Custom Silicon / ASIC

Nuvacore, a six-month-old semiconductor startup backed by Sequoia Capital, is seeking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars at a valuation of approximately $2.5 billion, Reuters reported exclusively on Friday, citing two people familiar with the fundraising. The San Jose-based company is developing a central processing unit designed for data centers, targeting growing demand for computing infrastructure supporting artificial intelligence applications. Nuvacore has yet to release a product, and its latest funding round remains open, with the final valuation and amount raised subject to change. The Information previously reported that the startup was seeking at least $200 million, but the proposed $2.5 billion valuation had not been disclosed. Founded by semiconductor engineers Gerard Williams, John Bruno and Ram Srinivasan, Nuvacore plans to design its processor's core functionality before selecting an architecture, potentially avoiding limitations associated with Intel and Advanced Micro Devices' x86 technology or Arm-based designs. Williams previously worked at Apple and founded Nuvia, which Qualcomm acquired for $1.4 billion in 2021. Nuvacore declined to comment on the fundraising, Reuters reported.

Nvidia is set to invest in d-Matrix, a maker of artificial intelligence server chips, The Information reported, citing three people with knowledge of the deal. The investment is part of Nvidia's initiative to make its technology and chips compatible with those of other designers, the outlet added. Nvidia has struck similar deals with Marvell Technology, Intel, and Amazon, among others. Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.

Marvell Technology raised its 2028 revenue target to $20 billion at its investor day, a figure set against $9.45 billion of trailing revenue. The company reported revenue growth of 36.50% in the most recent quarter and earnings growth of 58.10%, with a gross margin of 52.22%. Net margin of 27.93% sits above an operating margin of 16.68%, and free cash flow of $1.72 billion came in below $2.64 billion of reported net income. Marvell traded at around $285 on October 7 and is worth $255.84 billion, with $3.93 billion of cash and debt to equity of 28.53%. The stock was held by 96 hedge funds with a combined stake value of about $4.58 billion at the end of Q2 2026, up from 79 hedge fund holders with around $2.41 billion in the previous quarter.

Intel Corp. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the company will continue working with Elon Musk on the Terafab semiconductor project, telling Bloomberg ahead of an event in Tokyo marking the U.S. company's 50th year of operations in Japan that Intel would keep its involvement in the effort. The comments follow a decline in Intel's stock after Musk on Saturday confirmed early-stage discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. about a potential role in the planned Texas-based Terafab AI chip complex. On Wednesday, Musk responded to Tesla expert Herbert Ong and stated that his companies will build and run the fab, saying there should be zero doubt about that and that TSMC might sublease part of the Terafab if it wants, but nothing more than that. In April, Intel said it was working with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Tesla, Inc. on Terafab, with its chip design, manufacturing and advanced packaging capabilities enabling the project's goal of producing 1 terawatt of computing capacity for AI and robotics per year. The possible involvement of Taiwan Semiconductor has raised questions about the degree of Intel's involvement in the process.

Two former Groq engineers have sued in Delaware, alleging Groq's board improperly structured the 2025 transaction through which Nvidia acquired the company's AI technology. The deal consisted of a $17 billion licensing agreement plus a separate $3 billion Nvidia stock bonus pool for engineers who joined the chipmaker, and the plaintiffs argue the arrangement transferred Groq's core technology and much of its engineering talent without treating it as a conventional acquisition; Groq has called the lawsuit meritless. Nvidia said Groq 3 LPX, its first rack-scale LPU system combining Nvidia's high-throughput architecture with Groq's high-interactivity technology, is already in full production with volume shipments expected later this quarter, and the company said the system achieved 3,400 output tokens per second in an Artificial Analysis benchmark, four times faster responsiveness than the nearest alternative platform. Groq technology is also part of Nvidia's broader Vera Rubin platform, where management estimates revenue opportunity per gigawatt has expanded from roughly $18 billion with Hopper to $25 billion with Blackwell and $40 billion with Vera Rubin. Separately, the U.S. Department of Justice was reportedly probing Nvidia's Groq transaction, and FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has said the agency would examine deal structures potentially designed to escape conventional merger review. Nvidia generated $96 billion of revenue in fiscal Q2 2027, more than double the prior-year level, with Data Center revenue of $89 billion, and management expects approximately 70% revenue growth in fiscal 2028 on a supply-constrained outlook; the stock traded at 24.88 times forward P/E as of October 6, with consensus calling for EPS growth of 95.23% in fiscal 2027 and 69.66% in fiscal 2028.

