Acceleration Wars: Intel, Nvidia, Xilinx And Altera

A whole bunch of companies I cover reported last week. You can find my notes on their analyst conferences at www.openicon.com

I had an article published at Seeking Alpha too:

Acceleration Wars: Intel, Nvidia, Xilinx And Altera

I should also note I added to my Inovio (INO) holdings today. This is a long-term investment. Inovio is not likely to have a product on the market before 2018. In the meantime it has a decent amount of cash and may receive more from milestone payments from its research partnerships.

I hope to start catching up with my thoughts on the company's I write about for Seeking Alpha this week, based on their recent analyst conferences.

Dot Hill, Nvidia analyst conferences

"For every sad fly, there is a happy spider"

Two interesting things happened this week near me.

Dot Hill (HILL) barely met prior guidance for Q2, and investors were hoping a slew of new customers for Dot Hill's advanced storage systems would bring in results well above guidance. The stock took a major hit following the Thursday morning Dot Hill results release and analyst conference (my notes).

The main issue in the quarter was a particular customer, typically Dot Hill's second largest, bought fairly little in the quarter. This customer services large datacenter installations, and revenue variance each quarter is significant. Dot Hill believes the customers orders will resume.

In addition, July bookings have been strong, and 4 customers are likely to release major new Dot Hill based storage systems before the end of the year. Q2 was back-end loaded, so a fair amount of product went out at the end of the quarter that will book revenue in Q3.

So what did I do? I bought more HILL yesterday, basically buying back the shares I sold in March for $5.88 per share for just $3.51. Most of my shares I bought long ago for between $1 and $2 per share.

Of course Dot Hill management could be wrong, revenue and profits might not ramp in Q3 and Q4 and on into 2015. But I think it is likely they will, and Dot Hill will be far more valuable by mid 2015 than it is today. However, keep in mind that Dot Hill has disappointed in the past. Being a small-cap data storage provider is a difficult business.

The Nvidia Q2 conference seemed like it would provide no surprises until, near the end, an analyst asked about the bitcoin computing phenomena that had raised rival AMD's results in Q4 and Q1, but then hurt them when demand dropped off in Q2.

CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said why Nvidia GPU's were typically not used for bitcoin mining, or cryptocurrency in general. AMD's GPUs provide more performance per dollar. Mr. Huang argued extensively earlier in the conference (and in prior conferences) that because of its installed base and superior software, Nvidia GeForce GPU's are gamers' favorites. Maybe so, but it appears to be a well known fact in the computational community that if you want a lot of computation for your buck you want to go with AMD. The reality is that certain workloads do better with Nvidia's architecture, and certain workloads do better with AMD. I see this all the time, even within games, with some games getting better benchmarks with AMD, others doing better with Nvidia, assuming the same pricing range.

Regeneron, Dot Hill, Mylan and Nvidia to report this week

This is probably the last intense week of earnings season for me. I still have a bit of cash in my portfolio, and like to try to wait until the end of the season before deploying cash, or not, or even raising more by selling some stock.

First up Regeneron (REGN) Tuesday morning, the conference begins at 5:30 AM my (Pacific) time, so I might wait to listen to the recording. In any case my notes will eventually appear at Regeneron Q2 Analyst Conference Notes. I started a very small position in REGN in June, so this will be my first conference as a stockholder. I'll be looking to see how revenue is ramping, but most of the value is still in the pipeline, so any news on that will be of great interest.

I'll be listening to supercomputer manufacturer SGI on Wednesday, but I don't expect much from them. But you never know. If the stock is cheap enough and they show signs of improving, I would consider buying back in. My notes will be at SGI Q2 analyst conference.

Thursday is the busy day. Starting with Mylan (MYL) at 7:00 AM PT, notes at Mylan Q2 2014 analyst conference. Mylan is a generic drug maker. I'll be looking for a report on biosimilars, but mainly the question is how did overall revenue come in, and what were costs and resulting earnings. I think 5 years down the road I will be happy to have started a position this year, but I don't see where a short term pop could come from.

Dot Hill (HILL) is at 8:00 AM PT. This little-known company makes data storage equipment that is rebranded by an increasing number of storage companies. It is my largest small cap holding, so I am keenly interested. At this point it is mainly a question of how much their end customers ramp sales, which is hard to predict. The stock price did extremely well in 2013, and I think will be up again significantly by early 2015, but predicting quarter to quarter sales and profits and stock price is difficult. Dot HIll Q2 2014 analyst conference.

Nvidia is the only company in this lot that has a recognizable brand name. I don't own any NVDA but I have in the past. Nvidia has great graphics engineers and a plan to capitalize on graphics computing both on mobile devices and on the cloud computers that service them. I own stock in rivals AMD and Marvell (MRVL). I would certainly considering owning NVDA at some price point, and will be watching for its cloud computing progress in this normally seasonally slow fiscal quarter, which includes July. Nvidia Q2 2014 analyst conference.

Of course many more companies report this weak, and I enjoy getting other financial writer's reports, and hearing the opinions of others in the investment community. While I will read articles from any source, I generally find that Seeking Alpha, which I write for, is consistently more helpful to me than other sites. I also read the SEC documents of a company before investing; only fools don't.

AMD, Intel and Nvidia

My newest at Seeking Alpha:

Diverging Strategies Make AMD, Intel and Nvidia All Buys

Strangely, between the time I wrote this article and it appeared at Seeking Alpha, AMD indicated it would no longer be making new CPU-only processors for PCs. All of its processors models (probably starting in 2015) will have a GPU component.

This furthers my thesis that Intel will be able to increase prices for many of its CPUs. AMD will benefit from concentrating on its APUs (for PCs, which are category killers. It will also be able to put more resources into its server and pure GPU efforts.

I own AMD stock. I reserve the right to buy Intel (INTC) or Nvidia (NVDA) at any time it suits me. Or not.

AMD versus Nvidia

I have a new article at Seeking Alpha:

Advanced Micro Devices Versus Nvidia: Is There Anything For Investors In Their Final Battle?

As stated there, I own AMD stock. While I don't own NVDA, I have owned it in the past, and like the company.

