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Taiwan Semiconductor Vs. United Microelectronics Stock: Which Is The Better Buy?

Summary TSMC is the world’s largest foundry for making ICs for fabless semiconductor companies, man

Taiwan Semiconductor Vs. United Microelectronics Stock: Which Is The Better Buy?

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{"i18n":{"language":"zh_CN"},"data":{"magic":2,"id":141538196,"tweetId":"141538196","gmtCreate":1625879436415,"gmtModify":1631885779803,"author":{"id":3578385220008893,"idStr":"3578385220008893","authorId":3578385220008893,"authorIdStr":"3578385220008893","name":"b14293","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/eacdce655041c0b71bd11ebb6ae685c3","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":2,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":2,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>Tw is leading</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>Tw is leading</body></html>","text":"Tw is leading","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/141538196","repostId":1145284684,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1145284684","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1625878443,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1145284684?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-07-10 08:54","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Taiwan Semiconductor Vs. United Microelectronics Stock: Which Is The Better Buy?","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1145284684","media":"seekingalpha","summary":"Summary\n\nTSMC is the world’s largest foundry for making ICs for fabless semiconductor companies, man","content":"Summary\n<ul>\n <li>TSMC is the world’s largest foundry for making ICs for fabless semiconductor companies, manufacturing 11,617 different products using 281 distinct technologies for 510 different customers.</li>\n <li>TSMC and fellow Taiwan foundry United Microelectronics Corporation are expected to benefit from a chip-supply crisis that is adversely impacting automakers.</li>\n <li>TSMC benefits from a gross margin nearly twice that of UMC.</li>\n <li>40% of revenues are from nodes &lt;14nm, below the smallest node of UMC.</li>\n</ul>\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/d80e662ebb3b78dd0445ecc891cf8986\" tg-width=\"768\" tg-height=\"513\">BING-JHEN HONG/iStock Editorial via Getty Images\nTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited or TSMC (TSM), and United Microelectronics Corporation or UMC (UMC) are both headquartered in Taiwan and both manufacture semiconductors for companies on a contract basis. They both provide high quality IC fabrication services, focusing on logic and various specialty technologies to serve all major sectors of the electronics industry and are defined as pure-play foundries.\nWhile they have similarities, the two companies are vastly different with different business models. TSMC started as and has always been a leading-edge company, manufacturing chips at the smallest dimensions. UMC, on the other hand, Taiwan’s first semiconductor company, has chosen the 14nm node as the smallest dimension it will manufacture.\nTo illustrate the differences in models, Chart 1 shows revenues for both companies based on technology node. The key difference is the &lt;14nm node, where TSMC generated 41.4% of its revenue compared to 0% for UMC.\nChart 1 also shows that TSMC held $43 billion in revenues in 2020 versus $6 billion for UMC. Importantly, it shows also shows the financial dominance of TSMC, since UMC holds second place in the global foundry market.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/cf3b088585f8a624c6665040756e940f\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"462\">Chart 1\nMuch of TSMC’s revenues are on the &lt;14nm node, which increased from 29.4% of revenues in 2019 to 41.4% in 2020. Since UMC’s smallest node is 28nm/14nm, UMC is investing heavily at that node, and its share of revenue increased from 11.3% in 2019 to 13.6% in 2020. In contrast, in 2020 TSMC’s share at the 28nm/14nm node decreased to 30.8% from 37.7% in 2019.\nExpanding Capacity\nLeading Edge Nodes\nTSMC generates about 1/3 of its revenues from the 28nm/14nm, and TSMC has 562,000 wafers/month of 8\" capacity, and 745,000 wafers/month of 12\" capacity. The total capacity is 995,000 wafers/month (12-inch equivalent).