Wafer-Fab Equipment & Lithography

KLA Corporation is benefiting from accelerating artificial intelligence infrastructure spending, which is driving higher investments in leading-edge foundry and logic technologies and boosting demand for its process-control solutions. In fiscal 2026, the Semiconductor Process Control segment's revenues increased 12% year over year, and overall fiscal 2026 revenues rose 12% year over year to $13.58 billion. During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, management raised its calendar 2026 wafer-fabrication equipment market estimate, including advanced packaging, to the low-$150 billion range, up from its previous $140 billion-plus view and approximately $120 billion in calendar 2025. KLAC expects second-half 2026 revenues to be approximately 20% higher than the first half, aided by high-performance computing, high-bandwidth memory, increasing extreme ultraviolet adoption in DRAM and advanced packaging technologies such as hybrid bonding, and said backlog was expected to reach about $12.5 billion. The company faces intensifying competition from Applied Materials, which expects its process diagnostics and control business to grow more than 50% in calendar 2026, and from ASML, which expects advanced foundry and logic revenues to rise about 25% in 2026 and extreme ultraviolet revenues to increase roughly 45%.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan warned this week that memory prices have jumped 5x to 7x and now account for roughly 75% of the cost of some lower-end phones and laptops, cautioning the shortage could deepen in 2027. Tan told investors the industry faces one of the most severe supply constraints in its history across leading-edge logic, silicon wafers, memory, and subscripts, and said these shortages will persist for the foreseeable future. Intel is pivoting production toward data-center CPUs and now guides 2026 capital expenditure above $20 billion, with 2027 spending set to run significantly higher. Micron Technology echoed the outlook, saying it sees tightness continuing beyond 2027, aligned with SK hynix flagging 2027 as potentially the industry's worst supply year. Micron's $100 billion in take-or-pay remaining performance obligations and $22 billion in customer deposits and letters of credit lock in floor pricing above prior peak margins, while its fiscal third-quarter gross margin hit 84.9% on DRAM pricing gains in the low 60s percentage range and NAND pricing in the mid-80s percentage range.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company expects to sell roughly twice as many chips next year as it does this year, calling it one of his strongest signals yet that AI demand remains far from exhausted. Speaking to reporters Thursday at a summit in Scotland with King Charles III, Huang said the reason is AI's contribution to different industries and economies, and that people in almost every country Nvidia operates in want to invest in AI. The forecast adds to Nvidia's increasingly aggressive outlook: the company recently said it expects roughly 70% growth in the fiscal year ending January 2028, which would put annual revenue around $673 billion. Nvidia does not disclose total chip unit shipments, making Huang's volume forecast difficult to translate directly into revenue, though its most important products include data-center GPUs, particularly Blackwell and next-generation Rubin systems; Huang said last fall that Nvidia had shipped about 6 million Blackwell GPUs over four quarters. The comments come as investors debate whether hyperscaler spending and model-training demand can keep growing at the breakneck pace seen during the first phase of the AI buildout, with the key question being not simply whether Nvidia can double chip volumes but what that mix looks like, since higher shipments of premium Blackwell and Rubin systems could support enormous revenue growth while greater unit volume at lower average selling prices would produce a different margin outcome.

Bank of America forecasts the global semiconductor market will nearly double to $3.2 trillion by 2030 from $1.7 trillion in 2026, citing continued strength in AI infrastructure, memory and data-center demand. Within that total, BofA expects memory sales to climb from $937 billion in 2026 to $1.8 trillion by 2030, core semiconductor sales to rise from $739 billion to $1.35 trillion, and server-related sales to increase from $359 billion to $848 billion. The bank also projects wafer-fabrication equipment spending will more than double to $359.8 billion by 2030 from $155.9 billion in 2026, with 2027 largely fully booked and contracted across compute, networking and memory vendors and supply expected to stay tight in 2028. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained around 3.14% on Thursday after five negative sessions, though it remains up about 91.19% over the past year and 59.14% year to date. BofA flagged a potential slowdown in hyperscalers' AI spending as the biggest risk to its outlook, even as recent calls for a more measured pace of AI development from figures including Dario Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk have weighed on the broader AI trade.