For details on the latest quarter results, and Q&A with analysts, you can see my notes at OpenIcon:

Nvidia Q3 2013 results and analyst call

AMD Q3 2013 results and analyst call

This is an epic battle, with a surreal sense since both companies make the chips that power computer games. I don't see an obvious winner. Both companies have beaten-down stock prices, but AMD's is more downtrodden than Nvidia's.

There are already 13 comments at Seeking Alpha. I write about both IT stocks and biotech stocks, and I have noticed that there are a lot more comments on IT stocks. It appears a lot of IT guys who are investors are members of the Seeking Alpha community.

They are a sharp bunch. They will fill in many details about AMD and Nvidia. They will pounce on any errors I made. The shorts will challenge my pro-long details, and the longs will challenge my pro-short details. It is a debate not dissimilar to what you see at sites like www.anandtech.com when someone reviews an AMD or Nvidia gaming card. But generally more polite, less sarcastic, and more fact driven.

I've been covering and investing in and out of Nvidia and AMD for a long time. For a long-term, historic view check out my numerous links to old article and analyst conference summaries at:

Openicon AMD
Openicon NVDA

Nvidia article and analyst conference notes

now at Seeking Alpha:

Nvidia's Competitive Outlook

While Nvidia is actually one of my favorite companies from way back, I have not owned the stock for years. Partly that is due to my shifting my earlier mostly IT technology portfolio to one that has become more than half biotechnology. You can also see notes on last-week's Nvidia Second Quarter 2013 analyst call (Q2 fiscal 2014)

Next up is Applied Materials. Marvell Technologies reports on Thursday, so I am likely to write about that on Friday.

Intel analysis

My latest article at Seeking Alpha:

Intel: Neither Bullish Nor Bearish Stories Hold Up

It mights seem a bit strange writing an article where, after a complex analysis of moving parts, my conclusion is close to neutral. But after doing my research and analysis, that was my conclusion. I spend a lot of effort trying to predict the future. That is what individual stock picks are about. In this case several variables could have gone in either positive or negative directions, so my best bet is neutral. That does not preclude the bears or bulls on Intel being right, but they certainly can't prove they are right. If they were, the stock price would be different.

Marvell (MRVL) Wins Microsoft Surface RT Wi-Fi slot

Marvell Technology Group (MRVL) won a slot in the Microsoft Surface tablet computer. According to Anandtech (Inside Microsoft's Surface RT Tablet, October 16, 2012), the WiFi chip on the tablet is Marvell's. NVIDIA won the main prize with its Tegra 3 ARM-based processing chip. Atmel also had chips in the design.

We don't know how many of the WiFi chips Marvell shipped to Microsoft in the summer quarter (Marvell's fiscal Q3 2013 ending October 27, 2012), but it was not enough to balance the damage in the hard disk drive (HDD) controller chip business. Marvell dominates HDD controller chips, but the problem is that the largest single use of HDDs in in PCs. It was a terrible quarter for PC sales, and little HDD makers Seagate and Western Digital could do about it.

Marvell had guided revenues to $800 to $850 million. The update issued on October 18 put revenues at $765 to $785 million. At the midpoint there is a $25 million miss on the low end of prior guidance. Just about all of that came from the HDD segment. Marvell also makes chips for smartphones, for networking (ranging from WiFi to high-end datacenter Ethernet), for Google TV and similar appliances, and for video processing in HD TVs. It is moving into new areas like LED controllers.

The fourth quarter is a big question mark. A lot depends on the global outlooks of OEMs. If they are pessimistic they may further shrink inventories. If holiday sales go well, they may have to expand inventories, giving chip manufacturers like Marvell a boost.

While there is a lot of uncertainty about Q4 and about 2013, Marvell is well set to manage their way through it and eventually expand into new businesses, as they have in the past. Even at the current level of revenue Marvell is a cash cow. At the current stock price, $7.755 at the close Friday, you are buying $0.75 in trailing 12-month earnings and dividends of $3.1% per year, plus a cash balance of $2.13 billion, or $3.82 per share. In the latest quarter cash flow from operations was $0.34 per share. It looks to me like the market over-reacted to the revenue miss. At this price Marvell stock is well worth the risk, in my opinion. But then I started accumulating Marvell stock years ago.

Marvell is large enough and diverse enough that if only moderate numbers of Microsoft Surface tablets get sold, that probably won't have a significant impact on Marvell revenue or profit. Then again, the Windows Surface is a really hot device, and may sell in more than moderate numbers. It is on my wish list.

Disclaimer: I am long Marvell and Seagate. I will make no position changes in them for a week after this article is published. I do not have a position in Microsoft, Western Digital or NVIDIA and also will not initiate one for a week. Also, I occasionally do freelance work for Microsoft.

AMD Looks to Trinity for Growth in 2012

AMD reported a mix of signals from its fourth quarter 2011 at its analyst call yesterday.

AMD makes CPUs and graphics chips, including combined chips called APUs, for PCs, servers, and notebook computers. AMD has long struggled to make a profit in the shadow of its main competitor, Intel, which typically shows earnings that are more that AMD's revenues. For instance for Q4, AMD had $1.7 billion in revenues, while Intel had $13.9 billion in revenues of and $3.4 billion in non-GAAP net income.

Typically AMD has been the more innovative company, for instance introducing 32/64 bit chips, on-chip memory controllers, and on-chip graphics. In every case, however, Intel has used its cash to catch up with R&D, and then for marketing AMD back down to size. In Q4 Intel spent $2.3 billion on R&D, more than AMD received in total revenue.

So is AMD hopeless? Judging from the stock price, and its frequent quarters devoid of earnings the past few years, that is the easy bet. On a non-GAAP basis, excluding mainly a charge for a non-cash write down on AMD's investment in GlobalFoundries and a restructuring charge, AMD reported Q4 net income of $138 million or $0.19 per share. Whether that supports a stock price ending today at $6.73 per share depends on how you see the future.

