I am kind of wondering, though.
Designing and building analog chips with old equipment that has been depreciated years ago, can be a great business.
I remembered that Linear Technology and Maxim used to have gross margin in 60%-70%.
However, XFAB is a foundry and not a IDM like ADI or an analog design house, though. XFAB's gross margin is between 5.5% to ~24%. I looked at their website which lists their fabs. As far as I can tell, most were built years ago. In other words, not much depreciation from the equipment.
It may be a good idea to check how many new entrants into this kind of fabrication capacities there are.
If they are going to buy brand new equipment for the new fab, the depreciation of the equipment will be different than running fabs with 25-30 years old equipment.
If one checks the gross margins of UMC and Vanguard Semi(5347.tw), one suspects that capacities are being added after the industry had very good margins in 2021 and 2022. The previous low margin occurred in 2018-2019.
Capacities with new equipment will have quite different economics than adding capacities with equipment that has been depreciated, though.
Just my 2 cents.