Semiconductor & Technology Specialist, Ingenuity

William Keating

Dr. William Keating is a highly experienced senior executive with over 25 years experience in the IT/Semiconductor Industry. The majority of Dr. Keating's career was spent at Intel Corporation where he held senior leadership positions in Europe, the US and Asia from 1992 through 2014. He served as Intel's IT Director for APAC, China & Japan from 2005 through 2014 when he was based in Hong Kong and was responsible for the IT systems (Infrastructure, Networks, Data Centres, ERP, Sales & Marketing systems, Business Intelligence etc. ) for all of Intel's offices & factories through the region. From 1998 through 2005, he was the founder & director of an internal IT Consulting Organisation (IT Flex Services), a 500-person team which remains a core part of the Intel IT Organisation to this day. Dr. Keating's first 6 years at Intel were spent in charge of the Factory Automation Systems (Robotics, Databases, Networks, Servers, Clients etc.) supporting Intel's then state-of-the-art 200mm factory network. Since leaving Intel in 2014, Dr Keating established his own Technology Research & Consulting Company (www.ingenuity.hk) where he focuses on the products, roadmaps & technologies of companies such as Intel, AMD, Samsung, Apple, Micron- as well as the key equipment suppliers to those companies e.g. ASML, AMAT, Canon, Nikon etc. Dr. Keating specializes in niche topics of high significance within the semiconductor industry. These include the future of Moore's Law and in particular the significance of Lithography in maintaining Moore's Law (EUV, SDA, NanoImprint), the role & growth of the GPU in specialised applications such as Deep Learning (Neural Networks) for Voice, Image & Pattern recognition at companies such as Facebook, Google & Baidu. He also holds regular discussions on the future of memory, in particular the rise of 3D NAND and the emergence of new memory technologies such as 3D Xpoint.

Semiconductor & Technology Specialist

The War on Huawei, Its Impact on TSMC, and the Invincible Spanish Armada

Korean & Taiwanese Governments May Restrict the Use of Huawei Telecom Equipment Products

Korea M&A Spotlight: LGUplus to Acquire CJ Hellovision: What's Next for Tbroad and D'Live?

A Bull Investment Case for TSMC (In-Depth Version)

TSMC Make or Break Support After Trend Break Down

A Bear Investment Case for TSMC (In-Depth Version)

Ingenuity

Our focus is exclusively on in-depth research & consulting in the broader semiconductor industry. We focus on the key players, namely Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, NVIDIA, AMD, TSMC & Global Foundries - as well as some of the lesser known, but nonetheless critical, companies such as ASML (for EUV), Mellanox, Cavium, Xilinx etc. We specialise in their products, roadmaps, process technologies, competitive advantages & threats etc. We also help our clients understand the implications of new and emerging technologies, e.g. 3D X-Point, 3D NAND, Carbon Nanotubes, Autonomous Driving, Graphene, Silicon Photonics, Wafer-Level Optics, Artificial Intelligence, FPGA, GPU, ASIC etc. 

Semiconductor Analysis & Research

Equity Bottom-Up

Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) / Equity Bottom-Up

While <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/11230" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:11230:1">Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company</a>'s Q4 2018 earnings were in line with expectations at ~$9.4 billion, the company's revenue forecast for Q1 2019 was down 22% sequentially to $7.3 billion. TSMC predicts a tepid 2019 with semiconductor growth of 1%, down from ~6% last year. Like many of its peers, TSMC sees challenges relating to inventory overhang, waning smartphone unit sales and global macro uncertainty weighing on the company in the first half and expects business to recover to modest growth in the second half. The bottom line is that the company anticipates a no-to-low growth year of the Pig. In spite of the downbeat outlook for the year, the company reiterated its belief that it will hit its 5-10% growth CAGR through 2021. To meet that goal, it is clear that TSMC now expects both 2020 and 2021 to be double digit growth years and, as we outlined in our SmartKarma Originals report <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/tsmc-bull-case-detail" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="insights:26781">A Bull Investment Case for TSMC (In-Depth Version)</a>, much of that growth will come from TSMC's new-found markets for processors and AI acceleration in the data center.From a process technology leadership perspective, a fundamental tenet of our bull case for the company, TSMC noted that its 7nm process accounted for a staggering 23% of revenues in the fourth quarter, 7nm+ (with EUV) is on track for volume ramp in the second quarter and 5nm remains on track to follow just one year later. Investors shrugged of the negative outlook for the year with the company's share price barely registering the news. We reiterate our bullish stance on the stock and our growth CAGR of 8.36% through 2022.

While Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's Q4 2018 earnings were in line with expectations at ~$9.4 billion, the company's revenue forecast for Q1 2019 was down 22% sequentially to $7.3 billion. TSMC predicts a tepid 2019 with semiconductor growth of 1%, down from ~6% last year. Like many of its peers, TSMC sees challenges relating to inventory overhang, waning smartphone unit sales and global macro uncertainty weighing on the company in the first half and expects business to recover to modest growth in the second half. The bottom line is that the company anticipates a no-to-low growth year of the Pig. In spite of the downbeat outlook for the year, the company reiterated its belief that it will hit its 5-10% growth CAGR through 2021. To meet that goal, it is clear that TSMC now expects both 2020 and 2021 to be double digit growth years and, as we outlined in our SmartKarma Originals report A Bull Investment Case for TSMC (In-Depth Version), much of that growth will come from TSMC's new-found markets for processors and AI acceleration in the data center.From a process technology leadership perspective, a fundamental tenet of our bull case for the company, TSMC noted that its 7nm process accounted for a staggering 23% of revenues in the fourth quarter, 7nm+ (with EUV) is on track for volume ramp in the second quarter and 5nm remains on track to follow just one year later. Investors shrugged of the negative outlook for the year with the company's share price barely registering the news. We reiterate our bullish stance on the stock and our growth CAGR of 8.36% through 2022.

TSMC. Reiterating Our Bullish Stance After Earnings