As with many other bubbles, they took a somewhat faith-based approach. Not only did TSMC have to believe demand for chip fabrication would continue to exist, it had to believe that this demand wouldn’t be met by companies with their own fabrication capabilities. While smaller chip companies were getting priced out of fabricating their own chips, consensus in the industry held that chip companies needed to do their own manufacturing as well as design. As Jerry Sanders, AMD’s CEO and a member of the Fairchild diaspora, once put it: “Now hear me and hear me well. Real men have fabs!”
