Qualcomm rounded up all the bad news to report this quarter. The bar will now be very low. This will give them breathing room next year, focusing on the Street on macro, which is better than letting them get impatient about autos.
Qualcomm claims Arm wants to shift its business model to charge OEMs rather than chip companies. We think is unlikely, but wow will it be hard if they do try to make that shift.
Mobileye filed to go public, again. They have a lot going for them, but the market is still in early days, a lot could change. The management team also has a lot going on (sale, integration, IPO, etc.) and we have to wonder if they risk losing focus.
As we keep saying, IoT is not one thing. So maybe we should find a better way to segment the market. We think companies can analyst the opportunities available based on the complexity and engineering required to deliver their product to market.
Qualcomm’s Auto event – painted a compelling strategic picture for their future in the segment, and then provided answers to a lot of the practical questions too. They look very well positioned for autos of today.
While Arm may be able to beat Qualcomm in court, their lawsuit risks creating a really challenging marketing message, especially at a time when the threat of RISC V looms ever larger. Maybe they win the legal battle, but lose the marketing war.
Will Apple build its own RF chips – it turns out this is much more complicated than it sounds, and Apple is already getting almost everything it wants from its RF suppliers. However, nowhere in this piece do we say it will never happen.
A recap of our emerging thesis on the changing nature of compute and what that means for semis companies large and small.
The large, incumbent chip companies are all choosing to embrace the trend of Roll-Your-Own chips by offering support services to non-chip companies’ efforts. Done well this may end up driving those customers to buy more catalog parts. Hopefully.
AMD is a good proxy for the rest of the semis industry – beset by cyclical challenges but also increasingly well-positioned for the changing shape of the industry.