TSMC was once the world's number one semiconductor company with a market value of up to NT$2 trillion. It is even more surprising that its founder Zhang Zhongmou founded TSMC at the age of 56.

After Huawei was included in the entity list by the United States, many suppliers were forced to stop supplying Huawei one after another under pressure from the United States. However, there is one supplier who insisted on supplying Huawei the day before the deadline, and this company is TSMC.

TSMC was once the world's number one semiconductor company with a market value of up to NT$2 trillion. It was even more surprising that its founder Zhang Zhongmou founded TSMC at the age of 56. Now Chang Zhongmou has retired, but the story between him and TSMC is still very legendary.

Studying overseas, "working" for foreigners for the first half of his life

As the founder of TSMC, Zhang Zhongmou started his business later than most entrepreneurs. He founded TSMC at the age of 56. Before that, Zhang Zhongmou lived a life of "working" for others.

In 1931, Zhang Zhongmou was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang. Due to the continuous war, he traveled with his family in Hong Kong, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Guangzhou and other places. In 1941, in order to avoid the war, Zhang Zhongmou's family chose to stay in Chongqing. At the age of ten, he entered Nankai Middle School. In 1949, with excellent grades, he went to Harvard University in the United States to study and became the only Chinese among the more than 1,000 freshmen at that time.

Zhang Zhongmou, who was very interested in the machinery manufacturing industry, went to Harvard to study mechanical engineering at MIT and obtained a master's degree in machinery in 1954. At that time, Europe was in the stage of booming industrial manufacturing. In 1955, Zhang Zhongmou joined an electrical appliance company in Boston and worked as a semiconductor engineer, thus officially entering the semiconductor industry.

Zhang Zhongmou, who entered the workplace, felt that his professional knowledge was limited and it was difficult to keep up. So he resigned from his second boss, Texas Electrical Appliances, went to the Department of Electrical Appliances of Stanford University to continue his studies. After obtaining his doctorate in 1964, he returned to Texas Instruments . Zhang Zhongmou was highly valued by the company. In 1972, he was promoted to the vice president and senior vice president of Texas Instruments. Half of the company's more than 60,000 employees were under his control, becoming the veritable third-in-command of the company. At that time, he was regarded as the "light of Chinese people".

The second half of his life who did not believe in destiny eventually became the godfather of semiconductors

With the support of Zhang Zhongmou, Texas Instruments jumped to the first place in the industry. Although it has achieved great achievements, Zhang Zhongmou is not satisfied with this. He took a fancy to the semiconductor market with broad development prospects and tried his best to persuade President Xia Bai to make plans for this as soon as possible. However, Xia Bai is only willing to focus on manufacturing consumer electronic products.

In 1985, Zhang Zhongmou, who was unwilling to give up semiconductors, resigned from his senior position at Texas Instruments, accepted the employment of from Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, returned to Taiwan from the United States, served as the dean of the Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute, and began his journey of semiconductor construction in Taiwan.

There is an old saying that "knowing destiny in fifty", but Zhang Zhongmou does not believe in destiny. In 1987, 56-year-old Zhang Zhongmou did not believe that his achievements were limited to this, so he founded the Taiwan integrated circuit manufacturing company and officially began his journey in the semiconductor business world.

As the world's first professional OEM company, TSMC has attracted much attention from the industry once it was released, but many peers have also criticized it. In their opinion, Zhang Zhongmou is 56 years old. As he is getting older, he finds it difficult to run such a large-scale and difficult enterprise.

However, those who sneered ignore Zhang Zhongmou's ambition to start a business at the age of 56, and underestimate his ability to obtain a Ph.D. from Stanford University and serve as an executive of Texas Instruments for many years. With ambition and strength, under the background of outsiders' bad intentions, TSMC has been moving forward all the way and has rapidly developed into a leading company in Taiwan's semiconductor industry. Zhang Zhongmou is therefore called the "Godfather of Taiwan's semiconductors."

Although Zhang Zhongmou is getting older, he is not only not believing in destiny in his career, but also in his relationship. When he was 70 years old, he married his former secretary - his wife, who is 13 years younger than him. Although others are puzzled, after all, 70 is already in his 80s, but he doesn't care at all and still takes his wife to attend various public occasions with him.

has a successful career and a happy family. When TSMC was in full swing in 2005, Zhang Zhongmou decided to retire. He resigned from his position as CEO of TSMC and chose Cai Lixing, who had been trained for many years, as his successor. However, in 2009, the financial crisis swept the world, and TSMC was also affected. In order to recover corporate losses, 78-year-old Zhang Zhongmou once again served as CEO of TSMC to control the overall situation, which was shocked by the entire industry.

Under the leadership of Zhang Zhongmou, TSMC survived the financial crisis. According to TSMC's 2010 annual report, its total revenue exceeded NT$400 billion, and its market value exceeded NT$2 trillion. In addition, TSMC has also actively entered the mainland market and became one of Huawei's suppliers. And according to the information released by TSMC, as of March 20, 2017, TSMC's market value exceeded Intel and became the world's number one semiconductor manufacturing company.

In June 2018, Zhang Zhongmou officially announced his retirement at the shareholders' meeting. The founder of TSMC, who started his business at the age of 56 and spent 30 years to win TSMC as the world's number one, officially brought his curtain on the semiconductor industry. Nowadays, many people are inevitably in a dilemma of worrying about whether they are too old when they start a business. Then think about Zhang Zhongmou. If you don’t try it, how can you know what level of ambition and value can reach?