Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) +6.2% after Q1 beats with revenue down 31% Y/Y.In-line Q2 guidance has $2.5-2.6B in revenue (estimate: $2.53B) with 59.2-59.5% gross margin.

Intel Corp and a group of security researchers on Tuesday said they had found a new set of security flaws in its processors that will be difficult to fix and are related to problems found last year.

Intel Corp shares declined 2.5 percent on Wednesday after executives forecast modest profit growth over the next three years, signaling it is likely to lag big rivals as the once-dominant chipmaker catches up in technology. 

Qorvo reported its fiscal fourth quarter bottom-line that exceeded analysts’ expectations. The radio frequency device chipmaker reported  earnings of $1.22 per share for the quarter, compared to analysts’ estimates of $1.05 per share (based on FactSet data). Revenue of $681 million also surpassed analysts’ estimates of $670.6 million. For the current quarter, the company predicts earnings of $1.30 per share on revenue between $780 million and $800 million – both of which are higher than analysts’ expectations of $1.05 earnings per share on revenue of $690.1 million.  On May 6, Qorvo announced the completion of its acquisition of power management company Active-Semi International.

Semiconductor company Marvell Technology Group has confirmed on Monday its acquisition of Aquantica Corp, a leader in Multi-Gig Ethernet connectivity, for $13.25 per share. According to the company’s press briefing, this acquisition is expected to help Marvell in further diversifying its portfolio of copper and optical physical layer product offerings along with further extending its position in the Multi-Gig 2.5G/5G/10G Ethernet segments,.It is expected that a combination of Marvell’s gigabit PHY along with Aquantia's innovative Multi-gig automotive PHYs will create broadest and most advanced range of high-speed in-car networking solutions in the world. The acquisition is timely and important as ethernet in-vehicle networks for mainstream adoption is expected to grow at a 62 % annualized growth rate from 53 million in 2018 to 367 million by 2022.

For the three months ending March, Qualcomm earnings surpassed analysts’ estimates.Apparently, softening smartphone demand from economic weakness in China has weighed on its revenue guidance. Qualcomm’s years-long patent dispute with Apple seemed to arrive at a resolution last month, leading the semiconductor company to expect a one-time benefit of $4.5 billion and $4.7 billion.

Qualcomm said on Wednesday that it expects to receive $4.5 billion to $4.7 billion from its royalty settlement with Apple.  Read More...

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc.’s earnings managed to narrowly edge past analysts’ estimates for the first quarter. For the quarter ending in March, the semiconductor company’s adjusted earnings came in at 6 cents per share, exceeding the Street consensus estimates by a penny. Even total revenue, which plunged nearly -23% from the year-ago quarter to $1.27 billion, narrowly beat analysts' expectations of $1.26 billion.AMD blamed the year-over-year revenue decline mainly on “lower graphics channel sales, partially offset by increased client processor and datacenter GPU sales.” Looking ahead, AMD expects revenue of $1.47 billion to $1.57 billion for the second quarter, in line with analysts’ forecast of $1.51 billion.

Analysts expect the company to report earnings of $0.87 per share and that would match the earnings from the first quarter of 2018. Intel has seen earnings grow by an average of 24% per year over the last three years and they grew by 19% in the fourth quarter.The expectation for the first quarter is for sales to be flat. The management efficiency measurements for Intel are really good with a return on equity of 30% and a profit margin of 34.1%. The stock itself has been doing extremely well since the beginning of the year, gaining over 20%.

After years of legal disputes about patents and royalties, Apple, Inc. AAPL 1.61% and QUALCOMM, Inc. QCOM 11.73% finally reached an agreement on Tuesday.Apple agreed to pay Qualcomm an undisclosed amount of cash, and Qualcomm agreed to a chipset supply deal that presumably means Qualcomm will continue to supply Apple with iPhone chips. Read More...

Intel is pulling back from its 5G smartphone modem business, following Qualcomm’s settlement with  Apple. Apple and Qualcomm were in a long-drawn dispute over patent, during which Intel was delivering chips to the iPhone maker, But on Tuesday, the dispute ended with Apple and Qualcomm announcing a six-year licensing agreement as part of royalty settlement.In his latest statement, CEO Robert Swan said about the smartphone market, “It has become apparent that there is no clear path to profitability and positive returns”. Intel said that it will continue to meet its existing commitments for 4G smartphone modem product line.