According to some pundits, this was the year AMD was supposed to be wiped out. Clearly that worst-case scenario is wrong so far. The wipe out was supposed to come largely from a decline of PCs and x86-based chips in favor or smartphones and ARM-processors, combined with the usual pressures from Intel and graphics chip rival NVIDIA. Then there were the Thailand floods, which created a hard disk drive shortage which was supposed to kill what little demand there would be for PCs from old-fashioned worker bees who need something bigger (and faster, and with more storage) than an iPad to actually get work done.

There were some glitches, but on the whole AMD's Fusion strategy, putting a CPU and a high-end graphics processor on the same chip, worked out fairly well this year. AMD is now fabless, and fab partners were not able to produce good yields of the new chips (which cuts into margins) or even sufficient chips to meet demand.

The best news from yesterday's analyst call was that in Q1 the normal seasonal drop-off of demand combined with improved yields put in place in Q4 means AMD will have no supply constraints in the quarter. They should be able to meet demand for Fusion chips for the first time since the chips were introduced.

The new server chips, the 6200 Opteron series, are also selling well, but AMD was reduced to a tiny fraction of the market before the new product introduction. Intel is introducing new server chips in 2012, so it will be interesting to see how end markets respond.

The main opportunity for growth in 2012 with be Trinity chips, the newest design in AMD's Fusion series. Both the CPU component and the graphics component will be upgraded from current A-series chips, while power requirements will be reduced.

According to AMD, its OEM partners really like Trinity, which is already sampling. Trinity can power thin and light notebook designs, Windows 8 tablets, mainstream notebooks and PCs.

Most consumers may not recognize how much better AMD graphics are than Intel graphics, but OEMs have realized that Intel CPUs require expensive add-in graphic cards (from AMD or NVIDIA) to bring them up to snuff, while also increasing power draw. For very high end graphics, for games and for design work or intense computation, graphics cards are still required regardless of CPU. Intel has been working hard to make their graphics competitive, and could conceivably catch up by 2013. At the high end Intel CPUs are considerably faster than AMD CPUs, but they also cost a lot more.

I like to keep diversified and would recommend against anyone taking an outsized position in AMD at this point. Trinity may appeal to OEMs, but the real question is will it appeal to consumers (including business consumers), especially in China and India. If it does, there is still the margin question. AMD margins have historically been lower than Intel's and NVIDIA's, largely because AMD has been forced to compete on price even when its products have been technically superior to its competitors'.

If AMD can differentiate itself from Intel and get a good price point for Trinity chips, then it can make a profit and live to fight the next round. An entire year of strong positive cash flow would make AMD into a different sort of competitor. Intel would still be king, but AMD would have the money to work with and the scale to make it a real competitor rather than a second source.

Disclaimer: I am long AMD. I have no plans to sell my shares until I see how Trinity works out later in 2012. I won't trade AMD for at least a week after this article is published.

See also my AMD Q4 2011 analyst call summary;

http://www.amd.com/

NVIDIA Takes Up ARMs

Back in February I warned that "at $25.48 [per share], you might want to consider that it could take NVIDIA [NVDA] a couple of years of outstanding growth to justify this price."

Maybe it is just the stock market and macroeconomic turmoil, but NVDA closed today at $15.48.
What I think about the pricing of a stock is only loosely linked to what I think of a company. As to engineering and execution, I have long believed NVIDIA is one of the best technology companies in the world. As the long-term leader in computer graphics chips (GPUs), however, it is now at a crossroads where the old rules no longer seem to apply. It is a time of both tremendous opportunity and tremendous danger, which makes predicting future profit streams mainly guesswork.

NVIDIA reported fiscal Q3 results and held its analyst conference call on November 10, 2011. Note the quarter ended October 30, so its not a calendar quarter and chips going into consumer products for the holidays pretty much had to be out the door by the end of the quarter. Q4, ending January 30th, is historically a slower quarter for NVIDIA. Note also that rivals AMD and Intel had quarters ending September 30.

Revenues were $1.07 billion, up 5% sequentially from $1.02 billion and up 26% from $840 million in the year-earlier quarter. Net income was $178.3 million, up 18% sequentially from $151.6 million and up 110% from $84.9 million year-earlier. EPS (earnings per share) were $0.29, up 16% sequentially from $0.25 and up 93% from $0.15 year-earlier.

That is pretty strong growth over the past year. However, from a licensing deal and litigation settlement with Intel, NVIDIA got roughly $60 million in royalties it did not get a year earlier (the royalties run about another 5 years). That had some impact on revenue and a huge impact on net income and EPS. It is real money, but it did not come from chips sales.

At this point NVIDIA has two games going. One is in its classic discrete GPU chips, which are now also used as math and application acceleration co-processors. Its only real rival in that market is AMD.

The other is combining its graphics engine with ARM chip designs for mobile devices. That results in a chip called Tegra. The first version was interesting but did not generate much revenue. Tegra II sold a lot better, and has powered a number of smartphones and tablets. Tegra III, or Kal-El, became available in the quarter, so a few devices are available now and it will be widely available in 2012. NVIDIA management did not break out Tegra revenue for the quarter.

The NVIDIA vision is not just to dominate the smart phone and tablet markets. Future versions of Tegra are supposed to be powerful enough to go into notebooks, desktops, and even servers.

The problem with being in the ARM market is that anyone can license the ARM design. Graphics and cell phone connectivity chips and designs are available as well. NVIDIA seems tight with Google, but any ARM-based design can run the Android software.

Competitors each have some advantages. Apple, of course, is the perceived frontrunner. There is no guarantee that the iPhone is ultimately going to be defeated by Android-based phones or less likely competitors.

When it comes to ARM based chips for tablets and phones, each competitor brings some serious advantages to the court. Qualcomm has far more extensive experience in cell phone chips than NVIDIA does; so does Texas Instruments. Among a host of other contenders, Marvell (MRVL) should be noted, since they generate a lot of cash each quarter and have a lead in China, a much bigger market to fight over than the U.S. market. Then there are the Koreans, and Japanese, and numerous small innovators.

Another problem for NVIDIA is the lack of a x86 CPU chip design. AMD and Intel both are incorporating graphics into their base designs, eliminating the need for NVIDIA's GPU chips for most users. This already appears to be hurting them in the notebook segment. It will take some time and at least a couple of die shrinks before the pure GPU chip dies (except in specialty markets), but that time is coming at a fairly predictable clip.