Marvell Technology raised its revenue guidance at its investor day on Tuesday, forecasting that revenue driven by data centers could grow to as much as $90 billion by its fiscal year 2031. The company also lifted its total addressable market outlook by billions of dollars, and raised its revenue outlook by billions of dollars for both the balance of this year and next year, citing strong AI demand. CEO Greg Murphy, who has led Marvell since 2016, suggested the growth would continue through fiscal year 2031. Marvell is a major chip seller into the data infrastructure space, with business at Google, Amazon and Microsoft, and its stock is up more than 200% this year, though it has not yet returned to its record high. Analysts responded quickly, with roughly eight notes pushing estimates higher on Marvell.

Constellation Brands shares fell 4.9% in premarket trading after the company's fiscal second-quarter 2027 results beat on earnings and revenue but its full-year profit outlook came in below analyst expectations. The company reported adjusted earnings of $3.74 per share, above consensus estimates of roughly $3.55 to $3.61, while net sales rose 6% year over year to $2.63 billion, topping the $2.54 billion estimate, but its reaffirmed fiscal 2027 adjusted EPS guidance of $11.20 to $11.90 carried a midpoint of $11.55, below the analyst consensus of about $11.72. Beer volumes remained weak, with Modelo Especial depletions down roughly 2% and Corona Extra down about 5%, bringing total beer depletions down 0.6% for the quarter, and the company also announced the acquisition of SpikedAde, a vodka-based, zero-sugar ready-to-drink beverage brand, for $75 million upfront plus up to $278 million in contingent payments over five years. Elsewhere in premarket trading, Intel shares rose 1% to around $113.50 after Elon Musk said TSMC will not own or operate the planned Terafab AI chip complex in Texas, easing concerns Intel could lose its role in the project, while Sigma Lithium shares surged nearly 5.9% after a Brazilian Federal Court of Appeals granted emergency suspensive relief upholding its environmental licenses at the Grota do Cirilo complex in Minas Gerais. Space Exploration Technologies shares slid 1.9% after a report said the company is seeking to raise $40 billion in debt to fund a massive Nvidia AI chip order, consisting of roughly $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade bonds, with Apollo Global Management expected to lead the deal and Pimco among the lenders in early discussions.

Space Exploration Technologies completed Starship Flight 14 to low Earth orbit, deploying a batch of Starlink satellites. The company is in advanced talks with TSMC on an exclusive manufacturing arrangement for custom AI-focused semiconductor chips. Starlink also signed a new Direct to Cell partnership with Beeline Kazakhstan to extend satellite connectivity to standard mobile phones. The company, a US-based telecom player with a market cap of $2.3 trillion, faces an FAA review and has less than 1 year of cash runway. The Starship flight, the TSMC chip discussions and the Beeline Direct to Cell deal only show part of the SpaceX story.

Uber Technologies agreed to acquire Boston-based corporate catering platform ezCater for $2.3 billion in an all-cash deal, expanding the ride-hailing company into the workplace dining market. ezCater runs an online catering marketplace connecting businesses with more than 140,000 restaurants nationwide and generated over $2.5 billion in gross bookings over the trailing twelve months, with high-teens year-over-year growth. Separately, Marvell Technology shares jumped 10% in early trading after the chipmaker raised its fiscal 2028 revenue guidance to $20 billion at its investor day, up from a prior $18 billion and above analyst estimates of $18.2 billion; Marvell also expects customer revenue in fiscal 2029 to rise 200% or more, with total revenue reaching between $70 billion and $90 billion by fiscal 2031. Lamb Weston reported first-quarter adjusted EPS of $0.75, beating the $0.59 consensus, on sales up 1%, and raised its fiscal 2027 sales growth forecast to low single digits from flat to 1% while lifting its EPS outlook to $3.05 to $3.35. NASA is preparing to buy rocket launches in bulk to secure scarce capacity for a permanent human base on the moon, a $30 billion program, evaluating purchases of four or five launches at a time with an initial round expected soon, according to moon base program manager Carlos García-Galán.

AT&S Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik AG announced in late September 2026 an expanded collaboration with Marvell Technology to increase advanced IC substrate capacity for next-generation AI and cloud infrastructure. Marvell also affirmed a quarterly dividend of US$0.06 per share payable on October 29, 2026. The deeper manufacturing partnership gives Marvell greater access to complex packaging technologies that are increasingly critical for high-performance AI chips and data center hardware. The new AT&S capacity fits into Marvell's March 2026 plan to commit about US$1.0b in supplier prepayments and long term manufacturing agreements, an effort to lock in scarce substrates for AI optics and complex ICs. Marvell's narrative projects $30.4 billion revenue and $9.6 billion earnings by 2029, requiring 47.5% yearly revenue growth and a $7.0 billion earnings increase from $2.6 billion, while some optimistic analysts see about US$35.7b in 2029 revenue and US$10.1b in earnings.

