Even he admitted, though, that it was becoming harder to make money while owning and operating a fab. The problem was simple: each generation of technological improvement made fabs more expensive. Morris Chang had drawn a similar conclusion several decades earlier, which is why he thought TSMC’s business model was superior. A foundry like TSMC could fabricate chips for many chip designers, wringing out efficiencies from its massive production volumes that other companies would find difficult to replicate.