So far profit margins have been good at the leading edge of smartphone and tablet processors, but at some point pricing could become more competitive.

2012 is likely to be a make or break year for NVIDIA. If they are able to dominate the Android phone market they might become the dominant semiconductor company, a position Intel has had for a couple of decades now. Myself, I am not willing to make that bet, but I'll keep a close watch. However, I do believe NVIDIA's price is now pretty reasonable, everything taken into account.

See also my Q3 NVIDIA analyst call summary.

Disclaimer: I have no position in NVIDIA and will not take a position for at least 2 weeks following the publication date of this article.

Keep Diversified!

AMD at the Earnings Crossroads

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) has only two competitors in its niche: Intel (INTC) for CPUs (computer processing chips) that run x86 software and NVIDIA (NVDA) for GPUs (graphics processing chips). How much market share it takes in the PC chip market, and what margins it receives on the chips it does sell, determines its levels of revenue and profit or loss.

Historically, while AMD has been innovative, it has come in a far second against Intel and NVIDIA. In the last two years it has lost ground to Intel and gained ground from NVIDIA. The picture has been complicated further by the emergence of ARM architecture based processors as the preferred basis for smaller mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers.

After years of development (usually corresponding to quarterly earnings losses) this year AMD is selling chips that combine a CPU and a GPU. Intel, also, has appended graphics to its new line of CPUs, but their chips are remarkably inferior, incapable of running the current Windows graphics standard, DirectX 11. As a result AMD has been selling all the Fusion chips it has been able to make.

Why then, the lack of excitement and lack of upward momentum in AMD stock? Today AMD closed at $6.92, well off its 52-week high of $9.58 and with an astonishingly low P/E ratio of 6.4, the kind you would expect from a declining industry stock.

For the moment the most visible cutting edge technology is in smartphones and Apple and Android based small tablets. That pretty much sums up tech investor thinking about AMD: that a tidal wave of 7 inch screens are going to replace PCs, including both notebook computers and desktops that can run 60 inch displays.

Let's say you have discovered the limits of small screen computing and think there is still life left in the larger form factors. How should AMD be priced then?

First—even if the economy lags, even if consumers are careful with their holiday electronics purchases, even if the economies of India and China don't grow quite as fast in 2011 as they did in 2010—in Q3 and more so in Q4 AMD will get a significant boost in profits from its new Bulldozer CPUs for the server market. They began shipping in quantity earlier this month, with most of the early allotment going directly into the supercomputer market, where they will replace, or fill empty slots in, the prior generations of AMD Opteron processors. Profit margins are better for server chips than for PC chips. AMD has lost a lot of market share to Intel in server chips these last five years. The new chips should help regain market share. They have a different architecture than the Intel chips, and hence are very cost effective at certain workloads. Bulldozer is not a conquer-the-world chip, but it will keep AMD in the most profitable part of the server CPU game.

On the down side, there are so many rumors about yields (% of good processors on a die) being poor for the Fusion chips, that I think it is fair we can treat the rumors as true. At the next AMD analyst conference there should be a question about that. At the Q2 conference the closest answer we got was that margins were good on the Fusion chips. If both are true, and AMD was right about 2nd half margin improvements, then what we have is upside potential. Yields usually improve over time; if margins are already good, they should be great when yields improve. The problem was doubtless forging the CPU and GPU on the same die; traditionally these chip types used different silicon technologies. Bulldozer yields are rumored to be good, but then these server chips don't have a GPU component.

For now I would take Q3 guidance as a fair range. The economy might push revenues down, but yield improvements could push margins up. Guidance was for Q3 revenue to increase 8 to 12% sequentially. Note that because of holiday demand, Q3 is typically the strongest quarter for AMD.

The numbers, when reported, give us hard data, but the technology trends rule long-term value. I think AMD (and for that matter Intel) are over-discounted. I think both will be taking market share in the tablet market in 2012 and 2013. I think the PC market will stay healthier than most pundits predict. Consumers and businesses who skipped a desktop or notebook upgrade to buy a tablet and smartphone will get back on the upgrade cycle.

The combination of full-powered GPUs and CPUs on a single chip may be more revolutionary than the smartphone. Essentially, we are introducing desktop (or even notebook) parallel supercomputing. We are just beginning to see software applications that utilize either a CPU plus separate GPU or the new Fusion chips. So watch for companies like Microsoft, Adobe, and Autodesk, as well as lesser-known companies and startups, to take advantage of this new paradigm.

Disclosure: I am long AMD.

AMD Key Question

AMD had a big jump in stock prices Friday, after reporting Q2 results after the market closed on Thursday. Q2 was not a stellar quarter, but AMD reported that its Fusion line of processors that combine a CPU and a GPU on single chip are ramping nicely. OEMs like them and consumers like them, so the demand is there. Intel, AMD's far larger rival, cannot match them. So it predicted a much better Q3.

If good time were more obviously ahead AMD's stock price would be far higher. Assuming AMD continues to release new Fusion projects, as well as its high-end CPU Bulldozer chips, on schedule, we still can't assume AMD will pick up appreciable market share from Intel.

Intel's law breaking, monopolistic practices days might be behind it, but it still has oodles of money it can throw at problems. It's problems are multiplying, to be sure, but it has a mountain of cash and a cascade of cash flow, unlike AMD.

An analyst at the Q&A part of the Thursday conference asked if Intel is going to lower its prices to compete with AMD Fusion. Let me quote my own summary of AMD's Q2 2011 conference, which is probably not an exact quote of the question and response:

Q. In the past when AMD has done well, we have seen price aggression from Intel. What are you seeing now?

A. It has always been a competitive market. The strength of our products will bring our plans to fruition.

In other words, not so much price aggression so far, but AMD is aware of the potential problem.

I believe Intel is somewhat constrained in its ability to lower prices. This is because investors are worried about Intel. Intel has about 80% of the market. To significantly lower prices on 80% of the market to keep AMD from gaining a percentage point here or there would cause Intel margins to drop, endangering the very cash flow that is such a competitive advantage. Also, the share AMD can take is limited by its production capabilities, which are very limited compared to Intel's.

