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 January 2026^[update], his net worth is estimated at US$7 billion.

Born in China, Chang lived in Hong Kong and immigrated to the United States. After attending Harvard University, he earned three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and 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 earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) and a Master of Science (M.S.) in mechanical engineering in 1952 and 1953, respectively, then a Master of Engineering (M.E.) in 1955.