GCP is the first cloud platform to offer NVIDIA one of its most versatile cloud GPUs. This step will allow GCP users to arrange next-generation computer graphics — including real-time ray tracing, AI, simulation and rasterization — from any location, on any device. Particularly, GCP users could make optimal use of AI capabilities to boost ray tracing and batch rendering. This move is not unprecedented as enterprises are increasingly turning to cloud based services to reduce costs of data centres.Additionally, it also gives employees better exposure to cloud computing and virtual workstations. Quadro VWS with RTX technology are particularly helpful for professionals who work on complex topics like rendering and simulation.

Chip stocks got beaten up pretty good in the last few weeks of March, but they bounced back on March 29 and again on April 1.Between the two lows, the stock rallied up to $112.98 and for the pattern to be confirmed, the stock will need to move above that level. The Tickeron AI Trend Prediction tool produced the bullish signal on March 29 and that prediction showed a confidence level of 83%.

Following a downgrade from Morgan Stanley analysts, Micron Technology shares declined around -2.5% Thursday. Morgan Stanley analysts Joseph Moore and Craig Hettenbach lowered their rating on Micron to underweight from equal weight.In addition to citing "much too optimistic" future earnings expectations as a reason behind the downgrade, the analysts also pointed towards potential headwinds from the semiconductor firm’s rising inventory for DRAM and other chips – which the analysts fear could be a drag on product price and margins. The analysts also reduced their 12-month price target to $32 a share, although they expect the longer-term range to be between $30 and $60.  

Intel has a new chief financial officer - George Davis, who had been Qualcomm's finance chief since 2013. At Intel, Davis steps in to lead the semiconductor giant’s global finance organization, and will also oversee the company's information technology segment.Davis will report to Swan, according to Intel. Qualcomm, on the other hand, said that it appointed David Wise, a longtime veteran of the company, as its interim finance chief while it hunts for Davis' replacement. Intel shares climbed +1.5% Wednesday, while Qualcomm stock dipped -0.5%.

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has laid off a "substantial number" of IT workers at sites across the company in the past week, according to a report from The Oregonian on Friday. Read More...

One of the things that attending Nvidia's (NVDA - Get Report) annual developer conference drives home is the extent to which Nvidia is now a software company as much as it is a graphics chip developer. And from the perspective of the head of Nvidia's server GPU business, this end-to-end approach to product development -- one that encompasses developing GPUs and hardware, creating software tools and libraries that work with those GPUs and working with third-party developers on software that can effectively leverage those GPUs and tools/libraries -- has become a vital competitive strength.READ MORE...

Micron Technology beat fiscal second quarter earnings expectations, leading to a +6.9% jump in its stock price on Thursday. The semiconductor company raked in adjusted non-GAAP earnings of $1.71 per share, surpassing analysts’ estimates by 4 cents (based on Refinitiv IBES data).Also, Micron seems hopeful that demand would  begin to pick up by its fourth quarter.        

Alphabet Inc. announced that Advanced Micro Devices’s (AMD) Radeon GPUs and developer tools would be used in Google’s new video game streaming platform Stadia.AMD shares extended gains in pre-market trading Wednesday on the news. That GPU growth is one of AMD’s key areas of focus for growth was apparent in CEO Lisa Su’s statement to investors in January.

After Thursday’s trading close, Broadcom announced better-than-expected fiscal first quarter earnings and its plan to give back $12 billion to shareholders. For the three months ending February 3, the semiconductor & infrastructure software company raked in earnings of $5.55 per share, higher than the Street estimates of $5.22 per share.The earnings-per-share were also greater than the year-ago quarter’s figure, by a solid +8.4%. The company’s net revenues for the quarter jumped +8.7% from the year-ago period to $5.789 billion, falling a bit short of the consensus expectation of $5.82 billion. Having experienced a free cash flow of more than $2 billion – a +39% year-over-year increase - Broadcom wants to pay out around $12 billion to stockholders through a combination of cash dividends and share buy backs and eliminations in fiscal 2019.