Morris Chang built TSMC on a pure-play foundry model after surveying the semiconductor industry and finding no path for a newcomer to compete with integrated manufacturers. His 30-year career, including leading Texas Instruments' semiconductor division, shaped his conviction that specializing in manufacturing excellence and rapid production could solve a problem the market didn't yet know it had.
Chapters
I think Jensen alluded to this focus and you said it too. Pure play, this focus on manufacturing excellence, on R and D and manufacturing designed to bring new semiconductor lines to production faster. How did you get decide to focus on that? How did that become the central focus point for tsmc?
Well, because one thing, one reason, in fact maybe the principal reason was that at the time I started tsmc, I had already worked in the industry, semiconductor industry for 30 years. I joined the industry in 1955 and started the TSMC in 1985. And I had already been the head of the largest semiconductor operation business in the world, Texas Instruments. So there was a Song dynasty Chinese poem that said that to be the leader, the first thing you have to do is to climb to the top of a high building and look down on all the available roads in the world. And I did that actually at ti, I occupied perhaps the most the height of the industry and looked at all the available routes and there wasn't really any for a newcomer to compete, you know, So I had to figure out a new road. And the new road was this new business model. But then of course, the problem was that it was a solution looking for a problem. But happily the problem occurred.
