We think there will be a few more legs of semis consolidation. So we compiled a list of 5 semis companies who we think will survive:
1. ADI & TI
2. QCOM
3. NVDA
4. Some chip company from China
5. The smoldering remains of Intel, probably owned by others.
We are all familiar with software and Internet companies building their own chips. Less appreciated is the extent to which semis companies are all gradually morphing into software providers as well.
RISC V is going to encounter a lot of software incompatibility problems, but that probably won’t matter, and definitely won’t stop it.
The market for base station and RAN silicon is shaping up to one of the most interesting to watch in the new year. And intel seems to have forgotten its long, sorry history in the space, making for some great viewing.
Lots of people think chip companies should build “services” businesses to capture more value. The list of companies that have accomplished this is very close to zero.
The advances in size and accessibility of modern databases is a wonder of our age. But to continue they will need similar innovation in the silicon on which databases run.
Arm is now a real force in the data center. With all of the “Super 7” running Arm CPUs, and the software industry increasingly recognizing the benefit of porting to Arm, we are at or approaching a significant tipping point in this massive market.
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.
Semis are changing, so it makes sense that some foundries are going to adopt new customer acquisition models. So just like we saw “Stealth IT” encourage cloud adoption, maybe we are going to see “Stealth Semis”.
AWS cannot control the software it runs, but it can still benefit from having its own CPU by reducing power consumption and thus increasing capacity of its data centers. And maybe that also introduces a new form of customer lock-in.