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

UMC 1Q25 Is the Bottom, Consensus Is Low but the Stock at Average Valuations

Intel's UMC Partnership Is A Big Deal. For UMC.

UMC 2Q25: The Recovery Is Cancelled Out by NT$ Appreciation

Our Thesis: Intel Should Take a Stake in UMC -- New Signals Reinforce the Case

Intel 18A Not Ready for Foundry (Preparing for Bad News?), TSMC Exit GaN (Doesn’t Matter), UMC 6nm

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

United Microelectronics Corp / Equity Bottom-Up

<ul>
<li>On April 29, 2026, UMC reported Q1 2026 revenue of NT$61.04 billion, down 1.2% QoQ, up 5.5% YoY. This was in line with guidance.</li>
<li>Specialty 22nm process comprised a record 14% of revenue in Q1 2026, up from ~13% in Q4 2025 and up from sub-10% one year ago.</li>
<li>Gross margin will remain under pressure through mid 2027 at least, a result of increasing depreciation and rising input costs. Yet the share price has doubled in six weeks. Yikes!</li>
</ul>


On April 29, 2026, UMC reported Q1 2026 revenue of NT$61.04 billion, down 1.2% QoQ, up 5.5% YoY. This was in line with guidance.
Specialty 22nm process comprised a record 14% of revenue in Q1 2026, up from ~13% in Q4 2025 and up from sub-10% one year ago.
Gross margin will remain under pressure through mid 2027 at least, a result of increasing depreciation and rising input costs. Yet the share price has doubled in six weeks. Yikes!


UMC Q126. A Delicate Balance Between Surging 22nm Demand & Rapidly Rising Depreciation, Input Costs