Instead, Intel will rely on its marketing muscle. It will spend more on advertising, expecially the kind of "Intel inside" deals that convince retailers to promote computers with Intel CPU's instead of those with AMD Fusion chips. Intel will also keep trying to play catch up in the graphics arena. Intel is an entire generation behind AMD (and NVIDIA) in graphics technology, but they have been doing a good job in catching up, including by licensing technology from NVIDIA.

So again we have a situation where AMD has a window of opportunity, which should last until about the end of 2012. AMD will still be ahead in graphics and in integrating graphics with general cpu technology at the end of 2012, but going into the year 2013 Intel's combined GPU+CPU chips are likely to be good enough.

To really compound investor value AMD has to do great in 2012, generating enough money to keep up R&D and start exerting some advertising muscle of its own.

As far as the stock price goes, the Fusion chips are nice, but the real question is whether AMD will be able to pick up share in the server market with its upcoming Bulldozer based offerings. We won't begin to see if that is happening until we get results from Q4 2011 in January of 2012.

I own AMD stock, and I am cautiously optimistic, but I know how hard it is to compete with Intel's marketing machine, no matter how good AMD's chips may be.

See also amd.com

And my AMD summary page

Keep diversified!

AMD Fusion Upside

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) recently revealed that it has been unable to meet the demand for its first Fusion processors. They call these APUs, for Advanced Processing Units, to indicate that each chip includes both a CPU and a GPU (graphics processing unit). Introduced in late 2010, the first APU variety was designed to bring low cost, high quality graphic capabilities to inexpensive notebook computers. Computer makers (HP, Lenovo, Sony, etc.) embraced these first Fusion chips as a big improvement on the Atom chip from Intel, famous for underwhelming netbooks (sub-standard but very portable notebooks).

Does that mean the sun is finally rising on AMD investors (that includes me)? Intel remains not only holding most market share, but dominating the most profitable segments of the market, including chips for server computers. On the other hand Intel has its own problems, pressed from below by ARM architecture based chips in smartphones and tablets, while failing to be able to deliver the graphic quality consumers now expect. To make a workable business or consumer computer manufacturers need to add an AMD Radeon or NVIDIA GPU to the system.

Intel itself is not exactly the darling of Wall Street anymore. Today Intel is trading at 10 times last year's non-GAAP earnings per share. No tech bubble there. AMD is trading at 8.5 times last year's EPS. Intel is wading in cash; AMD has a substantial amount of debt. If you wanted to buy a computer processor manufacturing company, Intel would be the more obvious choice.

To break out of its trading range AMD, at the very least, would have to start generating substantially more earnings than it has lately. What are the chances of that, when the sector itself appears to be in trouble, and Intel has a tradition of crushing AMD whenever Intel's market share starts to slip?

It really does come down to Fusion. Intel is scared of Fusion, so it is using considerable resources to catch up in graphics technology. Intel is now paying NVIDIA to use its intellectual property, which probably includes graphics designs. That should start to show up in Intel chips in 2012. My guesstimate is that by 2013 Intel will have closed the graphics gap. So AMD's future profits, and the value of its stock, highly depends on how much market share it can pick up in 2011 and 2012, and at what kind of profit margins.

It came as a surprise to me, and probably to everyone, that AMD became supply-constrained in Q1. I think the problem is that the first Fusion chips were on the 40 nm process, which is where most graphics chips are at this year. Both NVIDIA and AMD reported supply constraints at 40 nm in early 2010. AMD failed to anticipate demand for its new chips, and so did not book enough capacity in advance. AMD now contracts for fabrication of its chips, whereas Intel has its own fabs. On the April 21 AMD analyst call for Q1 2011, AMD executives talked about insuring future fabrication capacity, so that must be about the Fusion shortfall.

Right now AMD is about to launch its second round of Fusion processors, which will be more powerful, but also will require more power. So they will be for higher-end notebooks and for desktop CPUs. The will be on the more-advanced 33 nm process. That may have its own issues, but it won't run into the 40 nm roadblock. Later this year AMD will also introduce its Bulldozer CPUs, which are not part of Fusion (they don't have graphics processing on the die).

The upside for AMD investors depends on continued support from manufacturers (HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc.) and from retailers like Best Buy. The near-universal sentiment now is that consumers get more for their money with AMD based computer systems, particularly when it comes to graphics capabilities. Thus AMD should pick up market share this year in the sub-$1000 categories of notebook and desktop computers.

One commonly told story is that consumers are moving to tablets, so sales of PCs and notebook computers are about to come to a grinding halt. The actual evidence for that is scant. In the U.S., prior to the introduction of tablet computers (they've been around for nearly a decade, but did not become popular until Apple marketed a more attractive, if less powerful, version), everyone pretty much had at least one computer, either a desktop or a notebook, maybe a netbook. Most moderate to heavy users had a PC at work and a desktop and either a notebook or netbook for personal use. As the new thing, tablets are going to sell, and with budgets tight, they are going to cause purchases of notebooks and desktops to be delayed. But most tablet computer users have found they are not really a replacement for their more powerful cousins. So, the question becomes: what do they upgrade next? Are they going to get an even newer tablet, or are they going to refresh the old desktop or notebook computer?

You know what the gadget guys will have. A good, reliable, high-performance desktop, a good notebook computer for working away from home, a tablet to be cool and consume video, and a smartphone.

AMD is not going to compete in the smartphone space, but their Fusion chips are beginning to appear in Windows-based tablets. Their stand-alone graphics chips are now used by Apple for its desktop computers.

Also, this is a global market. The same low-cost high-graphics capability that appeals to U.S. consumers will appeal even more to first-time PC buyers in India, China, Brazil, and developing countries.

A recovery of market share in the server GPU market would also benefit AMD, but I'll leave that topic to a later story.

Any reasonable investor not already holding AMD should probably take a show-me the market share and EPS gains attitude. On the other hand, there is a good chance that 2011 will be a year when those of us who already hold AMD will see the upside of Fusion. Maybe as early as the report on Q2, if production was ramped for the new Fusion products.

