Morris Chang

Morris Chang Chung-mou (Chinese: 張忠謀; pinyin: Zhāng Zhōngmóu; born July 10, 1931) is a Taiwanese billionaire business executive and electrical engineer. He is the founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and was the company's chief executive officer (CEO) from 1987 to 2005, and its chairman until 2018. As of April 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth at US$8.5 billion.

Born in China, Chang lived in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States. After attending Harvard University, he graduated with three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and earned his doctorate from Stanford University in 1964. He began his career as a semiconductor engineer first at Sylvania Electric Products, then Texas Instruments, and, in 1984, became the president and chief operating officer of General Instrument.

During the 1980s, Chang moved to Taiwan to serve as head of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). In 1987, he founded TSMC, the world's first semiconductor foundry, and is regarded as the founder of Taiwan's semiconductor industry. He pioneered the foundry model of semiconductor fabrication, leading TSMC to become the largest company in Taiwan and one of the world's largest semiconductor companies. President Tsai Ing-wen awarded him the Order of Propitious Clouds in 2018 and the Order of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 2024 for his contributions to technology development in Taiwan.

Chang was born in Ningbo, Chekiang, on July 10, 1931, to a middle-class Chinese family. His father, Chang Wei-kuan (1906–1992), was a graduate of East China Normal University (then Kwang Hua University) who received a Western education.

When he was young, Chang wanted to become a novelist or journalist, but his father persuaded him otherwise. Wei-kuan was an official in charge of finance for the Yin county government and later a bank manager. Due to the senior Chang's career and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), the Chang family moved to Nanjing, then to Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Chongqing, and Shanghai.

Chang spent most of his primary school years in British Hong Kong between the ages of six and eleven. In 1941, due to the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Chang's family returned to Shanghai and Ningbo to live for a few months, eventually making their way to the wartime capital of Chongqing. In 1948, as China was in the height of the Chinese Civil War, Chang again moved to Hong Kong.

After high school, Chang decided to pursue engineering; because there were no universities dedicated to science or technology in Hong Kong, his father arranged for him to attend college in the United States. Chang Ssu‑hou (張思侯), Chang's uncle and a professor at Northeastern University, assisted him in applying to Harvard University, where he was admitted. In July 1949, Chang enrolled at Harvard College, where he was the only Chinese student out of its 1,100 undergraduates and placed in the top ten percent of the class his freshman year. He majored in applied physics and engineering sciences, but, in order to gain better career prospects in engineering, transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in his sophomore year.

To defray tuition expenses, Chang won a scholarship at MIT and worked as a copy typist and research assistant under MIT professor Joseph Kaye. He took on the university's maximum course load and stayed during the summer to attend summer classes, finishing his undergraduate degree in two years instead of the expected three. He graduated from MIT with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 1952, a Master of Science in 1953, and a Master of Engineering (M.E.) in 1955.

Chang worked on a four-transistor project for TI where the manufacturing was done by IBM. This was one of the early semiconductor foundry relationships. Also at TI, Chang pioneered the then controversial idea of pricing semiconductors "ahead of the cost curve", which meant sacrificing early profits ("short term") to gain market share and achieve manufacturing yields that would result in greater profits over an extended timeline ("long-term").

During his 25-year career (1958–1983) at Texas Instruments, he rose up in the ranks to become the group vice president responsible for TI's worldwide semiconductor business. In the late 1970s, when TI's focus turned to calculators, digital watches and home computers, Chang felt like his career focused on semiconductors was at a dead end at TI.

Chang left TI and later became president and chief operating officer of General Instrument Corporation (1984–1985).

In the early 1980s, while still at Texas Instruments, Chang witnessed TI's factory in Japan achieving twice the chip production yield as TI's factory in Texas. Observing that the staff and technicians in Japan were better qualified and had lower turnover, and failing to recruit the same caliber of staff in the United States, he concluded that the future of advanced manufacturing appeared to be in Asia.

After he left General Instrument Corporation, Sun Yun-suan, Premier of the Republic of China (ROC), recruited him to become chairman and president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan, where the ROC government was now based, having lost the mainland. This marked his return to the ROC, initially thought to last for a few years, three decades after he left during the chaotic Chinese Civil War mainly between the People's Republic of China and the ROC.

Chang obtained American citizenship in 1962.

Chang met his first wife, Christine Chen, when he was at MIT and she was in Boston University. They married in 1952, when they were both 22 years old. They separated by the end of 1981 but did not divorce for the sake of their daughter, Chang Hsiao-lin, until 1991, shortly before she graduated from college. Chang married his second wife, Sophie Chang, a cousin of Foxconn founder Terry Guo, in 2001. He has two stepdaughters through his second marriage.

MIT Corporation, MIT's board of trustees, Life Member Emeritus

Goldman Sachs member of board of directors (2001–2002)

Advisor to the Office of the President of the Republic of China

1999, Exemplary Leadership Award from the Fabless Semiconductor Association (now Global Semiconductor Alliance), the first recipient of the award; now the award bears his name, "Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award".

2000, IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal for Exceptional Contributions to Microelectronics Industry.

2002 National Academy of Engineering Member

2005, Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth

2007, Computer History Museum Fellow Award, for dramatically accelerating the production of semiconductor-based devices and systems by developing an independent semiconductor manufacturing foundry.

Chang, Morris (1998). 張忠謀自傳（上冊） 1931–1964 [Autobiography of Morris C.M. Chang Vol. 1 (1931–1964)] (in Chinese). Taiwan: Commonwealth Publishing. ISBN 9576214491.

Chang, Morris (2024). 張忠謀自傳（下冊） 1964–2018 [Autobiography of Morris C.M. Chang Vol. 2 (1964–2018)] (in Chinese). Taiwan: Commonwealth Publishing. ISBN 9786263559752.