\nIn TSMC’sQ1 2021 earnings call, TSMC’s VP and CFO Wendell Huang noted:\n<blockquote>\n “In order to meet the increasing demand for our advanced and specialty technologies in the next several years, we have decided to raise our full year 2021 CapEx to be around USD 30 billion. About 80% of the 2021 capital budget will be allocated for advanced process technologies, including 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer. About 10% will be spent for advanced packaging and mask making, and about 10% will be spent for specialty technologies.”\n</blockquote>\nTSMC expects to invest about $100 billion through the next 3 years to increase capacity, to support the manufacturing and R&amp;D of leading-edge and specialty technologies. Its N5 is already in its second year of volume production, contributing around 20% of our wafer revenue in 2021. N4 risk production is targeted for second half this year and volume production in 2022.\nAmong TSMC's facilities to go online in the next three to four years are the company's&nbsp;fab in Arizona&nbsp;as well as its first 2nm-capable fab in Taiwan. The company needs to build and equip its N5-capable fab in Arizona. The facility will cost around $12 billion, will have a capacity of 20,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM), and will come online in 2024.\n28nm Nodes\nThe global semiconductor shortage is one of the catalysts prompting foundry manufacturers to build new fabs, particularly at the 28nm node, as many automobile chips are manufactured at that node. While I have devoted four Seeking Alpha articles on trying to pin down what devices are undersupplied and could only find microcontrollers, in this article, I will concede for the sake of argument, that it is not due to hoarding but inept manufacturing supply chains.\nAs a result, governments are spending heavily on this industry to expand the total production capacity. These free handouts are a second catalyst for new 28nm node fab construction.\nA strong demand for wafers from the consumer electronics industry has led to increased shipments of UMC’s 28nm wafers, which saw 18% sequential revenue growth in the last reported quarter. In addition, UMC has been focused on production for the automotive industry as semiconductors for electric and self-driving cars are expected to be a major growth driver for the company. However, global automotive semiconductors are only a $40 billion market, compared to a global semiconductor market of $525 billion. That is growing as more semiconductors are used per vehicle each year and because EVs use more semiconductors than internal combustion vehicles.\nThere is a supply-demand imbalance in mature nodes, as most of the capacity expansion has been in advanced nodes, but companies have not addressed the mature nodes. The technology node is central to the latest auto chip crisis, while at the same time Sony has moved its design of CMOS Integrated Sensors (\"CIS\") for smartphones to 28nm.\nOn April 22, TSMC announced plans to build a chip fabrication facility in China is at the receiving end of opposition from critics. The plant is set to make semiconductors built on the mature 28nm process node. The Nanjing plant currently has an installed capacity of 20,000 wafers per month. An investment of $2.8 billion and expecting mass-production in 2023, the expansion will double capacity to 40,000 wafers per month.\nTSMC has global 562,000 wafers/month of 8\" capacity, and 745,000 wafers/month of 12\" capacity. The total capacity is 995,000 wafers/month (12-inch equivalent). The new fab with a 20,000 wafer per month capacity represents just 2% of the company’s total capacity.\nUMC also expanded its production of 28nm (with a migration to 40nm) process at its Nanke 12-inch Fab 12A P6 plant in Taiwan. It currently has an 87,000 wafer per month capacity. The total investment in the capacity expansion plan is estimated to be approximately NT$100 billion. The P6 expansion is scheduled for production in the second quarter of 2023, and has a capacity of just 10,000 wafers per month.\nThe P6 program is supported by a multi-year's product alignment between UMC and the involved customers that includes a loading protection mechanism that will ensure the P6 capacity is maintained at a healthy loading level.\nUMC has total 12 fabs in production with combined capacity close to 800,000 wafers per month (8-in equivalent).\nPrice Per Wafer\nChart 2 shows the gross profit by node for an IC device. It partially explains the rationale behind TSMC’s business model to move to advanced nodes, while also explaining why the company chose to leave its 28nm node undersupplied until recent external forces prompted it to build its China fab.\nGross profits per 300-mm wafer are $2,835 for a 28nm node versus $8,695 for a 3nm node.