(Samsung) pretty much consensus, Samsung is struggling with HBM because their 1anm DRAM has bad design and stacking them results in thermal/performance issues (not because they have problem stacking them up).
I don't understand why you are so bullish on ARM. I think ARM's business model is flawed; it creates competitors to its own products. You can ignore Apple and Nvidia as they design ARM chips for internal use only, that question is why you will invest in ARM which only makes a small amount of money from royalties when you can invest in companies who will make billions by selling ARM based chips or products like Nvidia, Apple, Qualcomm etc. Qualcomm is the biggest competitor of ARM as now they have their own fully custom Oryon cores and their Adreno gpu is already leader in mobile. Right now, the first gen Windows on ARM of Qualcomm is defeated by x86 chips but Snapdragon X Elite is a first gen product, and it can defeat x86 mobile chips till 3rd or 4th gen. Then there is also going to be the rise of software defined vehicles and may be in datacenter Qualcomm could create better chips than ARM itself. Both of these markets demand best performance per watt. In future if ARM tries to increase their royalties too much, then RISC V is emerging as a good alternative to ARM without any royalties attached. Although it will take some time for the software ecosystem to exist for RISC V, but Mobileye is already using MIPS's RISC V based CPU cores for its EyeQ 6 chips. RISC V can be the Linux of hardware world.
Thanks a lot for the amazing article! I am an Electrical Engineering undergrad, so I am really enjoying watching all my school topics come up here. Just a quick question, do you have any book or blog recommendations that go as deep as you do on the technical aspects of semiconductor investing? I am aware of semianalysis, but my student bank account cannot afford the hefty $500 a year for the newsletter. Any suggestions?
I have an upcoming post that will have book and online resource recommendations. There are several other students who have asked similar questions. Very happy to see students show up here.
Thank you so much for your analysis. I'm confused about one point. The below quote is in the TSMC section, but from your analysis you seem bullish on TSMC even in the short term - definitely through at least mid-2027. So I assume the below quote is for the semiconductor industry exempting TSMC, correct?
"More bad news for semicap is coming. The consensus view on what is happening at Intel Foundry and Samsung Foundry is not accurate. Engineering reality is much worse. I believe all the ssemicap majors are at risk of a 10-30% further decline in stock price within the next six months.
TSMC negotiation leverage is a serious headwind for semicap that not enough people are talking about."
Could you look into Kneron? There is a recent Bloomberg article stating that it's getting the last round of funding before going IPO next year. I looked at the investor list and it has a lot of big names. But when I look into their product, I don't think anything impresses me. It is an SD startup built by a Qualcomm ex-employee. I think you'll be interested in this as well.
You are so good!!!
(Samsung) pretty much consensus, Samsung is struggling with HBM because their 1anm DRAM has bad design and stacking them results in thermal/performance issues (not because they have problem stacking them up).
Alpha!
Might I recommend buying Ansyss to arbitrage synopsis stock :)
Great article! Gave me more insight into what to invest
I don't understand why you are so bullish on ARM. I think ARM's business model is flawed; it creates competitors to its own products. You can ignore Apple and Nvidia as they design ARM chips for internal use only, that question is why you will invest in ARM which only makes a small amount of money from royalties when you can invest in companies who will make billions by selling ARM based chips or products like Nvidia, Apple, Qualcomm etc. Qualcomm is the biggest competitor of ARM as now they have their own fully custom Oryon cores and their Adreno gpu is already leader in mobile. Right now, the first gen Windows on ARM of Qualcomm is defeated by x86 chips but Snapdragon X Elite is a first gen product, and it can defeat x86 mobile chips till 3rd or 4th gen. Then there is also going to be the rise of software defined vehicles and may be in datacenter Qualcomm could create better chips than ARM itself. Both of these markets demand best performance per watt. In future if ARM tries to increase their royalties too much, then RISC V is emerging as a good alternative to ARM without any royalties attached. Although it will take some time for the software ecosystem to exist for RISC V, but Mobileye is already using MIPS's RISC V based CPU cores for its EyeQ 6 chips. RISC V can be the Linux of hardware world.
Thanks a lot for the amazing article! I am an Electrical Engineering undergrad, so I am really enjoying watching all my school topics come up here. Just a quick question, do you have any book or blog recommendations that go as deep as you do on the technical aspects of semiconductor investing? I am aware of semianalysis, but my student bank account cannot afford the hefty $500 a year for the newsletter. Any suggestions?
I have an upcoming post that will have book and online resource recommendations. There are several other students who have asked similar questions. Very happy to see students show up here.
Thank you so much for your analysis. I'm confused about one point. The below quote is in the TSMC section, but from your analysis you seem bullish on TSMC even in the short term - definitely through at least mid-2027. So I assume the below quote is for the semiconductor industry exempting TSMC, correct?
"More bad news for semicap is coming. The consensus view on what is happening at Intel Foundry and Samsung Foundry is not accurate. Engineering reality is much worse. I believe all the ssemicap majors are at risk of a 10-30% further decline in stock price within the next six months.
TSMC negotiation leverage is a serious headwind for semicap that not enough people are talking about."
I am very bullish TSMC in all time frames. Short term, medium, long...
The commentary you quoted is referring to semicap. Equipment suppliers like Applied materials, KLA, ASML, Lam Research, and so on.
Could you look into Kneron? There is a recent Bloomberg article stating that it's getting the last round of funding before going IPO next year. I looked at the investor list and it has a lot of big names. But when I look into their product, I don't think anything impresses me. It is an SD startup built by a Qualcomm ex-employee. I think you'll be interested in this as well.