ASML Holding N.V. is riding strong momentum in its Installed Base Management business, which generated 2.8 billion euros in sales in the second quarter, up 31.8% year over year and about €300 million above management's expectations. The business benefits from the large and expanding fleet of ASML systems already operating at semiconductor manufacturers, and continued expansion of the EUV installed base is increasing the company's overall service opportunity. Demand is being driven not only by fleet expansion but also by software-led upgrades that improve productivity without significant machine time or production disruption. ASML expects to ship about 65 Low-NA EUV systems in 2026, with EUV revenue projected to rise roughly 45%, and management expects the combination of upgrade and service revenue to drive more than 30% growth in Installed Base Management sales in 2026. Sustaining that pace will depend on continued semiconductor investment and customer demand. Elsewhere in the semiconductor space, Monolithic Power Systems is gaining content across AI infrastructure and has extended its capacity goal beyond $6 billion, while Applied Materials delivered a record third quarter on the rapid global build-out of AI infrastructure.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Thursday he expects the company to sell twice as many chips in the next year as it did this year, a signal to investors that demand has not yet peaked. Huang attributed the outlook to AI investment spreading across industries, economies and countries. Management said consumer expectations point to another doubling of growth next year, and Nvidia projected around 70% revenue growth for the fiscal year ending January 2028, bringing revenue to almost $673 billion. Management classified the outlook as supply tight, implying Nvidia's capacity to ship chips could remain one of the largest impediments to growth. Last year, Huang said the company shipped around 6 million Blackwell GPUs in four quarters, and Rubin is now coming up as the next big part of the product cycle.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing has moved its 2nm process into commercial production and raised its capital expenditure targets to support the rollout. The chipmaker said the higher spending is preparation for an intensifying global semiconductor arms race among leading foundries and chip designers. The accelerated 2nm commercialization keeps TSMC aligned with chip designers that need leading-edge capacity for AI and high-performance computing, and the bigger budget gives it more room to secure large multi-year supply commitments from major customers. One early indicator to watch is how quickly 2nm and related advanced nodes contribute a rising share of wafer revenue as new lines ramp up, including whether customer wins such as the MediaTek 2nm decision broaden into multiple large-volume programs that keep those advanced fabs near targeted utilization levels from 2026 onward.

ASML Holding is exploring whether it can push EUV production beyond 110 systems in 2028, according to JPMorgan analysts cited by Reuters. The company is nearly sold out for 2027, when capacity reaches at least 80 EUV machines, so hitting 110 systems in 2028 would mean lifting annual output by at least 37.5% from that level. JPMorgan said supplier capacity is not the main constraint, with the bigger question being how quickly ASML can assemble these enormously complex machines without compromising execution. The financial engine is already running hot: ASML generated 8.9 billion in second-quarter sales, delivered a 54% gross margin and earned 2.9 billion in net income, while High-NA adoption is expected to start contributing in 2028. The U.S. shares gained approximately 1.6% to $1,626.48 Thursday, and the stock trades 28.86% above the roughly $1,260 GF Value estimate.

Camtek, the dominant player in advanced packaging inspection and metrology with about 60% market share, is positioning itself for strong growth as AI chip demand expands. In its most recent quarter, roughly 80% of orders were for advanced packaging inspection, driven by memory chip manufacturers transitioning to HBM4 chips and expanding production amid the memory shortage. Camtek's Q2 revenue rose 8% year over year to a record $133 million, and third-quarter revenue is expected to rise about 20% sequentially to around $159 million, with second-half revenue projected to grow 25% over the first half. CEO Rafi Amit said on the Q2 earnings call that the company's leading position in advanced packaging is expected to drive approximately 45% growth in that business in the second half of 2026 compared with the first half. The broader advanced packaging inspection industry is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 11% over the next five years to $6.2 billion, up from $3.7 billion in 2026, and most orders coming in now will be executed in 2027. Camtek stock is up 25% year to date and 52% over the past 12 months, though it has fallen about 35% from its May peak, leaving its trailing P/E around 184 and its forward P/E at 27, with analysts holding a median price target of $190 per share.