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9e241c85dd84eb71f54c3b11812e6599\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"462\">Chart 2\nChart 3 shows capex spend by node for ICs. Capex spend (building + equipment) at 28nm is $100,000 per wafer, which more than triples to $320,000 at 3nm.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/1f8f60218f2b914e5847e2eef8aa39c3\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"462\">Chart 3\nCustomer Base\nChart 4 shows that Apple (AAPL) was the largest customer of TSMC in 2020, representing 21% of revenues. Keep in mind that in addition to TSMC’s processors going into iPhones, TSMC also fabricates the M1, which powers the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini and is Apple's first custom-designed Arm-based chip for Mac.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/354a97772e16c2a05dbccc89556de9eb\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"465\">Chart 4\nTSMC has upgraded its manufacturing capabilities countless times to keep Apple’s latest chips at the bleeding edge of processor technologies, since its first chip produced for Apple was installed in the Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which were introduced on September 9, 2014.\nChart 5 shows that the number of transistors increased from 2 billion for the iPhone 6 to 11.8 billion for the current iPhone 12.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/108ef270fe60691ec5bc8c7f0a061d9c\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"462\">Chart 5\nThus, investors must consider that:\nAny positive developments from Apple will impact TSMC positively, and positive technological developments from TSMC will impact Apple positively. For example, as long as TSMC is the major manufacturer of Apple chips, growth in Apple or new technologies developed by Apple requiring chips (such as Auto or ADAS), then TSMC will gain.\nSecondly, because of capacity limitations and technology node demands, any expansion in capacity from TSMC will be beneficial to Apple as it moves to smaller nodes while consuming about 25% of TSMC’s chip output on a revenue basis.\nUMC is less transparent and doesn’t provide a breakdown by customer. UMC’s primary customers include premier integrated device manufacturers, such as Texas Instruments(NASDAQ:TXN)and Intel Mobile(NASDAQ:INTC), plus leading fabless design companies, such as MediaTek(OTCPK:MDTKF), Realtek, Qualcomm(NASDAQ:QCOM)and Novatek.\nIn August 2018, UMC announced it would pause research for advancing the productional technology of chips under 10nm nodes. As shown in the figure above, since 2018, the corresponding proportion of the company's advanced processes has been reduced to zero, but for mature nodes such as 65nm and 28nm, the proportion has been increased.\nInvestor Takeaways: Is TSM Or UMC Stock A Better Buy?\nBoth companies compete in the same industry, but their business models are a differentiating metric. TSMC generates most of its revenue on nodes smaller than UMC’s (Chart 1), and most of its planned capex will focus new fabs making ICs at increasing smaller nodes.\nTSMC Positives\nTSMC’s share of the pure-play foundry market was 57% share in 2020, up from 55% in 2019. UMC’s share was constant at slightly less than 8%.\nTSMC benefits from the smaller nodes. Although capex increases with decreasing nodes (Chart 3), so too does gross profit (Chart 2). Thus, TSM has higher revenues than UMC: $48.2B vs $6.283B.\n<ul>\n <li>TSMC also has higher annual earnings (EBITDA): $33B vs. UMC $2.349B.</li>\n <li>TSMC ($613B) has a higher market cap than UMC ($23.4B).</li>\n <li>TSMC has more cash on hand: $23.3B vs. UMC ($3.76B).</li>\n <li>TSMC has a higher EPS (3.99) than UMC (0.59).</li>\n</ul>\nSeeking Alpha’s quant ratings are derived by measuring a stock's financial metrics against other stocks in the sector on the basis of value, growth, profitability, momentum and analysts’ earnings revisions. In Table 1, both stocks have high rankings. TSMC has a quant rating of 4.63 and UMC has a quant rating of 4.54.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/55db72bd38ddd1d46c2ec7a6ccf6307f\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"117\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nGross margin for TSMC and UMC is shown in Table 2. A positive for TSMC, gross margin is significantly ahead of UMC and the average of all foundries. The Street expects 3Q21 gross margin will improve to 52.9%, given a higher revenue scale, tight foundry supply and improved efficiency of 5nm production.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/4ab6dce4d14398755080d9db48522121\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"126\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nUMC Positives\nThe comparison of other financial metrics, UMC has stronger financials:\n<ul>\n <li>UMC has a lower P/E ratio than TSM: 21.8 vs 28.9</li>\n <li>UMC has less debt than TSM: $2.47B vs $15.4B.