Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM) might not be a household name, but it's probably the most important company most people have never heard of.

The company, which now has a market cap of roughly $1 trillion, doesn't have the consumer presence of Apple or Microsoft, but it's a vital component of the tech supply chain. TSMC, as the company is also known, is the world's leading contract chip manufacturer. It makes more than half of the third-party chips in the world and roughly 90% of the advanced chips.

It's the foundry that fabless chip designers like Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom count on to manufacture their chips, and it counts Apple as its top customer, showing its key role in empowering the world's largest consumer technology company.

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Source Fool.com