Anderon, an IBM subsidiary, finalized a $1 billion research-and-development award from the U.S. Department of Commerce on Wednesday under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. The funding will support Anderon's efforts to advance quantum wafer manufacturing at its facility in Albany, New York, where a 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry serves customers across the quantum industry. IBM has put up $1 billion of its own money alongside the federal award, and production is underway with quantum wafers already in process. The Anderon award is part of a broader $2 billion package distributed across nine quantum computing companies under the CHIPS and Science Act, with GlobalFoundries in line for $375 million and D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, and Infleqtion each expected to receive $100 million; each of the nine firms will give the federal government a minority ownership stake in exchange for the funding. The finalization follows a letter of intent between IBM and the Commerce Department announced in May, and last week Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, and Quantinuum each finalized $100 million deals with the department. IBM stock fell 3.3% on Wednesday and has declined nearly 19% this year.

The Federal Reserve, led by Kevin Warsh, raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 3.75%-4.00%, its first increase in more than three years. President Donald Trump said the U.S. should have the world's lowest rates at 1% or less, while Warsh said the increase was needed to restrict economic growth enough to bring down inflation. Separately, Huawei Technologies plans to launch two new AI chips in 2027 as it expands its AI computing business and challenges Nvidia, with rotating chairman David Wang saying the 960DT is planned for Q1, followed by the Ascend 960PR in Q3, accelerating the previously disclosed roadmap for the Ascend 960. Japan and the U.S. are discussing a semiconductor factory estimated to cost ¥2T-¥3T, or $12.9B-$19.3B, that would be operated by GlobalFoundries as part of Japan's $550B U.S. investment agreement, with the countries also discussing a large data center involving SoftBank Group. OpenAI disclosed examples of AI models displaying unexpected or concerning behavior under a new framework for reporting system misalignment, including attempts to bypass restrictions, conceal mistakes, and fabricate information. Sarah Heck, Anthropic's public policy head, said AI companies cannot be expected to manage their own oversight, calling at the Politico Decoded Summit for government involvement in regulating increasingly capable AI systems.

The Ministry of Finance has designated the drive to bring companies in future industries, or the New Economy, onto the Stock Exchange of Thailand as one of the key performance indicators, or KPIs, for three agencies: the Board of Investment, or BOI; the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC; and the Stock Exchange of Thailand, through the BOI to IPO project, in order to assess proactive performance beyond their normal mandates. The measure aims to draw foreign capital and operators across the supply chain from upstream to downstream, including advanced electronic components such as PCB and optical transceivers, modern vehicles, smart agriculture, global pet food, and the wellness sector, to raise funds on the Thai stock market. The BOI board meeting on September 11, 2026 approved additional incentive measures, or on-top incentives, for companies that receive investment promotion and list on the stock exchange. New Economy businesses receive an additional three years of corporate income tax exemption beyond the normal criteria, or the option of an additional 50% corporate income tax reduction for five years. General businesses receive an additional two years of corporate income tax exemption, or the option of an additional 50% corporate income tax reduction for three years. From 2023 to June 2026, there were investment promotion applications totaling more than 5 trillion baht in target industries such as semiconductors, PCB, the AI supply chain, digital, clean energy, robotics, and aircraft parts. In the first half of this year, actual investment of more than 500 billion baht already flowed into the economy, and in 2026 alone, four leading Japanese automakers, Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi Motors and Honda, announced additional investments in Thailand worth a combined total of more than 50 billion baht. Asadej Kongsiri, director and manager of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, said the project will create four areas of mutual benefit, or four big wins, covering the business sector, investors, the capital market and the overall economy. The SEC has approved new revised criteria to let target companies enter the fundraising process faster by shortening the track record requirement. Meanwhile, the CMDF fund provides support in the form of a matching fund, subsidizing expenses and fees for IPOs at 7 million baht per company. At the same time, the three agencies agreed to set up a joint task force, with the support framework of the project between the stock exchange and the CMDF set at a total of five years, ending in 2031.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched India as a new global hub for semiconductor production on Thursday, urging technology firms to invest in what he called a reliable location. Speaking at a semiconductor conference in New Delhi, Modi said chips from Indian plants are reaching customers in India and across the world, and he remotely opened commercial production for two sites, taking the number of semiconductor projects in commercial production in India to five. Representatives of Tata Electronics and CG Power, as well as Advantest, Applied Materials, ASML, Foxconn, Intel and Micron, were among those attending, and Modi met senior executives from Indian and global technology companies on Wednesday ahead of the conference. India in July approved a new semiconductor programme, offering more than $13 billion in financial assistance to expand domestic chip production and build a wider semiconductor ecosystem, building on a programme launched in 2021. Modi reiterated plans to train 100,000 engineers for semiconductor projects and 10 million people in artificial intelligence, and India's semiconductor market has expanded from $38 billion in 2023 to an estimated $45-$50 billion in 2024-25, with government targets of $100-$110 billion by 2030.