</li>\n <li>UMC YTD gains are higher at: 10.558 vs. TSM (8.922).</li>\n</ul>\nTable 3 shows stock performance in percent growth for TSM and UMC. In the past year, UMC stock has outperformed TSMC, and did so in the 3-year and 5-year period. But in a 10-year period, TSMC is the better choice.\n<img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/7533369f256853d498f5492752417e05\" tg-width=\"640\" tg-height=\"172\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer\">\nTSMC is the clear winner over UMC going forward. The company chose its strategy to build chips at the &lt;7nm node. The fact that it is building a 28nm fab in China, the “sweet spot” for UMC, coupled with a new 28nm SMIC (OTCQX:SMICY) fab, will mean lost market share at this node for UMC.","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Taiwan Semiconductor Vs. United Microelectronics Stock: Which Is The Better Buy?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nTaiwan Semiconductor Vs. United Microelectronics Stock: Which Is The Better Buy?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-07-10 08:54 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4438509-taiwan-semiconductor-vs-united-microelectronics-stock>seekingalpha</a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\nSummary\n\nTSMC is the world’s largest foundry for making ICs for fabless semiconductor companies, manufacturing 11,617 different products using 281 distinct technologies for 510 different customers.\n...\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4438509-taiwan-semiconductor-vs-united-microelectronics-stock\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"TSM":"台积电","UMC":"联电"},"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4438509-taiwan-semiconductor-vs-united-microelectronics-stock","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1145284684","content_text":"Summary\n\nTSMC is the world’s largest foundry for making ICs for fabless semiconductor companies, manufacturing 11,617 different products using 281 distinct technologies for 510 different customers.\nTSMC and fellow Taiwan foundry United Microelectronics Corporation are expected to benefit from a chip-supply crisis that is adversely impacting automakers.\nTSMC benefits from a gross margin nearly twice that of UMC.\n40% of revenues are from nodes <14nm, below the smallest node of UMC.\n\nBING-JHEN HONG/iStock Editorial via Getty Images\nTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited or TSMC (TSM), and United Microelectronics Corporation or UMC (UMC) are both headquartered in Taiwan and both manufacture semiconductors for companies on a contract basis. They both provide high quality IC fabrication services, focusing on logic and various specialty technologies to serve all major sectors of the electronics industry and are defined as pure-play foundries.\nWhile they have similarities, the two companies are vastly different with different business models. TSMC started as and has always been a leading-edge company, manufacturing chips at the smallest dimensions. UMC, on the other hand, Taiwan’s first semiconductor company, has chosen the 14nm node as the smallest dimension it will manufacture.\nTo illustrate the differences in models, Chart 1 shows revenues for both companies based on technology node. The key difference is the <14nm node, where TSMC generated 41.4% of its revenue compared to 0% for UMC.\nChart 1 also shows that TSMC held $43 billion in revenues in 2020 versus $6 billion for UMC. Importantly, it shows also shows the financial dominance of TSMC, since UMC holds second place in the global foundry market.\nChart 1\nMuch of TSMC’s revenues are on the <14nm node, which increased from 29.4% of revenues in 2019 to 41.4% in 2020. Since UMC’s smallest node is 28nm/14nm, UMC is investing heavily at that node, and its share of revenue increased from 11.3% in 2019 to 13.6% in 2020. In contrast, in 2020 TSMC’s share at the 28nm/14nm node decreased to 30.8% from 37.7% in 2019.\nExpanding Capacity\nLeading Edge Nodes\nTSMC generates about 1/3 of its revenues from the 28nm/14nm, and TSMC has 562,000 wafers/month of 8\" capacity, and 745,000 wafers/month of 12\" capacity. The total capacity is 995,000 wafers/month (12-inch equivalent).