How a Taiwanese upstart came to challenge Intel's chipmaking throne

TSMC's threat to Intel reflects a sea change in chipmaking that's seen one company after another hire TSMC to manufacture the chips they design

For more than 30 years, Intel Corp has dominated chipmaking, producing the most important component in the bulk of the world’s computers. That run is now under threat from a company many Americans have never heard of.
 
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing was created in 1987 to churn out chips for companies that lacked the money to build their own facilities. The approach was famously dismissed at the time by Advanced Micro Devices  founder Jerry Sanders. “Real men have fabs,” he quipped at a conference, using industry lingo for factories.
 
These days, ridicule has given way to envy as TSMC