See also:
AMD home page

NVIDIA Explains Smartphone and GPU Strategies

The NVIDIA (NVDA) analyst call on Thursday was characterized by a relatively short presentation and long question and answer session. Analysts pressed a variety of concerns while management explained their view of the technology space and their strategy for increasing revenue and profits. [See also call details at Nvidia Q1 fiscal 2012 analyst call news summary.]

The explaining was necessary because revenues were $962.0 million, up 8.5% sequentially from $886.4 million, but down 4% from $1.002 billion in the year-earlier quarter. GAAP net income was $135.2 million, down 21% sequentially from $171.7 million, and down 2% from $137.6 million year-earlier. GAAP EPS (earnings per share) were $0.22, down 24% sequentially from $0.29, and down 4% from $0.23 year-earlier. Those numbers include a $40 million payment from Intel for intellectual property (really, to keep NVIDIA a strong ally against AMD); take that out, and the y/y comparisons look worse, while Q1 last year was nothing to shout about either.

So what are the issues? NVIDIA is exiting the motherboard chip set business, which originally became necessary because of a dispute with Intel. AMD has cut heavily into NVIDIA's former dominance in the discrete GPU (graphics) chip and card business. NVIDIA's supercomputer graphics business actually shrank a bit, though management argued it would expand down the road.

That leaves the savior of the moment, Tegra, a chip that runs cell phones and tablets. The newest one is Tegra 2, which everyone admits is a big improvement over the original Tegra. Tegra chips generated $122 million in the quarter, which is a lot of money, until you compare it with losses from the humble chip set business, or the bulk of NVIDIA's revenue, or smartphone chip revenue of some competitors.

NVIDIA claims they are going to take market share in the discrete graphics chips for notebook computers segment. Their only real competitor, AMD, says the same thing. But the good thing about discrete GPU chip competition is there are just those two players. The competition between them is intense, but at least it is somewhat predictable.

In smartphones and tablet computers, however, almost everyone is licensing the core processor design from ARM and adding graphics, Wi-Fi, and cellular modems as best they can. The competition is multifold. Qualcomm was the pack leader two years ago, and still outsells NVIDIA heavily. TI is very competive and believes it now is closer to the heart of Google (maker of the Android smartphone operating system) than NVIDIA, 2010's sweetheart. Apple makes its own ARM based processor for the iPhone and iPad. If they all disappeared there would be Marvell, which dominates the hard drive chip sector and has slots in a number of phones, including the new OPhones in China. There are other players in Korea, Japan, and China. Then there are the non-ARM entries, mainly for tablets but eventually for smartphones, from AMD and Intel.

And anyone can license the intellectual property to make a smartphone chip. In other words, there could be more players in 2012, not less.

Which is too many players. Consolidation will take place, probaby around 2013 when smartphones have completed replacing the bulk of not-so-smart cell phones. While the competition so far has been on technology, with points for speed, usability, and low-power consumption, at some point price will become an important issue. Profit margins will be squeezed.

I certainly believe NVIDIA is as competitive as any of the other companies I named. But there are going to be losers. There will have to be losers. It is next to impossible to predict who they will be.

Given that, investors might want to think about going lower down the food chain, to the companies that make semiconductor manufacturing equipment like Applied Materials or printed circuit boards for smartphones like TTM Technologies.

Of the companies named above, I currently own stock in Applied Materials, TTM Technologies, Marvell, and AMD. In the past I owned stock in NVIDIA.

See also NVIDIA

Keep diversified!

Applied Materials: Value, Growth, and Tablets

Applied Materials (AMAT), the semiconductor capital equipment maker, reported stronger than expected revenues and earnings for its first quarter of fiscal 2011 ending January 31, 2011. Revenue growth was up 45% year over year. Yet its PE (price/earnings) ratio is far lower than most technology stocks with similar growth records.

Trying to place a bet on tablet computers or smart phones? You can bet on the brands like Apple, Motorola, and Samsung. Or you can bet on the companies that supply the chips to make the tablets work, for instance, Qualcomm, TI, NVIDIA, Marvell and others. These are all pretty well known companies, but who really knows who consumers will be in love with in 2 years? Who knows whose chips two years from now will be winning the majority of slots in the new machines?

One thing you can pretty much count on: the constituent parts for tablet computers will be manufactured by someone. When it comes to actually making the silicon, Applied Materials is the dominant supplier of the necessary equipment.

In 2008 and 2009 Applied Materials had a rough time. No new capacity was needed; even shrinks (to smaller transistor sizes) were put off as long as possible. But because the company was well managed and had plenty of cash, it navigated successfully through the recession.

In 2010 Applied came roaring back as fabrication companies started making up for lost time.

Are people going to be satisfied with the computational or memory powers of 2010 style tablets and smart phones? No. The ARM processors are (so far) no match for the silicon from AMD or Intel that is available in a desktop or notebook computer. People may want portability, but they still want highly capable, fast machines. That means cramming more transistors onto chips, and using new technologies that keep voltage and power requirements down. In turn, to achieve that, the fabs need new machines capable of imprinting silicon with ever smaller patterns.

As reported in the Applied Materials February 24, 2011 analyst conference call, different aspects of the industry are at different points in their supply demand cycle. Fortunately overall the cycle is heading up. Display equipment sales will likely be weak in 2011, in part because tablet and smart phone displays are so much smaller than monitor and TV displays. But demand for most major types of silicon chips is headed up, as is demand for the equipment used to make crystalline silicon solar cells.

With $0.38 per share GAAP earnings in Q1 and about the same expected in Q2, it is fair to guess that fiscal 2011 earning will indeed hit at least $1.50 per share, which is AMAT's guidance.

While growth in 2011 won't be as strong as in 2010, I still see Applied's PE rising eventually to about 20. That would put it at $30 per share and still give it a 5% earnings return. As I write this you can buy the stock for just $16.36 per share. Note too that Applied has plenty of cash and pays a $0.28 annual dividend. I'd like to see that dividend raised to something more like a third of earnings, but other than that I think Applied Materials is a great company for stock holders.