Wall Street's major financial institutions have begun syndicating a record $60 billion debt package to back Anthropic's lease of Google semiconductors, the largest chip-financing transaction to date. Bank of America, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley, which committed to fund the financing, have started approaching peer institutions to offload portions of the debt, according to the Financial Times. Syndication opened on Monday with $42 billion in senior secured loans backed by Broadcom's A-minus credit rating, a structure that could eventually allow the debt to be sold across private placement or investment-grade bond markets. A separate $18 billion junior debt tranche without Broadcom guarantees is expected to launch later, with Blackstone already committing approximately $9 billion while helping syndicate the remainder. Broadcom is providing credit support to help Anthropic manage borrowing costs, and the capital will fund advanced chip orders scheduled for 2027 delivery, with lease payments beginning only after the hardware is fully deployed. Because the unbacked junior tranche exposes lenders directly to Anthropic's credit profile, underwriters may wait until after the startup completes its planned initial public offering later this year before tapping broader markets.

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas issued a bullish call on SpaceX, telling investors that roughly $159 to $160 represents a cheap entry point ahead of several key milestones, with a $300 price target on the stock. Jonas argues the market is properly valuing SpaceX's launch business and Starlink but not its chipmaking operations or the AI compute deals that generate $1 billion to $1.5 billion per month per client on an ARR basis. He frames the development slog before the next Starship launch, Flight 15, expected in late October or November, as the window for investors to buy before the stock catches up. Among the catalysts he and investors are watching are the Starship Flight 15 attempt to catch the vehicle back in the Mechazilla arms at Starbase, Starlink version 3 launches, a possible direct-to-consumer Starlink product for regular cell phones, the build-out of the Terra fab chip factory, additional AI compute deals, and the next iteration of the Grok chatbot and its agent component. Jonas is less enthusiastic about the direct-to-consumer Starlink push, citing the heavy terrestrial spending required and the challenge of converting customers, similar to the outlays seen from AT&T and Verizon.

BNP Paribas raised its price target on AMD by 60% to $960, citing remarkable strength in CPUs driven by artificial intelligence, while keeping a Neutral rating on the Dr. Lisa Su-led company. Analyst Karl Ackerman wrote that AMD is increasingly becoming a leading provider of AI infrastructure, successfully pivoting from a silicon pure-play to a full-stack systems platform, and said the firm's new agentic CPU model supports above-consensus estimates driven by AMD's leadership and roadmap to capture a growing share of a roughly $245B agentic CPU total addressable market by 2030. Ackerman noted that AMD's Helios AI accelerators have become a credible second source to Nvidia, backed by 14 gigawatts of commitments, and that the success of Helios, improvements in ROCm integration, and the recent acquisition of World Labs bolster AMD's opportunity to address frontier AI deployments, with OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic having announced multi-gigawatt agreements and AMD potentially capturing at least 8% of the more than $1T 2030 GPU market. The analyst added that AMD expects ASICs and XPUs to serve roughly 25% of the accelerator market over time, with the Cerebras partnership pairing Helios for high-throughput inference with Cerebras' Wafer-Scale Engine for ultra-low-latency token generation, and the Taalas acquisition adding IP and engineering talent for AMD's own low-latency silicon. AMD shares were modestly lower in Monday trading.

Iran said it will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the United States meets seven conditions outlined in an earlier agreement, Reuters reported, a stance that could prolong disruptions in one of the world's key energy corridors and keep investors focused on oil prices, shipping and inflation. Separately, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley are investigating how major home and auto insurers process claims after a Wall Street Journal report found rising odds that some policyholders receive no payout, asking six large insurers for data and explanations. Cerebras Systems shares rose as much as 8.1% in early trading after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described the chipmaker as a close partner with a deep engagement focused on improving speed. German robotics startup RobCo sold $40M of shares in a transaction valuing the company above $1B, double its level earlier this year, with most of the shares sold by employees to new and existing investors. Revolut's latest secondary share sale values the London-based fintech at $115B, up more than 50% from its $75B valuation in November 2025, making it Europe's most valuable startup ahead of established banks including Barclays and Société Générale.

