February 25, 2018 | Equity Research Chip Weekly: AMD's New Products Driving Share Gains Semiconductors Last week we organized investor meetings with AMD’s management in California. Mercury Research estimates that AMD gained about 6 percentage points of desktop discrete graphics chip market share in the December 2017 quarter. Intel announced multiple collaborations for development of 5G communications solutions. Hewlett Packard Enterprises stated that it expects to see continuing increases in DRAM pricing through 2018. We are reiterating our Outperform ratings on AMD (AMD, $12.07, Outperform) and Micron (MU, $46.53, Outperform). Last week we sat in on a number of investor meetings with AMD’s CFO Devinder Kumar and Laura Graves, Corporate Vice President, IR, in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We think that in 2018 and subsequent years, revenue growth, rising margins and demonstration of sustainable profitability will be drivers of AMD’s stock value. With a solid lineup of new products that significantly improves AMD’s competitive position in server, desktop and notebook processors, and graphics processor units (GPUs), we think AMD is positioned to show meaningful market share gains through 2018. Separately, AMD launched its EPYC Embedded 3000 processor and Ryzen Embedded V1000 processor product families. AMD EPYC Embedded 3000 processors focuses on markets including networking, storage, and edge computing devices, and Ryzen Embedded V1000 targets medical imaging, industrial systems, digital gaming and thin clients. Intel and its industry partners are offering 5G solutions with a foundation of Intel architecture, including Xeon Scalable platform and Intel Xeon D-2100 system-on-chip processor. Intel announced that it is collaborating with Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Microsoft to offer 5G connectivity to Windows PCs with Intel XMM 8000 series commercial 5G modems. Intel expects first 5G-connected PCs (mobile) to be introduced in the second half of 2019. Expanding its entry into the China phone market, Intel, Unigroup Spectrum and RDA have formed a multiyear collaboration to develop 5G products for mobile platforms, combining Intel 5G modems with Spreadtrum application processor technology. On earnings call last week, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE) noted that it continues to see increases in DRAM pricing. HPE expects to see increases in DRAM pricing for the remainder of 2018, albeit not at the elevated levels seen last year. Last week we published our graphics chip note in which we present Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) market-share data and review recent David Wong, CFA, PhD news in the GPU market. Mercury Research estimates that AMD’s desktop discrete GPU market unit share increased 6.3 percentage Senior Analyst|212-214-5007 points sequentially to 33% in the December quarter. We believe that [email protected] uncertainty associated with the use of GPUs for cryptocurrency mining Amit Chanda is a risk for both AMD and Nvidia. Associate Analyst |314-875-2045 [email protected] In the coming week, we think that ADI’s earnings report will reflect a Keith Kan, CPA continuation of the trend of solid growth we have seen in recent quarters in many chip end markets such as the industrial and Associate Analyst |212-214-5066 automotive markets, though we believe that the communications [email protected] infrastructure and smartphone end market remain soft. Joy Zhang Associate Analyst |212-214-8017 [email protected] Please see page 7 for rating definitions, important disclosures and required analyst certifications. All estimates/forecasts are as of 02/25/18 unless otherwise stated. 02/25/18 18:37:47 ET Wells Fargo Securities, LLC does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. As a result, investors should be aware that the firm may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of the report and investors should consider this report as only a single factor in making their investment decision. Semiconductors Equity Research Our View - Spotlight on AMD: new products should drive market share gains and profitability Last week (2/20 and 2/21) we sat in on a number of investor meetings with AMD’s CFO Devinder Kumar and Laura Graves, Corporate Vice President, IR, in San Francisco and Los Angeles. We think that in 2018 (and subsequent years) revenue growth, rising margins and demonstration of sustainable profitability will be drivers of AMD’s stock value. We are reiterating our Outperform rating on AMD (AMD, $12.07, Outperform). We think that AMD has done an excellent job of stabilizing and then improving its financials in recent years. In 2018 and subsequent years, we think that revenue growth, rising margins and demonstration of sustainable profitability will be drivers of AMD’s stock value. o In the December 2017 quarter, about 1/3 of AMD’s total revenues were from new products launched in 2017. About 40% of PC processor revenues were from Ryzen products in the December