United Microelectronics Appoints New CEO Amid Leadership Restructuring
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: Feb 25 2026
0mins
Should l Buy UMC?
Source: seekingalpha
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) has seen its shares decline by 6.47% as it hits a 5-day low, reflecting investor concerns following the recent leadership changes.
The company appointed Jason Wang as the new CEO, eliminating the co-president model to enhance decision-making efficiency. This restructuring has raised market caution, leading to a 3% drop in UMC shares during early trading on Wednesday. The former co-president SC Chien, who holds 176 global patents, now serves as chairman of Unimicron Technology, while Ming Hsu takes on the role of president and COO, expected to drive growth in UMC's global market presence.
The leadership change comes at a challenging time for the semiconductor industry, and investors are closely monitoring how these changes will impact UMC's strategic direction and market performance.
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Analyst Views on UMC
Wall Street analysts forecast UMC stock price to fall
2 Analyst Rating
0 Buy
0 Hold
2 Sell
Moderate Sell
Current: 8.870
Low
4.80
Averages
5.50
High
6.20
Current: 8.870
Low
4.80
Averages
5.50
High
6.20
About UMC
United Microelectronics Corp is a global semiconductor foundry. The Company provides integrated circuit (IC) production for applications spanning every sector of the electronics industry. The Company operates through two segments. The Wafer Fabrication segment is mainly engaged in the manufacture of chips to the design specifications of its customers by using its own processes and techniques. The New Business segment is engaged in the research, development, manufacture and provision of solar energy. The Company is engaged in the maintenance of a customer base across various industries, including communication, consumer electronics, computer, memory, new generation light-emitting diode (LED) and others, while focusing on manufacturing for applications, including networking, telecommunications, Internet, multimedia, personal computers (PCs) and graphics.
About the author
Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
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- Energy Consumption Advantages: HyperLight's TFLN technology significantly reduces energy consumption in current optical modules, with advantages becoming more pronounced as lane speeds increase, helping data centers optimize power usage while accommodating higher GPU densities and larger clusters.
- System Integration and Reliability: Jabil's expertise in system integration and manufacturing execution, along with UMC's qualified foundry manufacturing, ensures that TFLN-based solutions can be reliably deployed at the data center level, meeting the needs of AI and hyperscale customers and driving the industry towards more efficient photonic technologies.
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- Focus on Scalability: The collaboration aims to scale the implementation of advanced photonic technologies in data center environments.
See More
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- Enhanced Production Capacity: This collaboration leverages UMC's 8-inch production capabilities alongside Wavetek's high-volume manufacturing infrastructure, ensuring the scale required for future AI infrastructure growth, thereby enhancing market competitiveness.
- Technological Innovation: The TFLN Chiplet™ platform unifies the requirements of IMDD, coherent, and co-packaged optics, delivering extremely high modulation bandwidth and ultra-low optical loss, while reducing power consumption and supporting CMOS direct-drive voltage, making it suitable for emerging applications like quantum computing.
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- Technological Innovation and Market Application: The TFLN Chiplet platform enables extreme high modulation bandwidth and ultralow optical loss, reducing laser consumption and supporting CMOS direct-drive voltage, making it suitable for emerging applications like quantum computing and sensing, thus accelerating the adoption of photonic technologies.
- Global Market Strategy: HyperLight's standardized production architecture will simplify ecosystem complexity, lower manufacturing risks, and facilitate the rapid, cost-competitive adoption of TFLN photonics globally, further solidifying its leadership position in the optical interconnect space.
See More
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- Growing Market Demand: Driven by AI and diverse applications such as networking and automotive, the demand for chip architectures is rising, and UMC has unlocked significant value for customers through successful 3D integration of RFSOI wafers for RF front-end modules in partnership with Adeia.
- Innovation Driving Technology: Adeia's semiconductor IP portfolio includes innovations in hybrid bonding, advanced packaging, and semiconductor processing technologies, which enhance interconnect density, power efficiency, and bandwidth, serving as critical enablers for next-generation logic, memory, and high-performance computing devices.
- Long-term Commitment: Adeia's Chief Revenue Officer, Mark Kokes, stated that this agreement reflects the strength of Adeia's IP portfolio and its commitment to supporting UMC in driving advancements in 3D integration and heterogeneous packaging, highlighting the deep collaboration between the two in semiconductor manufacturing.
See More
