Did you know that 75%+ of the world’s neon is used in semi mfg? Did you know that Ukraine is a key source for the purified gas? Neither did we, but we spent the weekend learning about a potential new semi supply chain risk (institutional clients only):
How much has pricing contributed to semiconductor industry growth in recent years?
Would you be surprised to learn the answer is “More than all of it?”
Our note today discusses this (for institutional clients only):
Fun Friday Fact - over its entire history the global semiconductor industry has spent a bit more that a trillion dollars on wafer fabrication equipment (WFE)
Here's a wild thing that
@WillyShih_atHBS
talked about on our latest episode about chips.
The insane yield math of semiconductor production. How good your production quality has to be at every single step in order to get a return on your investment
This is a fantastic thread from
@TubeTimeUS
on chip costs, fabrication techniques, packaging, yields, and a ton of other semiconductor industry concepts that should be Interesting for specialists and generalists alike
Semiconductor Capital Equipment - moving from the end of the bullwhip, to the tip of the spear.
Our initiation report on the sector as well as $LRCX and $AMAT here (institutional clients only):
President Biden is meeting with Congress today to discuss the ongoing semi shortage situation amid calls for greater support for US semi manufacturing (1/4)
How big could
#ChatGPT
be? A typical query requires 400 quadrillion operations to complete (that’s a whole lotta compute!)
Here is our attempt to size it (link to note, for institutional clients only):
Thrilled to once again join
@TheStalwart
and
@tracyalloway
on Odd Lots to talk semi shortages, Intel, and other things of interest in the semiconductor space. Thanks for having me on again!
Are semiconductors becoming national treasures?
Our thoughts on the increasingly bipartisan support for policies to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing and investments, and what more remains to be done (institutional clients only):
Yesterday CA released 2020 autonomous vehicle disengagement report data.
While the companies in question mostly hate these reports, there are some trends in the data worthy of discussion, in particular a clear power law dependence w/ more miles driven correlated to performance.
Amid all the talk about shortages, could semis actually be “running hot?”
We explore evidence for such across the automotive, PC, and industrial markets in today’s note.
Link (institutional clients only):
How capital-efficient is $INTC manufacturing vs $TSM, and what would greater Intel outsourcing consequently imply for WFE spend? (Institutional clients only):
Analog Devices’ purchase of Maxim Integrated should close soon, with significant implications for cash return $ADI $MXIM
See our note today (institutional clients only):
Supply chain whipsaws amid COVID coupled to demand snapbacks in recovery are driving significant semiconductor shortages, currently felt most acutely in the auto industry but also manifesting elsewhere.
Our thoughts today (institutional clients only):
Thanks to
@CNBCClosingBell
for having me on to talk $NVDA earnings, as well as thoughts on Biden’s executive order and the semiconductor shortage situation
Governmental subsidies and support have played a huge role in the economics of Chinese semiconductor companies, much greater than anything enjoyed by key US firms.
They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But a thousand miles is still a long way to go…
Our thoughts on Intel’s $INTC analyst day (institutional clients only):
As we all know PC shipments have been incredibly strong in the midst of COVID. But have CPU shipments overshot?
Our note today examines the issue (institutional clients only):
But we are supporters of a stronger US semi manufacturing base, so if shortages are helping to jump-start the conversation that’s probably a good thing (3/4)
Everyone - I have my first imposter (that I know of).
If you wouldn’t mind please report
@BernstenRasgon
(note the misspelling of “Bernstein”
Thank you.
Stacy
What's the next catalyst for the semiconductor sector? Semiconductor analyst
@BernsteinRasgon
takes a long term view of the sector and gives insights into the large-cap names like Intel. $SMH $INTC
$INTC reckoning with more defections on reports that $MSFT may be joining the list of companies pursuing their own internal compute silicon efforts. Our thoughts today (institutional clients only):
Bernstein's
@srasgon
weighs in on the best & worst times to buy semiconductor stocks, and what investors should be looking for from the big names in the space
There is not much the US gov can do to combat shortages (which have nothing to do with the state of US semi investment, political rhetoric not withstanding). For some context, auto semis (where shortages are rampant) are a $40B+ market; in contrast TSMC’s auto revs are ~$1B (2/4)
Bernstein’s Operational Decisions Conference kicks off today!
Today I will be (virtually) hosting:
Jim Anderson, CEO
@latticesemi
11am ET
@cristianoamon
, President
@Qualcomm
12:30pm ET
Kurt Busch, CEO
@Syntiantcorp
2:30pm ET
$AAPL working on modems? Should we be surprised? Is this another storm for $QCOM, or a tempest in a teapot?
Our thoughts this morning (institutional clients only):
Many thanks to
@Qualcomm
CEO-Elect
@cristianoamon
and CFO Akash Palkhiwala, who joined us yesterday for a well-attended (virtual) fireside chat on the state of the business.
Our brief note today has takeaways from the event (institutional clients only):
Glad to join
@KellyCNBC
on
@CNBCTheExchange
to talk through all things semis including the potential impact of Apple order cuts, chip shortages, and the “peak cycle” vs “stronger for longer” debate.
$AVGO reported FQ420 earnings last night with a clean beat-and-raise, strong margins and FCF, and a solid dividend increase, w/ some interesting mgmt changes, and steps to increase transparency. Our thoughts here (institutional clients only):
Current semiconductor policy initiatives being discussed are a start, but are relatively small (~$25-$30B or so) and so far have no actual funding attached yet.
Personally I would like to see a much broader holistic strategy encompassing customer acquisition, workforce training, and immigration policy with Apollo-program like capital deployment, though this would require a degree of political will that we have not seen in quite some time
Takeaways and replays from or recent Semiconductor Deglobalization Conference, where we met with experts from
@Arm
,
@SiFive
, Horizon Robotics, Tokyo Electron, and SMIC (institutional clients only)
If anyone here is interested in pharma and biotech (and with COVID maybe that’s everyone?) my colleague Ronny Gal (who covers US Biopharmaceuticals at Bernstein) is now live on Twitter.
Follow at
@rgalBernstein
Today is Day 2 of Bernstein’s Operational Decisions Conference!
We are pleased to host Rick Wallace (President and CEO) and Bren Higgins (EVP and CFO) of
@KLAcorp
at 4:30pm ET today.
Webcast here:
Thanks to everyone that attended Bernstein’s Operational Decisions Conference last week!
We were pleased to host executives from
@Qualcomm
,
@latticesemi
,
@KLAcorp
, &
@Syntiantcorp
.
We have published some takeaways today (institutional clients only):
For those interested in differentiated ESG work, my colleague Zhihan Ma has just initiated Bernstein’s Global ESG research franchise.
Follow Zhihan at
@BernsteinESG