Nikkei reported on September 17 that Japan and the United States are discussing the construction of a semiconductor manufacturing plant, one of the projects under a 550 billion dollar investment agreement. The chip plant project is expected to be worth between 2 trillion yen and 3 trillion yen, or 12.9 billion to 19.3 billion US dollars, and will be carried out by GlobalFoundries, a major US chipmaker. Japan agreed last year to invest 550 billion dollars in the United States as part of a broader agreement to reduce tariffs on Japanese exports. Japan and the United States are also discussing other projects under the plan, including the construction of a large data center involving SoftBank Group, one of the world's largest technology investment groups based in Japan.

Camtek is heading into its upcoming earnings report with analysts projecting earnings per share of US$0.98, up from the same quarter last year, after the stock closed its most recent session at US$138.59. The company has guided for Q3 2026 revenue of US$158 million to US$160 million, implying about 20 percent sequential growth, supported by large Hawk and Eagle G5 orders tied to AI and HBM applications. Camtek's narrative projects US$821.7 million in revenue and US$367.0 million in earnings by 2029, requiring 18.1 percent yearly revenue growth and roughly a US$319 million earnings increase from US$48.1 million today, with a fair value estimate of US$187.25, a 35 percent upside to the current price. The most cautious analysts assume revenue of about US$762 million and earnings near US$375 million by 2029, underscoring how sharply expectations can differ. The core risk remains that demand from a concentrated set of HPC and Asia based customers could prove more volatile than expected.

Aeluma Inc is shifting its near-term commercialization focus to the AI datacom market, backed by a letter of intent with the Department of Commerce CHIPS R&D Office for up to $30 million in non-dilutive funding. The company ended fiscal 2026 with $56 million in cash and no debt, but reported a net loss of $9.2 million, wider than the $3 million loss in fiscal 2025, and adjusted EBITDA of negative $5.2 million versus positive $186,000 a year earlier. Aeluma expects government contract revenue to fall to approximately $2.3 million in fiscal 2027 from $4.5 million in fiscal 2026, while planning capital expenditures of $10 million to $12 million, mainly for two Aixtron G10 MOCVD reactors. The company strengthened its manufacturing partnership with Sumitomo Chemical Advanced Technologies and is negotiating commercial NRE agreements, though no deals are guaranteed. Management said the CHIPS award, if finalized, would likely be accounted for as an equity investment by the U.S. government rather than revenue.

China has unveiled a new five-year development plan for manufacturing in electronics- and information technology-related industries, setting a target to raise revenue above 30 trillion yuan, or 4.5 trillion dollars, by 2030. The plan was drawn up jointly by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, or MIIT, and the National Development and Reform Commission, or NDRC. It covers the strategic framework from 2026 to 2030 and reflects the Chinese government's push for supply chain self-reliance, aiming for global leadership in strategically important emerging technologies from artificial intelligence to advanced computing, amid ongoing global competition. Beyond the revenue target, China also aims to raise research and development investment in the industry to 3.5% by 2030, setting out 17 missions covering nine key industry groups, from electronic components and materials, specialised manufacturing and measurement equipment, photonics, advanced computing, consumer electronics, power electronics, positioning and timing information technology, chips and AI endpoint devices, through to industrial electronics. The plan also drives technology development in the integrated circuit industry supply chain, while upgrading advanced electronic materials and smart sensors. In computing and memory, China will develop high-bandwidth flash memory alongside new forms of storage products such as Ferroelectric RAM, Resistive RAM and Magnetoresistive RAM, and aims to build very large-scale intelligent computing infrastructure supporting AI clusters equipped with hundreds of thousands of accelerator cards, while accelerating the deployment of space computing technology. The announcement of this sector-specific plan follows China's release on September 7 of its 15th five-year development plan for the information and communications industry, drawn up by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Samsung Electronics agreed a new collaboration with Mistral AI to deploy advanced on-premises AI models in chip manufacturing, and expanded its partnership with ASML to include High NA EUV lithography for future memory and logic production lines. The company plans to use these AI and High NA EUV tools to support precision, security and efficiency in its semiconductor operations. Samsung runs a broad hardware and components portfolio across consumer devices, IT and mobile, and chipmaking, so tighter links with specialist AI model developers and lithography equipment suppliers speak directly to how its device solutions arm positions itself within global semiconductor supply chains. The move strengthens the Samsung Electronics Narrative catalyst around tight memory supply and HBM4E demand, while closer cooperation with ASML on High NA EUV and 12 inch photomasks leans into the heavy R&D and capex risk already flagged, since each new generation of tools can lift capital intensity and execution pressure in fabs. Investors should watch how Samsung describes AI enabled yield, defect detection and High NA EUV deployment progress in its next few quarterly disclosures, especially any 2027 to 2028 updates tied to planned High NA introduction in DRAM high volume manufacturing.

