Semiconductor world - CPU/GPU Wars

Stock Opportunities
106

Great interview.

Alluding to software stack when it comes to competition.

You can build the world’s best fricking everything-anything chip, you stick it into the computer, what will you accelerate? Absolutely nothing . Isn’t that right? Accelerated computing is insanely hard. And the reason for that is Moore’s law is insanely good.

To do better than that, you have to go full stack, you have to go domain by domain, and you are going to have to develop a lot of software. You are going to be working on a lot of solvers, hacking away at it like we are. And then of course, after almost 25 years, the architecture becomes trusted everywhere. And so this is where we feel quite privileged. But nonetheless, the ultimate competitor is doing nothing and waiting for Moore’s Law. We are a $10 billion datacenter business, which is maybe five percent of datacenters. That’s another way of saying that 95 percent of datacenters are all CPUs. And that’s the competition.

I have to mention here that AMD does not really have a stack/API like CUDA (widely used/preferrred - moat). They currently have translators for it. They have ROCm and HIP on top of it as a translator. NVIDIA controls this API. AMD is running behind them. This is a challenge that AMD is yet to solve.

HIP is a C++ Runtime API and Kernel Language that allows developers to create portable applications for AMD and NVIDIA GPUs from single source code.

So, nvda is currently at another level when it comes to platform. With omniverse, it will make another leap in its software stack.

2 Likes
107

@ashkrithik , @kenshin ,
How’s the ARM acquisition of Nvidia coming along?
Nvidia wanted ARM so that they could offload some of the application processing to GPU which will be a good thing to Nvidia.

108

Most likely that it won’t happen and get killed by the regulators. My understanding is that they wanted to acquire ARM to control the future roadmap and own the IP for the datacenter CPUs. Looks like they will have to pull off their whole CPU-DPU-GPU strategy as a licensee.

1 Like
109

In UK, the investigation has moved to phase 2 last week. This will take 24 weeks. They are also looking at it from national security angle. phase 1 summary said - ‘Serious Competition Concerns’.

1.6. The CMA received a substantial number of detailed and reasoned submissions from customers and competitors raising concerns in numerous markets. After careful examination, the CMA found significant competition concerns associated with the merged business’ ability and incentive to harm the competitiveness of NVIDIA’s rivals (that is, to ‘foreclose’) by restricting access to Arm’s CPU IP and impairing interoperability between related products, so as to benefit NVIDIA’s downstream activities and increase its profits.

1.7. The CMA found significant competition concerns as a result of the effect of such foreclosure in the supply of CPUs, interconnect products, GPUs, and SoCs across several global markets, spanning the datacentre, internet-of-things, automotive and gaming console applications.

1.8. The CMA found that the foreclosure strategies identified would reinforce each other and would, individually and cumulatively, lead to a realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition (SLC), and consequently to a stifling of innovation, and more expensive or lower quality products.

1.9. NVIDIA offered a set of behavioural remedies seeking to address the CMA’s concerns. The CMA found the offer to present considerable specification, circumvention, and monitoring and enforcement risks. Having regard to: (i) the complex and evolving nature of the contracts and markets involved; (ii) the magnitude of the competition concerns; and (iii) the breadth and technical nature of the offer, the CMA does not believe any form of behavioural remedy would address the competition concerns identified to the phase 1 clear-cut standard.

1.10. In conducting its investigation, the CMA has worked closely with other competition authorities around the world to carefully consider the impact of the Merger.

Nothing definite as of now since moved to phase 2. Overall (90%) looks bleak and uncertain from my perspective. Only the remedial measures show some kind of hope. But even that is downplayed by concern 1.9 above. Wait till next year mid.

