Microchip Technology Secures U.S. Export License for FPGA R&D in Armenia

Lisa Su, chief executive of U.S. chipmaker AMD, said on the 6th that the company plans to sharply increase its semiconductor supply in 2027 to meet surging demand for artificial intelligence. Speaking to reporters in Taipei, Su said, "We have been able to increase supply throughout 2026, and in 2027 we will expand supply significantly." AMD, Nvidia's biggest rival in AI graphics processors, is rapidly expanding its AI chip business, and its market capitalization recently topped 1 trillion dollars. She said one purpose of the Taiwan visit was to secure a system for boosting production of central processing units and graphics processors across AMD's supply chain to meet growing AI demand, adding that as part of talks with local partners she had already met with Hon Hai Precision Industry and planned to meet with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Ahead of a visit to South Korea the same day, Su said AMD is also working closely with memory chip makers to secure adequate supply.

Marvell Technology outlined a new growth target at its investor day of $90 billion in revenue by its fiscal year 2031, sending the stock up about 7 percent. The company said it expects upwards of $20 billion in revenue for fiscal 2028, above Wall Street's original estimates, and put fiscal 2030 revenue guidance between $70 billion and $90 billion, far more than prior Street estimates. The outlook rests on Marvell's custom chip business, which builds chips for customers including Google and Amazon; Marvell has a multi-year agreement with Google worth north of $100 billion if all steps are completed and certain milestones are hit. Marvell is currently in its fiscal 2027 third quarter, making the fiscal 2028 target less than a year away. The stock is up 240 percent year to date.

Astera Labs shares have climbed 117.8% year to date, outpacing the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector's 24.2% gain and the Zacks Internet - Software industry's 7.1% growth, as well as peers Cisco Systems and Credo Technology, which rose 46.5% and 47.7% respectively. The company guided third-quarter 2026 revenues to between $540 million and $560 million, with the midpoint implying roughly 40% sequential growth, while management projected non-GAAP earnings of $1.16 to $1.21 per share. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for third-quarter revenues stands at $550.39 million, up 138.71% year over year, and the consensus earnings estimate of $1.19 per share implies a 142.86% year-over-year increase. In the second quarter of 2026, PCIe 6 products including the Scorpio AI Fabric Switches and Aries Retimers accounted for more than 50% of total revenues, and the Leo CXL memory controller line has won new design wins at major U.S. hyperscalers with volume shipments expected in 2027. Astera Labs faces rising competition from Marvell Technology, whose data center revenues represented 79% of total revenues in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, and its shares trade at a forward 12-month Price/Sales of 22.66X versus the Computer & Technology sector's 6.18X, with a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Marvell Technology is expanding its partnership with Nvidia across advanced networking, silicon photonics and optical interconnect technologies, with Nvidia investing $2 billion in Marvell as part of the March 2026 agreement. The collaboration began in 2025 to give hyperscalers more flexibility in building custom AI computing infrastructure, and was expanded in 2026 to connect Marvell to Nvidia's AI factory and AI-RAN ecosystems through NVLink Fusion. Under the expanded arrangement, Marvell will supply custom XPUs and NVLink Fusion-compatible scale-up networking, while Nvidia provides Vera CPUs, ConnectX NICs, BlueField DPUs, NVLink interconnects, Spectrum-X switches and rack-scale AI compute. Marvell also worked with Microsoft and Utimaco to launch Azure Payment HSM v2, a cloud-native payment security platform built on Marvell's LiquidSecurity hardware security modules, with Utimaco contributing Atalla Payments Module software and Microsoft providing Azure. Marvell competes with Astera Labs and Broadcom in networking, and its shares have gained 239.5% year to date, trading at a price-to-sales multiple of 14.78X versus the Zacks Electronics - Semiconductors industry's 5.15X, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2027 earnings implies year-over-year growth of 48.2%.