quarter, and the company is on track for this to rise above 50% in the March 2018 quarter. AMD’s new products in aggregate have gross margins of more than 50%, with its EPYC server processors gross margins of 60+%. With a solid lineup of new products that significantly improves AMD’s competitive position in server, desktop and notebook processors, and graphics processor units (GPUs), we think AMD is positioned to show meaningful market share gains through 2018. o AMD said its EPYC server products are in various stages of testing or deployment with all of the top 7 cloud providers and also the major enterprise server OEMs (original equipment manufacturers. With Ryzen, AMD has extended its addressed portion of the PC processor space upward to the top price points, and the company now has products that range from the top to the bottom end of the PC space. In April 2018 AMD expects to launch its first 2nd generation Ryzen CPUs built on 12nm technology. In 2H18 AMD expects to sample also its first 7nm Zen 2 EPYC server chips and also its first 7nm Vega chips (Radeon Instinct accelerator chips). o Ryzen desktop chips helped push up AMD’s desktop microprocessor ASPs in 2017. The Ryzen mobile (notebook) chips should do the same for AMD’s mobile microprocessor ASPs in 2018. Ryzen mobile revenues could begin to ramp meaningfully in the June 2018 quarter from large OEM design wins. With its x86 processor and GPU (graphics processing unit) expertise and its semi-custom design organization, we think AMD has some unique capabilities which may help it address emerging high growth markets such as AI (artificial intelligence) and autonomous driving. We believe that there is some amount of risk associated with AMD’s exposure to demand for GPUs for cryptocurrency mining applications. However, in our view AMD is taking a thoughtful and appropriate approach to balancing inventory risk with attempting to benefit from the revenue opportunity the current demand presents. o We estimate that cryptocurrency-related revenues might have been about $150 million for AMD in the December quarter (approximately 10% of total revenue). I on Intel February 22, 2018. Intel expects to bring 5G to mobile PCs in second half of 2019. Intel indicated that it continues to build new products and collaborations for 5G across network, client, and cloud. Intel and its industry partners are offering 5G solutions with a foundation of Intel architecture, including Xeon Scalable platform and Intel Xeon D-2100 system-on-chip processor. Intel announced that it is collaborating with Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Microsoft to offer 5G connectivity to Windows PCs with Intel XMM 8000 series commercial 5G modems. Intel expects first 5G-connected PCs (mobile) to be introduced in the second half of 2019. Expanding its entry into the China phone market, Intel, Unigroup Spectrum and RDA have formed a multiyear collaboration to develop 5G products for mobile platforms, combining Intel 5G modems with Spreadtrum application processor technology. Intel expects Spreadtrum to launch its first 5G smartphone platform featuring Intel XMM 8000 series modem in the second half of 2019. At Mobile World Congress, Intel will be showcasing the first 5G-enabled concept 2 in 1 with a live over the air 5G connection and will demonstrate the first 5GNR (5G New Radio) interoperability publicly. 2 | Wells Fargo Securities, LLC Chip Weekly: AMD's New Products Driving Share Gains Equity Research February 20, 2018. Intel Security Update. Intel has now released production microcode updates to its OEM customers and partners for Kaby Lake- and Coffee Lake-based platforms, with additional Skylake- based platforms. The update includes 6th, 7th, and 8th Gen Intel Core product lines, Intel Core X-series, Xeon Scalable and Xeon D processors. Intel indicated that the new microcode will be generally available through OEM firmware updates. Intel continues to encourage clients to keep their system up-to-date. Intel noted that there are multiple mitigation technologies which may provide protection against the exploits, including “Retpoline” (Google-developed mitigation technique for Variant 2). Data Roundup Graphics 4Q17: AMD Gaining Desktop share. We issued a note in which we review Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) market-share data and discuss recent news in the GPU market. We think that AMD desktop GPU unit share gains in the December quarter will continue into the next couple of quarters with the continuing ramp of its Vega-based products. We are reiterating our Outperform rating on AMD (AMD, $12.07, Outperform), though we believe that uncertainty associated with the use of GPUs for cryptocurrency mining is a risk for both AMD and Nvidia. We think that the possibility of moderation from the very strong gaming GPU growth seen recently, uncertainty associated with graphics demand for cryptocurrency mining applications, and competitive pressures from AMD are risks for Nvidia’s stock, given high investor expectations.