Micron report and general tech news
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Micron reported their Q4 earnings last night and provided some colour on their outlook. Micron produce a critical component in HPC servers called HBM3e memory, a 3D version of stacked DRAM. There are 3 suppliers in this sector, Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung.
Micron are targeting 25% market share and it is no surprise their biggest customer is Nvidia.
Guidance is for 50% increase next quarter which bodes well for critical component supply. Further, HBM4 architecture is ahead of schedule and they anticipate entering production at the end of the year as opposed to first half of 2025. The HBM4 memory will be used with Blackwell Next, Rubin and it is twice as fast as HBM3e (already 9.6Gb/s which is hard to comprehend).
We note the above not because we consider Micron a good investment but because it bodes well for other holdings including KLA which supply companies like Micron with cutting edge yield management equipment as well as services.
We would expect the Micron news to be a net positive for the semi conductor and growth segment today.
In other news, Msft signed a power supply deal with Constellation Energy for 1TW of nuclear power by 2027. No doubt this is to meet the needs of a gigantic data centre, the rumoured 1m GPU super cluster.
Open AI has met with the Pentagon to urge them to invest heavily in accelerated Data Centres (to the tune of 5 TW). Chatgpt5 will be released next month. Initial previews show a very advanced machine which can take reasoning and complex(PHD level) problem solving to the next level.
Blackwell production ramp is ahead of expectation. Last Q management told analysts to expect 'several billion' in revenues for Q4. Yesterday Morgan Stanley stated, after a meeting with key channel suppliers and the company CFO they now expect $10B+ in Q4 along with continued growth in Hopper(through 25) which is a very positive point-here is an 'old' architecture which is still growing in demand whilst the new architecture is being released and ramping. We would speculate this is because hyperscale customers (GOOG/aws, azure, meta, Orcl) receive product first and now sovereign states and enterprise manage to access supply.
Regards
Adam
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KLA has been volatile lately due to hitting new highs however every earnings they continue to exceed expectations. A very high quality business that dominates the segment it operates in. The smaller processors get the more their products become critical. If you think that a silicon wafer can be worth $20k, if you can achieve a higher yield and by that I mean, even 1 defect results in the entire wafer being scrapped, it's not difficult to understand how they are growing their business.
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Just in -SK hynix's said it began mass production of the world's first 12-layer HBM3E product with 36GB capacity, the largest capacity of existing HBM to date.
The South Korean company — which supplies Nvidia to supply mass-produced products to customers by the end of the year.
SK hynix noted that previously the maximum capacity of HBM3E was 24GB from eight vertically stacked 3GB DRAM chips. The company stated that it had delivered the HBM3E 8-layer product to customers for the first time in the industry in March this year.
According to the company, the 12-layer HBM3E product meets the world's highest standards in all areas that are essential for AI memory, including speed, capacity and stability.
The new 12-layer HBM3E product has a 50% bigger capacity than the previous eight-layer chips.What is interesting is Nvidia prepaid billions to get sole access to the faster superior memory.
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Open AI are looking at allocating equity to Sam Altman in the order of 7.5%. The company, today has a valuation of around $150B. They have also changed their corporate structure to 'for profit' from 'non profit'.
Not a bad investment by MSFT when it acquired 49% of a rumoured $10B
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Thanks Adam
Wondered why klac was looking a bit perky on the premarket.
As are some others, could be a bit of a good day if it carries through to the close
@dingg said in Micron report and general tech news:
Thanks Adam
Wondered why klac was looking a bit perky on the premarket.
As are some others, could be a bit of a good day if it carries through to the close
Ah well, another kick in the balls, smci potential dodgy dealings pulling the rug on semis, this time next year Rodney
