I think both companies are acting rationally given their respective business outlooks. TSMC obviously sees excellent opportunities ahead as they transition thru 20 nm to 16 and then 10 (bolstered I'm sure by firm purchase commitments from their leading edge customers). Capex/op cash flow is forecasted to be in the low 60%'s..so not much more than where Intel typically runs (which is in the low 50's from what I can tell).
Intel appears to be tapping the breaks on Capex here in a "wait and see" mode to see if Win 10 indeed reinvigorates the pc sector.
Some good news for Intel investors is that given no significant buy-back program and a scaled back Capex, they appear set to throw off a boatload of cash this year. The risk to that is a lot of it is back-end loaded and dependent upon a pretty good back-to-school/holiday season for them.
Which means what? That Intel has higher fixed costs associated with developing SOC's that serve 100s of millions of PC devices? Yeah, go figure.
A better metric might be cash flow, and to a greater extent, where that cash flow goes towards. I don't suppose TSMC is putting cash back into dividends and stock buyback like Intel is? Yeah, didn't think so. And TSMC's CapEx as a percentage of net margin? Think about that one a little more, too.
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