (誠信), Commitment (承諾), Innovation (創新), and Customer Trust (客戶信任), which remain the sacred operational commandments for all 90,000+ employees.
To successfully ramp the 2nm and A16 nodes, overcome international construction and cultural friction at Arizona and European fabs, scale CoWoS packaging tenfold, and power the global AI transformation.
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