See also: www.appliedmaterials.com

NVIDIA Price Counts on Tegra Ramp

(original title: NVIDIA: Counting Chickens Before They Hatch)

As an analyst and investor, one of the main things I do is count chickens before they hatch. Today graphics chip specialist NVIDIA has a high price-to-earnings ratio (non-GAAP 62x trailing, 26x leading), indicating some investors are counting on a lot more chicken profits in the future than they have been seeing lately. Is this a smart assumption?

NVIDIA will have a profit boost for the next six years from its licensing deal with Intel. For the most recent quarter ending January 30, 2011 it booked $57 million for the litigation settlement portion of the deal (booked as a negative operating expense, not revenue). For each quarter it will book about $60 million in royalties.

Other than that, the last couple of years have been hard on NVIDIA. Q4 fiscal 2011 (the most recently reported quarter) revenues were $886.4 million, down 10% from $982.5 million in the year-earlier quarter. That does not sound like a high-growth company that deserves high PEs on its stock price. [for a fuller report on Q4, see NVIDIA Q4 fiscal 2011 analyst conference call summary]

What speculators are speculating on is a chip called Tegra. The first version was interesting but did not generate much revenue. The second version is available now in a few tablet and smart phone devices. It produced little revenue in Q4, but is supposed to contribute substantially to Q1. Therefore, instead of a normally seasonally down Q1, guidance is for a 6% to 8% sequential revenue ramp. That is impressive, if it happens.

In addition, the third version of Tegra, called Kal-El for now, is already sampling and is supposed to be in devices for sale for holiday 2011 shopping. Reviews of Tegra 2 are generally positive.

The NVIDIA vision is not just to dominate the smart phone and tablet markets. Future versions of Tegra are supposed to be powerful enough to go into notebooks, desktops, and ever servers.

Before you pay a premium for all them chickens, you might want to think about all the other chickens that will be on the market. NVIDIA's Tegra CPU unit is based on the ARM architecture, which anyone can license. The NVDA advantage is in graphics, but there are a number of companies that license graphics capabilities that were designed specifically to work with ARM. NVIDIA's were designed to work with the 8086 architecture of Intel and AMD.

Competitors each have some advantages. Apple, of course, is the perceived frontrunner. There is no guarantee that the iPhone is ultimately going to be defeated by Android-based phones or less likely competitors.

When it comes to ARM based chips for tablets and phones, each competitor brings some serious advantages to the court. Qualcomm has far more extensive experience in cell phones than NVIDIA does; so does TI. Intel and AMD want to get into the game. AMD gained a lot of market share against NVIDIA in discrete graphics cards for computers during 2009 and 2010; their fusion chips offer some extreme advantages, especially for tablet computing. Among a host of other contenders, Marvell (MRVL) should be noted, since they generate a lot of cash each quarter and have a lead in China, a much bigger market to fight over than the U.S. market. Then there are the Koreans, and Japanese, and numerous small innovators.
None of the other contenders have PE ratios as high as NVIDIA's. I have owned NVIDIA stock in the past, and if it had a low PE I might scoop up those chickens right now. I have always admired NVIDIA's technological skills, and the Tegra 3 is promissing. I don't see how it can be all that much better than competitors, however. Everyone has promissing designs, everyone is hustling to squeeze usability out of the same limitations of silicon.

I have done well recently with some hatchlings at Dot Hill, Dendreon, and TTM. On the other hand, I like to keep in mind Anesiva, where I correctly predicted its Zingo product would hatch (get FDA approval), only to watch it die a horrible death and then take the entire company into bankruptcy with it. The secret is to see them chickens before momentum investors drive up the stock prices. If you bought NVDA a year ago at $8.65 per share, congratulations. If you are thinking about buying it today at $25.48, you might want to consider that it could take NVIDIA a couple of years of outstanding growth to justify this price.

AMD: Fusion Without Dirk Meyer?

I admire Dirk Meyer, who recently resigned (under pressure) from computer chip maker AMD (Advanced Micro Devices). I also admire Hector Ruiz, his predecessor as CEO. But both men apparently had their flaws as AMD's leaders, and if you want to value AMD stock appropriately, you should understand the dynamics of the situation.

Dirk only served as head of AMD for about two and one-half years (he was promoted in July 2008). They were very eventful years. Notably, AMD became a fabless company by spinning off its foundries to GlobalFoundries, and the first models of the Fusion line of combined CPU/GPUs on a chip (APU, for Advanced Processing Unit) were released.

The problem is that the Fusion concept was in place when AMD bought graphics chip maker ATI back in 2006. Note it is now 2011. It took AMD five years to put a graphics processor on the same chip with a CPU.

That was simply too long. Rival Intel, a much larger company, brought out an admittedly inferior set of chips combining CPUs with GPUs this month. But that is probably good enough, since Intel can heavily out-advertise AMD.

Imagine, now, that the first Fusion chips had come out in the summer of 2010. It would be a whole new ball game. Intel would try to stall their OEM partners, but it would be a hard sell because they would have to get OEMs and consumers to accept an inferior product late. A six month lead in the computer industry can be an enormous advantage, as AMD showed by bringing out DX-11 capable discrete GPUs about six months ahead of rival NVIDIA, which had been the dominant discrete GPU company, until then.

While no one would say getting out a new line of chips is an easy task, the blame for the delay really has to be taken by Dirk Meyer. This is the second time in the last decade this has happened. Mid-decade AMD had a temporary advantage over Intel in the server market with its Opteron chip. Dirk was then chief operating officer, and when Opteron went from single to dual core, there were serious delays. Those delays enabled Intel to introduce new products and beat back the Opteron challenge. AMD has never been able to regain the market lead in server chips, although its newest 12-core processors are much better than Intel's at certain tasks.

But what investors really want to know is, what is next? Yesterday's call (see my AMD Q4 2010 analyst conference call summary for details) demonstrated that the board of AMD is looking for faster execution on plans to bring out new, specialized processors that can better compete with Intel in certain markets. The typical press view, and Wall Street sell-side analyst view, is that it is about AMD pursuing the tablet computer market. That would be only one small facet of it.

