Which of these companies once owned meaningful chunks of TSMC, ASML, and NXP – and today owns none of them?

General Electric

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Philips: the company that built modern chipmaking, then walked away from it

Few companies have given away more future value than Royal Philips. The Dutch electronics giant didn't just invest in the semiconductor industry, but it founded large chunks of it before methodically selling every piece.

ASML started life in 1984 as a scrappy joint venture between Philips and ASM International, working out of a leaky shed near Philips' Eindhoven offices before it produced its first stepper machine that same year.

Philips held roughly 24% of the company through the late 1990s, agreeing contractually not to sell before March 2000. Right on schedule, it slashed that stake to 7.2% via a public offering that June, and was fully out within a couple of years. ASML is now Europe's most valuable listedcompany,...

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