Equity Long-Short, Semiconductors, Fabricated Knowledge

Douglas O'Laughlin

Equity Long-Short, Semiconductors

Fabricated Knowledge

Learn more about the world's most important manufactured product. Meaningful insight, timely analysis, and an occasional investment idea.

Equity Bottom-Up

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation designs, develops, and markets high speed programmable logic devices.  The Company's products provide electronic systems customers with quickly designed, easily configured components.  Lattice markets its products to original equipment manufacturers of communication, computing, industrial, and military systems.

<ul><li><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/entegris-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:12493" rel="noopener">Entegris Inc (ENTG US)</a> - Memory spending is happening next year, but MSI remains weak.</li><li><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/astera-labs-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:40921" rel="noopener">Astera Labs (ALAB US)</a> - This is now the second way to play a levered Trainium ramp, as they have extensive content with <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/amazon-com-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:409" rel="noopener">Amazon.com Inc (AMZN US)</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/lattice-semiconductor-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:7855" rel="noopener">Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC US)</a> - Standard kitchen sink; I like the stock long-term.</li></ul>

Entegris Inc (ENTG US) - Memory spending is happening next year, but MSI remains weak.Astera Labs (ALAB US) - This is now the second way to play a levered Trainium ramp, as they have extensive content with Amazon.com Inc (AMZN US).Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC US) - Standard kitchen sink; I like the stock long-term.

Earnings: ENTG, ALAB, LSCC, SITM, QCOM, MCHP, WOLF, ARM, ACLS, AAOI, ANET, LITE, COHR

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<ul><li>In my opinion, this week’s big news in the semiconductor industry is the ramp of Trainium. It’s a bit subtle, but I will walk you through the secondary impacts and then give you an idea.</li><li>Let’s start at the source and walk backward from there. Amazon finally woke up. <a href="https://www.semianalysis.com/p/amazons-cloud-crisis-how-aws-will" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SemiAnalysis’s piece on why Amazon will lose the future of AI</a> has pretty much turned out correct.</li><li>AWS has a fundamentally different view of how to run infrastructure, and most of it is driven by effectively pursuing Amazon basics at scale for their AWS property.</li></ul>

In my opinion, this week’s big news in the semiconductor industry is the ramp of Trainium. It’s a bit subtle, but I will walk you through the secondary impacts and then give you an idea.Let’s start at the source and walk backward from there. Amazon finally woke up. SemiAnalysis’s piece on why Amazon will lose the future of AI has pretty much turned out correct.AWS has a fundamentally different view of how to run infrastructure, and most of it is driven by effectively pursuing Amazon basics at scale for their AWS property.

<ul>
<li>Another week of earnings. I will start with a summary and then go into specific bits from each company.</li>
<li>I continue to like automotive, specifically semiconductors.</li>
<li>However, despite sequentially better results, we are seeing continued weakness in automotive and meaningful weakness in Industrial</li>
</ul>


Another week of earnings. I will start with a summary and then go into specific bits from each company.
I continue to like automotive, specifically semiconductors.
However, despite sequentially better results, we are seeing continued weakness in automotive and meaningful weakness in Industrial


Earnings: ON, AMKR, RMBS, UCTT, AMD, ASMI, KLAC, MPWR, ALGM, STM, INTC

Texas Instruments Incorporated operates as a semiconductor design and manufacturing company. The Company develops analog ICs and embedded processors. Texas Instruments has manufacturing or sales operations worldwide.

Summary: 
<ul>
<li>
TXN - Rebound in almost all end markets, even Automotive in China. Weakness in ROW, but I think it’s trough.</li>
<li>
LRCX - 25 is a growth year, taking share from Litho.</li>
<li>
MXL - Clear growth off the bottom as telecom rebounds.</li>
<li>
SK Hynix - Memory cycle ain’t over, HBM is strong.</li>
<li>
TER - Apple designed it’s own modem next year.</li>
<li>
BESI - HBM4 is looking continuously questionable if it’s going to be Hybrid Bonding.</li>
</ul>

Summary: 


TXN - Rebound in almost all end markets, even Automotive in China. Weakness in ROW, but I think it’s trough.

LRCX - 25 is a growth year, taking share from Litho.

MXL - Clear growth off the bottom as telecom rebounds.

SK Hynix - Memory cycle ain’t over, HBM is strong.

TER - Apple designed it’s own modem next year.

BESI - HBM4 is looking continuously questionable if it’s going to be Hybrid Bonding.


Earnings: TXN, LRCX, MXL, SK Hynix, TER, BESI

QUALCOMM, Inc . manufactures digital wireless communications equipment.  The Company licenses its code division multiple access (CDMA) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access intellectual property to other companies, and produces CDMA-based integrated circuits; and produces equipment and software used to track workers and assets; and software for wireless content enablement.

<ul><li>Sorry about the coy title. Today's idea is Qualcomm. I think there’s a confluence of reasons that Qualcomm should lead to some short-term share gains and outsized share performance.</li><li>What tipped me off is that Amon Cristiano and the entire executive team shifted their compensation a bit earlier than the typical December granting cadence.</li><li>They usually report earnings in early November, so I wondered what could make them want to take shares before earnings instead of after. After about 20 minutes of searching, I found a pretty easy reason.</li></ul>

Sorry about the coy title. Today's idea is Qualcomm. I think there’s a confluence of reasons that Qualcomm should lead to some short-term share gains and outsized share performance.What tipped me off is that Amon Cristiano and the entire executive team shifted their compensation a bit earlier than the typical December granting cadence.They usually report earnings in early November, so I wondered what could make them want to take shares before earnings instead of after. After about 20 minutes of searching, I found a pretty easy reason.