In the meantime, arm is clocking great revenue

https://group.softbank/system/files/pdf/ir/financials/financial_reports/financial-report_q2fy2021_01_en.pdf - Page 31-33

image
image718×510 79.3 KB

2 Likes
110
1 Like
111

This is on expected lines I feel. Nvidia acquiring ARM can have lot of negative implications for the industry. Almost all big tech companies depend on ARM IP/ecosystem and chip manufacturer like Nvidia acquiring ARM can lead to unfair advantages

112

Tata Mutual Fund applies for Semi-Conductor FoF

My only question is whether TATA invest in all the 4 ETFs as mentioned in the Moneycontrol website or as per SEBI document whether they will shortlist only one ETF to invest. Eagerly waiting to watch how this pans out.

Sebi - Scheme Document

Disclosure : I already own Leveraged Semiconductor ETF in USA Stock Market.

2 Likes
113

image
image900×1600 277 KB

114
117

I am going to flag all PLI related posts above. They can be be moved to teh new semiconductor thread. Only a cleanup since I think they do not belong here

118

This gives some time for Intel to catch up I think.

119

Great podcast on semiconductor world taken from the other thread - some commentary about intel . Etc.

2 Likes
120

Screenshot_2021-12-24-19-38-58-379_com.google.android.apps.docs
Screenshot_2021-12-24-19-38-58-379_com.google.android.apps.docs1920×923 180 KB

Nvidia is world’s 8th most valuable company by market cap.

And in another story Vedanta to invest 60,000 cr into semiconductor manufacturing in India. It is in talks with TSMC, Foxconn, Samsung and LG for jointly bringing up ecosystem.

121

By the same guys … discussion on semis starts after an hour

1 Like
122
123

CES show:
This year’s CES was unlike previous years. Intel had something to show that somewhat competes with AMD instead of showcasing third-party products.

  1. NVDA targeting the performance crown in GPU. (I think this relates to maintaining consumer mindshare. Not sure) Also showcasing their software platform (cloud gaming/omniverse etc).
  2. AMD showcasing efficiency in APU (performance/power consumption). Zen 3+ - 6nm node. Full array of laptop GPU/APU products. Most likely the best for lower end laptops. Also, Reminding the world that zen4 is coming. It looks like AMD will take the performance crown back. In Feb Zen3+ 3D vcache may get them the crown and zen4 will very likely beat this one again in 2H 22.
  3. Intel showcasing alder lake in mobile. No talk about power consumption at all. Also showcasing their platform capabilities.

–
CPU - Definitely not as lopsided towards AMD as it was in 2021 CES - Intel clawing back putting on some show. But AMD still ahead. Can be way ahead if Intel has nothing by 2H 22.
GPU - Definitely not as lopsided towards NVDA as it was in 2021 CES - AMD is showcasing efficiency, NVDA wants to take/retain crown.

5 Likes
124

Bharat Electronics into semiconductor manufacturing

1 Like
125

NVDA and AMD are underperforming NASDAQ.
NVDA down 37% from ATH
AMD down 33% from ATH
Nasdaq down 18%.
NVDA and AMD valuations were stretched due to their narratives.

Disc:
Tracking NVDA and AMD. Holding QCOM (which is down 16% from ATH) as ESOPs and RSUs.

126

AMD and Intel results are out - NVDA expected Feb 16

AMD continues to grow in every segment

  1. They have hit 50% gross margin
  2. Increasing average selling price in Computing and Graphics biz - Growth - 32% YoY and 8% QoQ
  3. Datacenter and semi custom (consoles psp/xbox) - 75% YoY & 17% QoQ
  4. More importantly - estimates 31% growth in 2022 - inspite of chip shortage.

AMD said that it has the production capacity it needs to grow in 2022, an acknowledgement of the current worldwide chip shortage roiling competitors. AMD said it spent $1 billion in 2021 to secure long-term production capacity. Su said last September that she expects the chip shortage to become less severe this year.

image
image880×678 64.7 KB

image
image859×822 92 KB

1 Like
127

Intel

  1. Some fight back compared to last year Q4 - DCG (datacenter) has definitely put some fight.

    image
    image814×305 21.2 KB

    image
    image769×390 25 KB

  2. Overall a downer and we already know based on what happened in 2021

    image
    image750×705 51.3 KB