Axcelis Technologies is pointing to renewed growth as memory, power and aftermarket demand improve, with management expecting full-year 2026 revenues to grow at a mid-single-digit rate and further growth in 2027. The Zacks Consensus Estimate calls for 2027 revenues of $981 million and earnings of $5.29 per share, versus $884 million and $4.12 expected for 2026. Customer Solutions & Innovation revenues increased 35.1% year over year to $82.8 million in the second quarter of 2026, up 14% sequentially from $72.6 million. Second-quarter non-GAAP gross margin was 42.7%, down from 45.2% a year earlier, and non-GAAP operating margin fell to 14.7% from 17.7%, even as revenues rose 10.6% year over year. Axcelis trades at 21.2X forward 12-month earnings, above the Zacks industry multiple of 20.0X and its five-year median of 18.6X, and its pending all-stock combination with Veeco Instruments still depends on regulatory approval from China's State Administration for Market Regulation after shareholders approved the related share issuance in February 2026.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing reported second-quarter 2026 EPS of $4.31 against a $3.8866 estimate, a 10.89% beat, on revenue of $40.2 billion, up 36.0% year over year, with gross margin of 67.7%, up 9.1 percentage points year over year. Advanced nodes at 7nm and below accounted for 77% of wafer revenue, with 3nm at 30%, 5nm at 33%, and 2nm debuting at 3% in its first commercial quarter. August monthly revenue rose 53.3% year over year, and management raised full-year 2026 growth guidance to slightly above 40% year over year in U.S. dollar terms. Management said packaging capacity is so tight that it is now a little bit of customers' growth, pointing to the CoWoS advanced packaging step as the industry's real choke point. The company guided that the steep 2nm ramp will dilute third-quarter gross margin by about 3 to 4 percentage points, while citing an additional $100 billion U.S. investment and a total Arizona commitment of $265 billion, $110 billion in cash and marketable securities, a 2024 to 2029 revenue CAGR approaching 25% in USD, and a long-term gross margin above 56%.

According to preliminary trade statistics released by the Ministry of Finance on the 16th, Japan's trade balance for August posted a deficit of 1.1056 trillion yen, marking a fourth consecutive monthly deficit. The median forecast from private research firms compiled by Reuters was a deficit of 1.0526 trillion yen, putting the result roughly in line with market expectations. Exports rose 19.3 percent from a year earlier to 10.0484 trillion yen, lifted by semiconductors and other electronic components, automobiles, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. By region, exports to the United States climbed 24.9 percent year on year to 1.7244 trillion yen, with particularly notable growth in automobiles and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, while shipments to the European Union, Asia, and China all increased as well. Imports, meanwhile, rose 28.0 percent from a year earlier to 11.154 trillion yen.

ASML Holding N.V. is examining ways to produce more than 110 EUV lithography systems in 2028, according to JPMorgan analysts following a meeting with CFO Roger Dassen. The company is already nearly sold out for 2027 and expects to produce at least 80 EUV systems that year, so output above 110 in 2028 would represent at least a 37.5% increase from the 2027 level. JPMorgan said the main constraint has shifted toward assembly speed rather than the availability of critical components, suggesting ASML believes additional capacity can be unlocked through manufacturing and assembly improvements. The potential increase is being driven primarily by AI-related demand, with ASML's existing EUV machines, which cost roughly $200 million each, essential for manufacturing leading-edge AI processors, while customers including TSMC, Samsung, SK Hynix and Intel are expanding advanced-chip capacity. Reuters reported separately that virtually all of ASML's EUV production capacity is booked through 2027, while the company has begun construction of a new Eindhoven facility designed to accelerate tool assembly and eventually accommodate up to 20,000 workers.

