Convequity on X
We prefer $UMC to $GFS, and we are increasing our UMC position. Both companies are foundries that make chips on mature processes, well behind the leading edge. We hold GlobalFoundries as a recovery investment. United Microelectronics offers two things on top of a recovery: a manufacturing partnership with production targeted for 2027, and a longer-term way to make its existing processes more competitive. 1. The nearer-term driver is the 12nm process UMC is developing with $INTC. 12nm is a mature process generation, not a leading-edge one. Production is targeted for 2027 at Intel's factories in Arizona. UMC contributes its foundry experience and its experience working with chip designers. Intel contributes the manufacturing capacity. UMC gains a way to offer customers chips made in the United States without building an American factory itself. UMC could also earn income from intellectual property and revenue sharing, but the commercial terms are not yet clear, so we do not yet count on royalty income. The attraction today is the chance to win customers and expand the business through the partnership. 2. The longer-term driver is logic folding. In a conventional chip, the circuits sit on one layer and signals cross it along long horizontal wires. Folding arranges the circuits across two or more layers connected vertically, so many long horizontal wires become short vertical ones. Signals travel a shorter distance, which takes less time and less energy. The chip gets faster and more energy-efficient without smaller transistors. For UMC, folding could make chips built on its established processes more capable and easier to sell, which extends the value of its factories without matching the most advanced processes at $TSM. We described the mechanism in our Huawei series on the Kirin 9050. 3. We think a mature process is the more manageable place to start folding. Whoever folds chips has to solve bonding, heat removal and reliable high-volume production. UMC would solve those on a transistor process it already understands. Applying folding to TSMC's newest processes would combine two difficult manufacturing changes at once: a new generation of smaller, more complex transistors, and active circuits connected across several layers. A problem with either one can reduce the share of usable chips, raise costs or delay customer launches. This is a difference in the risks being combined. TSMC already offers advanced stacking technologies and has the expertise. 4. The commercial incentives differ as well. For UMC, folding extends the useful life of processes it already owns and lets it compete for business that would otherwise need a newer process. For TSMC, folding on older processes competes with the returns it expects from its leading-edge investments and could disrupt customer roadmaps built around those investments. So UMC has the stronger reason to become an advocate for folding on older processes. This is our prospective thesis about where folding is most likely to be adopted. UMC has not announced a logic-folding program. We have two reservations. UMC's shares have already recovered from their low, so the entry point is less attractive than it was. Logic folding could take years to contribute to revenue. The Intel partnership is our reason to add now. The chance to make UMC's existing processes more competitive is why we hold a larger position in UMC than in GlobalFoundries.
