Marvell Technology fell 7.7% in after-hours trading on Wednesday, to $232.39 from a $251.65 close, after Bloomberg reported the chipmaker is in advanced talks to buy Lumentum Holdings. Lumentum went the other way, up about 10% to roughly $1,008 from $913.95. Neither company has confirmed anything. No price, premium or payment mix has been reported. An announcement could come as … [Read more...] about Marvell Falls 8% on Lumentum Takeover Talks Because the Deal Can Only Be Paid in Stock
Reports
Seagate, Teradyne and Corning Beat on AI Demand and Two of Them Still Fell
Three suppliers to the AI build-out reported third-quarter numbers on Tuesday. Hard drives, chip testers and optical fiber. All three grew fast. The market still punished two of them, which says more about expectations than about the businesses. Seagate: a 61% jump and record margins Seagate's fiscal first-quarter revenue came in at $4.23 billion, up 61% on a year ago and … [Read more...] about Seagate, Teradyne and Corning Beat on AI Demand and Two of Them Still Fell
Tenstorrent Raises $1.5 Billion at a $6.2 Billion Valuation and Bets on Selling AI Chips at Every Size
Tenstorrent has closed a $1.5 billion Series E at a $6.2 billion post-money valuation. Trace Capital and Innovation X led the round. The Santa Clara company, run by chip architect Jim Keller, roughly doubled its valuation from the previous round. The investor list is the interesting part. Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley and ARK Invest sit next to trading firms Virtu … [Read more...] about Tenstorrent Raises $1.5 Billion at a $6.2 Billion Valuation and Bets on Selling AI Chips at Every Size
How to Tell an AI Infrastructure Order From an AI Infrastructure Story
An AI infrastructure announcement can describe a real commercial commitment, a financing ambition, a capacity reservation or a plan that still depends on several other plans. The headline often compresses those distinctions into a single large number. Reading it well means reconstructing the chain between the statement and the eventual economic activity: who has agreed to do … [Read more...] about How to Tell an AI Infrastructure Order From an AI Infrastructure Story
Hybrid Bonding Is the Bottleneck Nobody Prices Into HBM4
On Monday Applied Materials said it would more than double its holding in BE Semiconductor Industries (Euronext Amsterdam: BESI), taking it to about 20% of the Dutch bonder maker's shares. Four days earlier Besi had reported third-quarter orders of €342.6 million, up 96% on a year ago and well above the roughly €298 million analysts expected. And yet by early October the stock … [Read more...] about Hybrid Bonding Is the Bottleneck Nobody Prices Into HBM4
EQT and Ovintiv Pay for Drilling Inventory While Johnson Controls Sells Its Alarm Business
Monday's deal tape had two kinds of transaction on it, and they ran in opposite directions. Two energy producers paid to lengthen their runway, one in stock and one in cash. An industrial conglomerate sold a product line that no longer fits the company it is trying to become. A private equity firm added a risk officer to its board. Each one tells you what a buyer thinks is … [Read more...] about EQT and Ovintiv Pay for Drilling Inventory While Johnson Controls Sells Its Alarm Business
Stocks Fall as Meta Capex Outruns Its Cash Flow, Chips Sink and Brent Tops $111
CNN's Fear & Greed Index sits at 21, deep in extreme fear, and Thursday's tape explains why. By midday in New York the S&P 500 was down about 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite about 2.1%, with the Nasdaq 100 off 2.5% and a gauge of chipmakers down 5.8%. The Dow held close to flat. That split matters. This is a selloff in the AI trade and in anything priced off oil, while … [Read more...] about Stocks Fall as Meta Capex Outruns Its Cash Flow, Chips Sink and Brent Tops $111
Why China’s Alleged Memory Chip Breakthrough Should Be Taken With a Grain of Salt
Wall Street has developed an unfortunate habit of treating every Chinese semiconductor announcement as if the technological balance of power had shifted overnight. On Tuesday, technology shares came under pressure after Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) announced progress on a memory architecture intended to increase storage density. But announcing a … [Read more...] about Why China’s Alleged Memory Chip Breakthrough Should Be Taken With a Grain of Salt
EnergyX’s Trafigura Deal Moves Lithium Extraction From Technology Promise Toward Commercial Scale
EnergyX has taken an important step toward commercial lithium production by signing a binding, take-or-pay agreement with Trafigura covering 100,000 metric tons of battery-grade lithium products over ten years. Announced on October 12, the arrangement covers lithium carbonate from Project Black Giant in Chile and lithium hydroxide from Project Lonestar in Texas, with … [Read more...] about EnergyX’s Trafigura Deal Moves Lithium Extraction From Technology Promise Toward Commercial Scale
Marvell’s New Memory Expanders Target the Economics of AI Inference
Marvell’s latest product announcement addresses a less glamorous part of the AI investment cycle: finding enough usable memory to keep expensive computing infrastructure productive. On October 12, the company introduced its second-generation Structera X 3406 and 3506 memory expanders, supporting CXL 3.2 and PCIe Gen 6. Each controller provides six memory channels, up from four … [Read more...] about Marvell’s New Memory Expanders Target the Economics of AI Inference