\nIn TSMC’sQ1 2021 earnings call, TSMC’s VP and CFO Wendell Huang noted:\n\n “In order to meet the increasing demand for our advanced and specialty technologies in the next several years, we have decided to raise our full year 2021 CapEx to be around USD 30 billion. About 80% of the 2021 capital budget will be allocated for advanced process technologies, including 3-nanometer, 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer. About 10% will be spent for advanced packaging and mask making, and about 10% will be spent for specialty technologies.”\n\nTSMC expects to invest about $100 billion through the next 3 years to increase capacity, to support the manufacturing and R&D of leading-edge and specialty technologies. Its N5 is already in its second year of volume production, contributing around 20% of our wafer revenue in 2021. N4 risk production is targeted for second half this year and volume production in 2022.\nAmong TSMC's facilities to go online in the next three to four years are the company's fab in Arizona as well as its first 2nm-capable fab in Taiwan. The company needs to build and equip its N5-capable fab in Arizona. The facility will cost around $12 billion, will have a capacity of 20,000 wafer starts per month (WSPM), and will come online in 2024.\n28nm Nodes\nThe global semiconductor shortage is one of the catalysts prompting foundry manufacturers to build new fabs, particularly at the 28nm node, as many automobile chips are manufactured at that node. While I have devoted four Seeking Alpha articles on trying to pin down what devices are undersupplied and could only find microcontrollers, in this article, I will concede for the sake of argument, that it is not due to hoarding but inept manufacturing supply chains.\nAs a result, governments are spending heavily on this industry to expand the total production capacity. These free handouts are a second catalyst for new 28nm node fab construction.\nA strong demand for wafers from the consumer electronics industry has led to increased shipments of UMC’s 28nm wafers, which saw 18% sequential revenue growth in the last reported quarter. In addition, UMC has been focused on production for the automotive industry as semiconductors for electric and self-driving cars are expected to be a major growth driver for the company. However, global automotive semiconductors are only a $40 billion market, compared to a global semiconductor market of $525 billion. That is growing as more semiconductors are used per vehicle each year and because EVs use more semiconductors than internal combustion vehicles.\nThere is a supply-demand imbalance in mature nodes, as most of the capacity expansion has been in advanced nodes, but companies have not addressed the mature nodes. The technology node is central to the latest auto chip crisis, while at the same time Sony has moved its design of CMOS Integrated Sensors (\"CIS\") for smartphones to 28nm.\nOn April 22, TSMC announced plans to build a chip fabrication facility in China is at the receiving end of opposition from critics. The plant is set to make semiconductors built on the mature 28nm process node. The Nanjing plant currently has an installed capacity of 20,000 wafers per month. An investment of $2.8 billion and expecting mass-production in 2023, the expansion will double capacity to 40,000 wafers per month.\nTSMC has global 562,000 wafers/month of 8\" capacity, and 745,000 wafers/month of 12\" capacity. The total capacity is 995,000 wafers/month (12-inch equivalent). The new fab with a 20,000 wafer per month capacity represents just 2% of the company’s total capacity.\nUMC also expanded its production of 28nm (with a migration to 40nm) process at its Nanke 12-inch Fab 12A P6 plant in Taiwan. It currently has an 87,000 wafer per month capacity. The total investment in the capacity expansion plan is estimated to be approximately NT$100 billion. The P6 expansion is scheduled for production in the second quarter of 2023, and has a capacity of just 10,000 wafers per month.\nThe P6 program is supported by a multi-year's product alignment between UMC and the involved customers that includes a loading protection mechanism that will ensure the P6 capacity is maintained at a healthy loading level.\nUMC has total 12 fabs in production with combined capacity close to 800,000 wafers per month (8-in equivalent).\nPrice Per Wafer\nChart 2 shows the gross profit by node for an IC device. It partially explains the rationale behind TSMC’s business model to move to advanced nodes, while also explaining why the company chose to leave its 28nm node undersupplied until recent external forces prompted it to build its China fab.\nGross profits per 300-mm wafer are $2,835 for a 28nm node versus $8,695 for a 3nm node.\nChart 2\nChart 3 shows capex spend by node for ICs. Capex spend (building + equipment) at 28nm is $100,000 per wafer, which more than triples to $320,000 at 3nm.