IFS Connect Takeaways | Nvidia Earnings as the New Semiconductor King

The Circuit

Summary

This episode of The Circuit discusses the recent Intel Foundry event and Nvidia's earnings. The conversation explores Intel's focus on becoming a leading foundry and its bet on advanced packaging. The hosts also discuss concerns about Intel's culture and execution, as well as the response from TSMC. The episode concludes with predictions about the future of the market and the role of Intel in the industry. In this conversation, Jay Goldberg and Ben Bajarin discuss the future of TSMC and Apple, Intel's commitment to Apple and chiplets, the push towards chiplets in PCs, Intel's relationship with TSMC, NVIDIA's clean quarter, retail interest in NVIDIA stock, the investor relations dilemma for NVIDIA, NVIDIA's product cadence and long-term expectations, and the inference market and competition.

Takeaways

• Intel is positioning itself as a leading foundry for complex systems of chips in the AI era.
• The success of Intel's foundry strategy will depend on its ability to deliver on technical innovation and overcome cultural challenges.
• TSMC remains a strong competitor in the market and has credibility in technical innovation.
• The customer dynamics and relationships with major wafer scale customers will play a crucial role in Intel's success as a foundry.
• The future of the market will likely involve a shift towards advanced packaging and chiplet designs. TSMC's future success depends on targeting a big volume platform like IFS in 2027.
• Intel's commitment to Apple may hinder their adoption and advancement of chiplets.
• PC CPU makers are under pressure to move towards chiplets, which may influence Apple's architecture decisions.
• NVIDIA's clean quarter and moderate beat and raise had a fairly moderate reaction in the stock market.
• NVIDIA's stock is heavily influenced by retail investors, which can lead to unpredictable swings.
• NVIDIA's product cadence and performance improvements, as well as supply chain constraints, are concerns for meeting revenue expectations.
• NVIDIA's long-term expectations and communication about the total addressable market may create heightened investor expectations.
• The inference market is still in early days, and competition is increasing.
• NVIDIA's software ties and workload advantage may give them an edge in the inference market.