“We are everybody’s foundry” Morris Chang addressed more.

That is a pretty good and correct answer to this question. Once Intel or Samsung still produces their own chips, TSMC will no need to worry about its leading position in foundry market by leveraging this kind of situation.

Semiconductor is an extremely high technology driven industry, it is very crucial to keep the process technique in the leading edge, especially for foundry company. But it is not everything, services and partnerships are something that IC providers have to consider about while set up a long term market strategy.

That is why TSMC is so confident in its position as a pure foundry. The company almost ranks NO.1 in terms of process technology and services quality in worldwide ICs foundry market.

Another strong point of being a pure foundry is the solid position in the modern supply chain of semiconductor industry. Looking back at the history of evolution of semiconductor industry, it is easy to aware that IDMs(Integrated Device Manufacturers) can be a monster or a disaster, and most of them ended up with a disaster.

That is why fabless and foundry are perfect match, and it should go very well for a long long time.

Figure I: TSMC