The new Fusion chips run the new DX 11 graphics standard. The Intel chips can only run DX-10 (it is fair to say Sandy Bridge is instantly obsolete). But Intel just made a deal with NVIDIA that doubtless allows it to import their DX-11 designs. How long will it take Intel to move that to silicon? Probably not that long.

Which means AMD has to execute faster. As the smaller, underfunded company, it has to stay ahead technologically and offer a good value proposition to OEMs and end consumers. AMD needs to deliver on the promise of Fusion and perhaps APU's that incorporate other special functions. Maybe even cell phone technologies.

It is a big task, and it needs a leader who can speed up the ball game without causing any fumbles. As we saw in the last decades, fumbling when up against Intel amounts to losing the game.

Dirk Meyer would be a superhero if he had gotten Fusion into consumer laptops in time to make them the mass-market choice for the 2010 holiday season. Instead the products are going to start ramping in Q1, which is a slow sales quarter, and have to sell against the confusion Intel is trying to create in comparing the two technologies. It is going to be a hard sell.

See also:
AMD main page
AMD Fusion
my other AMD articles and conference summaries

NVIDA Hopes for Tegra processors

Graphics chip maker NVIDIA (NVDA) has had its ups and downs these past few years, and not just because of the recession. Increased competition from AMD in the discrete graphics card market has hurt. So has the accelerating loss of its "chip set" (chips for integrating a cpu to other components) business. At the very high end NVIDIA is getting traction for its Tesla computational chips, but those revenues are not likely to make up for other losses. It is possible NVIDIA will do better in its competition with AMD in 2011, but it is telling financial analysts that Tegra chips for mobile devices are its next big thing.

At its November 11, 2010 analyst conference call and report on its third quarter (Q3, ending October 31, 2010), Tegra was touted as a replacement for lost chip set revenue and more. Note revenue were down 7% y/y to $843.9 million in a period when most semiconductor companies ramped revenues by double digits.

Note also that Tegra has been around for a number of years. What we have been promised in 2010 is a new, improved Tegra, with an improved software stack make the new devices using it something device makers feel can compete with the iPad. This has resulted in a least a half-year delay in releasing product; the products are largely a 2011 story. Management believes that touch-based systems are going to wipe out older systems, and that Tegra will make NVIDIA a serious player in the field.

Maybe, but I am not the only analyst who is a bit skeptical, and with good reason. Tegra 2 might be improved enough to be a revolutionary epicenter in 2011, but it might get lost in the forest of competing platforms. Essentially Tegra combines an ARM CPU with a GeForce GPU, in much the same way that AMD's Fusion chips combine an 8086-based CPU with a Radeon GPU. ARM is a low-power architecture that is being widely used to address the mobile device market.

The problem for NVIDIA is that lots of companies are selling ARM-based processors for mobile devices. Apple designed its own. NVIDIA's advantage would be its graphics technology, but it is not yet clear how much of an advantage they really have. Many companies are using graphics chips, or integrating graphics architecture onto a chip, that was designed, like ARM, to be low-power from the ground up.

The history of Tegra is not one of blazing success. Microsoft Zune and KIN were flops. Maybe the 2011 devices will be better than Apple, but will they sell? They won't be competing with just iPads and iPhones, but with a wide variety of devices. Note too that some of NVIDIA's competitors have huge advantages in the mobile market derived by expertise in areas like Wi-Fi and cell phone modem chips.

For device makers there are a number of competing strategies to choose from. Do you want to start with the best graphics, or perhaps the best cell phone 4G technology? Or if devices become largely indistinguishable, maybe the low price supplier is the key to success.

I have owned NVIDIA stock in the past, but right now I think there are better bargains to be had. If Tegra ramps as rapidly as management would like, then sure, today's stock price looks nice. But I believe this is a wait and see situation. The new Tegra devices may come on the market as early as Q1 2011, but I want to see how they sell through. One popular device could make Tegra viable again, but only Apple seems to be able to guarantee the popularity of its own devices. Once you step outside of Apple, what I mostly see is ruinous competition.
See also:

My NVIDIA analyst call summary for Q3 2010
http://www.nvidia.com/

HILL, DNDN, ONXX, SGI, MCHP, NVDA, AMAT

I have gotten terribly behind, this is hardly a log at all of late ...

Here are links to my summaries of recent Q3 analyst conference calls. Lots of interesting stuff, but I am unlikely to do separate commentary on all of them.

Dot Hill Q3 2010 Analyst Conference Call Summary. First quarter with non-GAAP profits in some time, appears to be on a good projectory with new storage products.
Dendreon Q3 2010 Analyst Conference Call Summary. About as expected, ramped up Provenge sales to the max until they get facility expansion permission.
Onyx Pharmaceuticals Q3 2010 Analyst Conference Call Summary. An exceptional quarter due to a large upfront payment from Japan.
SGI Q3 2010 Analyst Conference Call Summary. Still in the red, but new supercomputer sales are ramping rapidly.
Microchip Q3 2010 Analyst Conference Call Summary. Excellent revenues and profits.
NVIDIA Q3 2010 Analyst Conference Call Summary. Promises of Tegra revenues from future products.
Applied Materials Q3 2010 Analyst Conference Call Summary. Excellent quarter, demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment remains strong, even the solar division was in the black.

Marvell is way up today after great results reported yesterday. If you think this was a good quarter, wait until revenues for chips for the new smartphones in China kick in next year. See Marvell Q3 2010 Analyst Call Summary.

Cisco Leads Market Lower After Conference

The market is being led lower by Cisco (CSCO) today. Yesterday Cisco released slightly disappointing results and, at its analyst conference call, gave very disappointing guidance for the current quarter, which is Cisco's Q2 fiscal 2011.

In short, government spending is a big part of Cisco's pie, and government spending, especially by American states that have balanced-budget provisions, was weak. A second area of weakness was sales of set top boxes to cable companies.

For a more detailed report try my Cisco fiscal Q1 2011 analyst conference call summary.

I don't own Cisco stock.

Up today is NVIDIA. But I have other conferences to cover for clients, so I may not be posting my NVDA conference call summary (Q3 fiscal 2011) until late tonight or even Friday. But you can bookmark the page and return to it later.

For a complete list of technology stocks I cover for the public, see analyst conference call list.