What happened with TSM today?
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) turns customers’ chip designs into physical semiconductors using its own manufacturing processes and factories. Customers pay it to make chips rather than perform that manufacturing themselves. They include chip designers without factories, companies designing chips for their own systems, and semiconductor manufacturers that outsource production. Wafer fabrication supplies most revenue; related services include stacking and packaging chips through TSMC 3DFabric and testing them.
High-performance computing, including chips for AI, PCs and servers, accounts for most revenue, with smartphones the next-largest market. Although TSMC serves hundreds of customers, a small group supplies most revenue, and its two largest customers each account for a substantial share. Their orders therefore have a strong influence on the business.
TSMC’s factories require heavy investment, and much of their operating cost remains even when orders fall. Earnings depend on keeping those factories busy and developing manufacturing technologies that meet customers’ needs while producing a high share of usable chips. U.S. export controls can require licenses or prohibit certain shipments, and they also restrict access to equipment for some factories.
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Apple’s smartphone chip orders and Samsung Electronics’ leading-edge foundry competition also matter to TSMC, but neither company appears in this list.
NVIDIA pays TSMC to manufacture its GPUs and AI processors, so accelerator demand directly feeds TSMC’s advanced-process production. Watch NVIDIA’s data-center computing business for demand for those chips.
AMD depends entirely on TSMC for the wafers used in its CPUs and GPUs at 7 nanometers or smaller, tying those chip orders to TSMC’s advanced-process revenue. Insufficient TSMC capacity can force AMD to allocate products among customers or lose sales.
TSMC needs ASML’s equipment to print patterns on silicon using extreme ultraviolet light—EUV lithography—to manufacture its leading-edge chips.
Broadcom pays TSMC to manufacture custom AI accelerators and networking chips, linking orders for those semiconductors to TSMC’s high-performance computing growth.
Intel both competes for chip-manufacturing customers through Intel Foundry and pays TSMC to make parts of its own processor portfolio, making it a source of both rivalry and orders.
UMC competes with TSMC for orders to manufacture customer-designed chips on mature processes, but lacks TSMC’s leading-edge exposure. UMC’s factory utilization is a more relevant comparison for TSMC’s mature-process business than for its advanced chips.
GlobalFoundries competes with TSMC for chip designers’ outsourced manufacturing orders in specialty, radio-frequency and mature-process logic chips. Watch its automotive and smart-mobile-device business for demand in these overlapping markets.
KLA depends on TSMC’s spending on systems that control chip production and improve yields: TSMC contributed more than 10% of KLA’s revenue in each fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, 2025 and 2026. That customer concentration sits mainly in Semiconductor Process Control, the business to watch for this tie.
TSMC is one of Lam Research’s most significant customers, buying equipment that deposits materials, etches them and cleans wafers during chip manufacturing. Lam’s sales also serve memory manufacturers, so its overall results do not isolate TSMC’s equipment demand.
TSMC buys Applied Materials’ wafer-processing equipment to build transistors, the connections between them and advanced chip structures.
SK hynix and TSMC share exposure to AI-computing expansion: SK hynix sells high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, used alongside AI processors manufactured by TSMC. Watch its HBM business rather than its broader memory sales for this connection.
AI-server deployment drives demand for both Micron’s high-bandwidth and server memory and TSMC’s AI-processor manufacturing. Micron’s cloud data-center sales, including HBM and high-capacity memory modules, offer a concrete view of that shared demand.
Entegris depends on TSMC’s purchases of manufacturing materials and products that keep chemicals, gases and wafers free of contamination; TSMC accounted for 16% of its net sales in fiscal 2025. Those materials and purity-control products connect Entegris to TSMC’s production needs.
ASE and TSMC serve overlapping computing and communications chip markets, and ASE has a strategic alliance with TSMC. ASE’s revenue from packaging chips and testing them is the relevant comparison, rather than its electronics manufacturing services revenue.
Amkor earns packaging and testing fees from the same chip-design ecosystem that pays TSMC to manufacture wafers, linking both to advanced-chip production. Its Advanced Products sales are the line to watch for that packaging demand.
Qnity Electronics depends partly on TSMC’s purchases of semiconductor manufacturing materials: TSMC contributed 8% of its net sales in 2025. Most of that customer revenue comes from Semiconductor Technologies, the segment most directly tied to TSMC.
Credo relies exclusively on TSMC to manufacture its connectivity chips for hyperscale and AI data centers, making its chip orders a direct source of TSMC fabrication demand. These chips use mature processes, so their AI exposure is not the same as leading-edge accelerator demand.
TSMC buys Onto Innovation’s tools to measure chip structures and inspect defects, helping control manufacturing and improve yields. Its metrology and inspection business is the concrete link to TSMC’s production quality.
Tower Semiconductor competes with TSMC for customers’ specialty-chip manufacturing orders in radio-frequency, mixed-signal, power and other non-leading-edge processes. Its RF and power-chip business is a closer comparison for TSMC’s specialty offerings than for its advanced processors.
Amkor Technology Inc earningsAMKR
Amkor’s Advanced Products business shows demand for chip packaging and testing, the next step in the manufacturing chain TSMC serves.
Watch Advanced Products sales separately from Amkor’s broader business. Stronger sales point to growing demand for advanced-chip packaging and testing, supporting the production ecosystem TSMC serves. Weaker sales point to a possible slowdown in that demand, but do not establish that TSMC’s own packaging revenue fell.
KLA Corporation earningsKLAC
KLA’s Semiconductor Process Control business shows demand for tools that monitor chip production and improve yields, and TSMC is one of its major customers.
Watch sales in KLA’s Semiconductor Process Control business and whether the report still identifies TSMC as a major customer. Stronger sales with TSMC remaining a significant part of the business would support the case that TSMC and other chipmakers are sustaining demand for production-control tools. Weaker sales would point to softer tool demand, but KLA’s results include other customers and are not a direct measure of TSMC’s spending.
United Microelectronic Corp. earningsUMC
UMC’s factory utilization shows demand for mature-process foundry work, where it competes with TSMC for customer orders.
Read UMC’s factory utilization alongside its foundry performance. Rising utilization means customers are filling more mature-process capacity, which would support the market in which TSMC’s mature-process business competes. Falling utilization points to more spare capacity and potentially tougher competition for those orders. It does not measure demand for TSMC’s leading-edge processes.
Entegris Inc earningsENTG
Entegris supplies materials and contamination-control products used in chipmaking, so its business offers a read on demand in a supply chain that serves TSMC.
Watch Entegris’s semiconductor-related sales. Stronger sales would indicate that chipmakers’ demand for materials and contamination-control products is holding up, consistent with the supply chain TSMC relies on; weaker sales would point to a possible slowdown. Entegris serves other customers too, so its results alone do not establish TSMC’s purchases or production.
Advanced Micro Devices earningsAMD
AMD’s report shows demand for its data-center chips, whose CPUs and GPUs rely on TSMC’s advanced processes.
Watch AMD’s data-center sales and whether demand for its CPUs and GPUs is strengthening or weakening. Stronger sales would support demand from this customer for chips made on TSMC’s advanced processes; weaker sales would point to a possible slowdown in AMD-related wafer demand, not necessarily in all of TSMC’s high-performance computing business.
