Mojo
EV, Semiconductor & Driver-Assistance Commentary
AMD and Nvidia face a growing capital burden from substrates without the benefit of foundry margin stacking. Each is committing $1 billion to the substrate ecosystem; AMD has also publicly committed $10 billion to its Taiwan supply chain, more than three times its Q2 net income. That capital is unavailable for R&D and product development, while their gross margins are flat or shrinking. Intel's gross margin is growing as customers prepay its foundry for substrates. x.com
Nvidia's leverage over neocloud customers could make it harder for AMD to compete. SemiAnalysis reports that neoclouds offering AMD GPUs or TPUs have been denied access to Nvidia's GTC Berlin; executives fear retaliation, unlike larger hyperscalers with more buying power. Nvidia's influence over supply capacity and contracts may leave AMD with little recourse beyond a Justice Department complaint, which would not be a quick fix. x.com x.com
Insufficient substrate supply may cap AMD's growth because the company has not secured enough capacity. The author says limited substrate availability drove AMD's lowered guidance, making supply-chain execution the constraint on how far it can grow. This adds an execution risk to the earlier concern that AMD is too expensive to buy despite strong results. x.com x.com
AI builders needing outside capital face funding risk before suppliers holding customer cash. CoreWeave spent $6.4bn against $0.7bn in operating cash flow; Oracle, Amazon and Alphabet spent more than their operating cash flow on capex. Micron, SanDisk and AXT hold customer money; TSMC has net cash. Nvidia is paid for GPUs but holds about $99bn in equity stakes, including GPU buyers. If borrowing costs rise, buyers feel it first and suppliers may later see contracted-volume cuts. x.com x.com
SpaceX's $40B financing for GPU procurement adds another large, funded source of AI-infrastructure demand, with spending flowing into GPUs, memory, networking and optics. At the same time, InP substrates are seriously short, and Morgan Stanley identifies InP, EML and CW lasers as primary bottlenecks; suppliers that secure raw materials should gain pricing power. Any slowdown looks unlikely. x.com
Intel's growing server profit gives its recovery firmer support, though Q4's margin reset limits extrapolation. Data Center and AI revenue rose 78% to $7.3B; foundry losses narrowed to $1.85B but remain substantial. Management guides Q4 non-GAAP gross margin to 38% from 44.1% in Q3, while client sales fell 5%. The 14A milestone alone does not establish external foundry commitments. x.com
Ajinomoto, Nittobo, Ibiden and AT&S sit in an ABF substrate supply chain consolidated into near-monopolies, where the AI chip bottleneck keeps moving. Nvidia, Intel and AMD are prepaying for suppliers' factories, with Ibiden receiving over 90 billion yen; companies that size do not prepay unless out of options. Ajinomoto holds over 95% of the substrate film market, and Apple, Nvidia and Google are chasing Nittobo's glass fabric. A capex cycle ending in overcapacity is the risk. x.com x.com
Intel's production was reportedly affected by a pause at its Israel fabs, which should benefit competitors Arm and AMD. Both look good on that basis. x.com
Nvidia's co-investment supports Samsung Electro-Mechanics' substrate expansion because it expects capacity to be tight when it needs supply. Samsung Electro-Mechanics says dedicated compute and switch substrate supply to Nvidia starts this year, with double-digit annual volume growth; by 2028 Nvidia orders should take a substantial share of its package-substrate capacity. Global customers fund part of its 6.78 trillion won expansion, but new Sejong output starts in September 2028. x.com
IC substrates are Schmid's more relevant growth driver today because demand is already high and rising. Schmid customers Ibiden and Unimicron are expanding capacity with NVIDIA support; higher order intake supports the prospect of more equipment orders. Its balance sheet has improved, and the risk/reward looks attractive at current levels despite volatility. Glass substrates may take another one to two years to matter commercially. This is a personal assessment, not a buy recommendation. x.com … Show more
AMD could see much more accelerator demand as OpenAI and Anthropic allegedly increase their orders by multiple gigawatts. Nvidia's only real edge over AMD may soon be its size and resources; Lisa Su is a master operator. x.com
ASE Technology's packaging tightness now extends beyond AI to analog and mature-node chips, supporting price hikes. Lead times are up over 30%; FC/Wirebond/QFN hikes of 10–80% and CoWoS hikes of 10–20% are expected in 3Q–4Q26. Higher AMD server CPU wafer allocation, CoWoS adoption for Venice, Verano and future AMD CPUs, and limited competition support LEAP growth. LEAP revenue is forecast at US$4bn/$8bn in 2026/27, above guidance. The target rises to NT$843 from NT$754 on 25x 2027E EPS. x.com