\nChart 3\nCustomer Base\nChart 4 shows that Apple (AAPL) was the largest customer of TSMC in 2020, representing 21% of revenues. Keep in mind that in addition to TSMC’s processors going into iPhones, TSMC also fabricates the M1, which powers the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini and is Apple's first custom-designed Arm-based chip for Mac.\nChart 4\nTSMC has upgraded its manufacturing capabilities countless times to keep Apple’s latest chips at the bleeding edge of processor technologies, since its first chip produced for Apple was installed in the Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which were introduced on September 9, 2014.\nChart 5 shows that the number of transistors increased from 2 billion for the iPhone 6 to 11.8 billion for the current iPhone 12.\nChart 5\nThus, investors must consider that:\nAny positive developments from Apple will impact TSMC positively, and positive technological developments from TSMC will impact Apple positively. For example, as long as TSMC is the major manufacturer of Apple chips, growth in Apple or new technologies developed by Apple requiring chips (such as Auto or ADAS), then TSMC will gain.\nSecondly, because of capacity limitations and technology node demands, any expansion in capacity from TSMC will be beneficial to Apple as it moves to smaller nodes while consuming about 25% of TSMC’s chip output on a revenue basis.\nUMC is less transparent and doesn’t provide a breakdown by customer. UMC’s primary customers include premier integrated device manufacturers, such as Texas Instruments(NASDAQ:TXN)and Intel Mobile(NASDAQ:INTC), plus leading fabless design companies, such as MediaTek(OTCPK:MDTKF), Realtek, Qualcomm(NASDAQ:QCOM)and Novatek.\nIn August 2018, UMC announced it would pause research for advancing the productional technology of chips under 10nm nodes. As shown in the figure above, since 2018, the corresponding proportion of the company's advanced processes has been reduced to zero, but for mature nodes such as 65nm and 28nm, the proportion has been increased.\nInvestor Takeaways: Is TSM Or UMC Stock A Better Buy?\nBoth companies compete in the same industry, but their business models are a differentiating metric. TSMC generates most of its revenue on nodes smaller than UMC’s (Chart 1), and most of its planned capex will focus new fabs making ICs at increasing smaller nodes.\nTSMC Positives\nTSMC’s share of the pure-play foundry market was 57% share in 2020, up from 55% in 2019. UMC’s share was constant at slightly less than 8%.\nTSMC benefits from the smaller nodes. Although capex increases with decreasing nodes (Chart 3), so too does gross profit (Chart 2). Thus, TSM has higher revenues than UMC: $48.2B vs $6.283B.\n\nTSMC also has higher annual earnings (EBITDA): $33B vs. UMC $2.349B.\nTSMC ($613B) has a higher market cap than UMC ($23.4B).\nTSMC has more cash on hand: $23.3B vs. UMC ($3.76B).\nTSMC has a higher EPS (3.99) than UMC (0.59).\n\nSeeking Alpha’s quant ratings are derived by measuring a stock's financial metrics against other stocks in the sector on the basis of value, growth, profitability, momentum and analysts’ earnings revisions. In Table 1, both stocks have high rankings. TSMC has a quant rating of 4.63 and UMC has a quant rating of 4.54.\n\nGross margin for TSMC and UMC is shown in Table 2. A positive for TSMC, gross margin is significantly ahead of UMC and the average of all foundries. The Street expects 3Q21 gross margin will improve to 52.9%, given a higher revenue scale, tight foundry supply and improved efficiency of 5nm production.\n\nUMC Positives\nThe comparison of other financial metrics, UMC has stronger financials:\n\nUMC has a lower P/E ratio than TSM: 21.8 vs 28.9\nUMC has less debt than TSM: $2.47B vs $15.4B.\nUMC YTD gains are higher at: 10.558 vs. TSM (8.922).\n\nTable 3 shows stock performance in percent growth for TSM and UMC. In the past year, UMC stock has outperformed TSMC, and did so in the 3-year and 5-year period. But in a 10-year period, TSMC is the better choice.\n\nTSMC is the clear winner over UMC going forward. The company chose its strategy to build chips at the <7nm node. The fact that it is building a 28nm fab in China, the “sweet spot” for UMC, coupled with a new 28nm SMIC (OTCQX:SMICY) fab, will mean lost market share at this node for UMC.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":320,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"EN","currentLanguage":"EN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":11,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ORIG"},"commentList":[],"hasMoreComment":false,"orderType":2}