Intel's Data Center and AI revenue rose 59% year-over-year to $6.3 billion in the second quarter, outpacing the company's overall topline growth of 25%, as the chipmaker pushes an AI-driven turnaround built on CPUs, ASICs, advanced packaging and its foundry network. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said Intel can currently meet only roughly half of processor demand, a supply constraint the article frames as a potential market-share opportunity rather than a pure setback. Intel holds a 49% stake in chipmaker Altera, which has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO, and management has issued a mid-20% revenue expansion outlook for 2026. The stock closed at $120.23 on September 30, a 225.83% year-to-date return, giving Intel a market capitalization of $635.55 billion, roughly 11 times trailing revenue of $57.03 billion, with a forward P/E of 63.29x. Hedge fund holdings tracked by Insider Monkey rose to 138 in the second quarter of 2026 from 112 in the first quarter, with BlackRock the largest institutional stakeholder at 426.48 million shares, or 8.46% of outstanding shares, as of June 30.

Nike is cutting jobs and overhauling its business under a restructuring plan aimed at saving $2.5 billion over the next five years, and now expects a high-single-digit revenue decline this year, worse than the 2.4% drop analysts projected. Shares of Nike fell as much as 9.7% in New York on Friday. Broadcom's Wall Street syndicate has begun gathering $60 billion of fresh AI chip financing to benefit Anthropic and other companies. Fair Isaac Corp. shares rose after it launched the FICO Mortgage Direct License Program, with Bill Pulte signaling he was not purposefully targeting the company.

Broadcom reported third-quarter fiscal 2026 non-GAAP earnings of $3.32 per share, up 96.4% year over year and 3.11% above the Zacks Consensus Estimate, with revenues surging 85.5% year over year to $29.59 billion and beating the consensus mark by 0.41%. AI semiconductor revenues jumped 221% year over year to $16.7 billion, representing 56% of total revenues, while Semiconductor Solutions revenues surged 127% year over year to a record $20.84 billion, or 70% of total revenues, and Infrastructure Software revenues increased 29% year over year to $8.75 billion, contributing the remaining 30%. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, Broadcom expects revenues of approximately $34.8 billion, representing 93% year-over-year growth, including about $26.1 billion of semiconductor revenues and roughly $8.7 billion of Infrastructure Software revenues. The company raised its fiscal 2026 AI semiconductor revenue outlook to $58 billion, up 186% year over year and above its prior $56 billion view, and said it has secured supply to support approximately $115 billion of AI semiconductor revenues in fiscal 2027, with fiscal 2028 AI semiconductor revenues seen reaching $230 billion. Broadcom also generated record free cash flow of $13.67 billion, equal to 46% of revenues, paid $3.1 billion in dividends, reduced long-term debt by $5.6 billion, and its board approved a quarterly dividend of 65 cents per share.

Broadcom is reportedly assembling a $60B debt package to fund AI infrastructure buildouts for companies like Anthropic, consisting of a $42B senior-secured tranche syndicated by banks and an $18B junior tranche led by Blackstone. Google has partnered with Planet Labs to successfully launch its Project Suncatcher prototype satellite into orbit aboard a SpaceX rocket, testing how well Google's Tensor Processing Units handle the extreme radiation and thermal conditions of space. Crude oil futures fell sharply following reports that the European Union and the International Energy Agency are discussing the release of 100M combined barrels of diesel and crude reserves to ease global supply shortages, a move urged by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Nike's overall sales dropped 4% in its fiscal first quarter, dragged down by a 22% decline in Greater China and soft e-commerce, and its disappointing full-year revenue forecast sent shares tumbling around 10% in premarket trading while prompting acceleration of a new $2.5B cost-saving initiative called Pace. Eurozone annual inflation jumped to 3.8% in September, surpassing estimates of 3.6% and up from 3.2% the previous month, while core inflation rose slightly to 2.5% in line with expectations.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Thursday that the company cut memory specifications on its next-generation Optimus robot chips to scale production, after Micron said humanoid robots could require hundreds of gigabytes of memory each. In a post on X, Musk said Tesla cut the AI5 chip's memory in half to 72GB and the AI6 chip's memory by a third to 144GB, calling it the only way to get enough volume for Optimus production and saying it greatly reduces cost. He added the cuts should have a negligible effect on Optimus performance because memory bandwidth is a bigger limiting factor than total memory capacity. On Micron's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call Wednesday, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said humanoid robots are expected to need more than 200 gigabytes of memory and multiple terabytes of storage per unit, similar to autonomous vehicles, and that physical AI could become a significant driver of memory and storage demand by the end of the decade. Tesla has reportedly placed its first large-scale component order for roughly 5,000 Optimus units and aims to eventually build 1 million units a year.