United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE:UMC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jason Wang: Quantify, that is — it’s still too early right now, because given the current inventory correction, I think many of this is under the discussion in terms of volume and the product and also the process. And so, I think it’s still kind of early again. I think the — many of this will probably take a year to see them realize it. So I assume we can probably another — once we have a clear visibility, we’ll be able to update you on that.

Sunny Lin: Got it. Thank you. My second question is real quick on capacity increase. So based on your current CapEx target, what kind of capacity increase you target to increase for this year? And specifically on P6 for 28-nanometer, so your Singapore expansion for 28, are you still targeting for late 2024? Thank you.

Jason Wang: For 2023, capacity will increase by 4.9% year-over-year and mainly for the 12A P6 profile. The 12A P6 will start on by mid-2023, and it will reach about 12,000 a month by Q4 ’23. The P3, the Singapore P3 is targeted to the first half of 2025.

Sunny Lin: Got it. Thank you so much.

Jason Wang: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from Laura Chen with Citigroup. Please go ahead, Laura. Thank you.

Laura Chen: Hello. Hi. Thank you. Good afternoon. Happy New Year. Thank you for taking my question. My question is also on the 28-nanometer. While we see the demand is still quite resilient, even we see a lot of inventory correction, but we know that many of them still are PC or smartphone related. So just wondering, do you think that the resilience will continue even during the first half inventory correction at the client side? In that case, how would that impact the overall gross margin as we know that 28-nanometer probably also one of the key catalysts to drive better pricing and also better product mix? That’s my first question. Thank you.

Jason Wang: Sure. And first, happy New Year to you, too. And for the 28-nanometer loading, I mean, we remain confident with our 28 and 22 nanometer business. Given that it’s a long lasting node driven by many applications, such like ISP, WiFi6, OLED driver. So we expect this 28, 22 nanometer will be partially impacted by — partially impacted by the inventory correction in communications segment during the first half of 2023, and we do anticipate a full rebound in our 28 and 22 nanometer business starting from second half 2023. So given the current visibility, we have some confidence that they will come back in the second half of ’23. For the ASP, we’re going to do our part. I mean, we will continue to do our cost reduction, productivity improvement effort to make sure that our customer can remain competitive.

And we will cooperate with our customers indicate headwind — the market headwinds, the cost headwind in conjunction with our cost efforts, and we want to make sure that they will stay competitive with respective to their market share position as well.

Laura Chen: Okay. Thank you. That’s very clear. And also on the IDM business, you note that throughout the last year the growth are quite solid and quite substantial. I’m just wondering that on what nodes we see the most growth and also, what kind of application? And given, again, the cyclical downturn across the board, do you think that the IDM outsourcing will continue, particularly in some like MCU or automotive related?

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