Now TSMC had competition from multiple foundries in different countries in East Asia. Singapore’s Chartered Semiconductor, Taiwan’s UMC and Vanguard Semiconductor, and South Korea’s Samsung—which entered the foundry business in 2005—were also competing with TSMC to produce chips designed elsewhere. Most of these companies were subsidized by their governments, but this made chip production cheaper, benefitting the mostly American fabless semiconductor designers they served. Fabless firms, meanwhile, were in the early stages of launching a revolutionary new product chock-full of complex chips:
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