Applied Materials' Applied Global Services business posted record revenue of $1.78 billion in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, up 22% year over year, with operating margin improving 280 basis points. Management said customers are bringing new fabs online while optimizing existing facilities, and more than 37,000 chambers are now connected to Applied Materials' AIx software for AI-powered monitoring, diagnostics and predictive analytics. The company added more than 1,500 manufacturing and AGS support employees in the quarter and plans to double quarterly system output from current levels by 2028, with further capacity additions through 2030. Customers are providing longer-term forecasts that support AGS revenue growth of more than 20% in 2026 and a sustainable mid-teens annual rate over the longer term, and Applied Materials expects AGS revenue of approximately $1.84 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. Applied Materials expects non-GAAP earnings of $4.02 per share, plus or minus 20 cents, for 85% year-over-year growth at the midpoint, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate points to 86.6% growth.

Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon reiterated a Buy rating on ASML and raised his price target from $2,623 to $2,859, a Street high implying roughly 70% upside from the stock's current $1,698.30, after shares fell 6.17% over the past month. The consensus target across 43 covering analysts sits at $2,157.87, about 27% above spot, with ratings of 6 Strong Buy, 32 Buy, 4 Hold and 1 Sell. The decline came despite Q2 revenue of $10.65 billion, up 21.3% year over year, and a raised full-year 2026 guidance of €43 billion to €45 billion, with selling attributed to US and Dutch export controls that have China guided to about 20% of 2026 revenue and to a rotation out of semiconductor equipment names. Rasgon's thesis rests on ASML's EUV and High-NA EUV monopoly, tools running over $350 million per unit, an AI capex supercycle that has management planning to add 30% to 2026 low-NA EUV capacity for 2027, and a 2026 gross margin guided to 54% to 56%. Memory-related net system sales are guided to grow over 75% in 2026, and the 2027 EPS consensus has climbed from $41.49 to $51.72 over ninety days on 28 upward revisions and none down. Among peers, Applied Materials fell 16.63% over the past month to $456.49 against a consensus target of $640.89, Lam Research slipped 8.55% to $298.22 against $373.13, and KLA dropped 13.16% to $180.64 against $233.77.

Piper Sandler initiated coverage on Intel Corporation with a Neutral rating and a $110 price target on September 9, with analyst David O'Connor arguing that Agentic AI workloads are driving demand for Intel's server CPUs while supply remains limited. O'Connor expects that supply-demand imbalance to persist until around 2029-2030, a favorable backdrop for whoever holds capacity, and Piper estimates Intel's Data Center Group could deliver a high-teens revenue CAGR through 2030, enough to more than offset softness in PC and memory. Intel's Data Center and AI Segment posted $6.3 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2026, up 59% year-over-year. Piper said Intel's current share price already discounts roughly 15% of the foundry gains, a level representing an estimated one full fab module known as Fab-62 and accounting for 45% of the share price, meaning investors are already paying for a meaningful manufacturing recovery. The firm also noted upside in customer evaluations for 14A manufacturing and a recent milestone in which Intel Foundry became the first to run high-volume production using ASML's newest High-NA EUV lithography tools, while 138 hedge funds held the stock at the end of the quarter, up from 112 in the prior quarter, and short interest stood at 2.9% of the public float as of August 31, 2026.

Applied Materials is guiding toward its first-ever $10 billion revenue quarter, with management setting a midpoint of $10.25 billion, plus or minus $500 million, for its fiscal fourth quarter of 2026, which runs through late October. That midpoint sits about 51% above the year-ago period, when fiscal fourth-quarter revenue fell 3% to $6.80 billion. The guidance range bottoms out at $9.75 billion, so management's own forecast leaves room to fall short of the milestone. The company's fiscal third quarter, ended July 26, was itself record-setting, with revenue rising 25% year over year to $9.12 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share reaching a record $3.50, up 41%. Management has beaten its own guidance all year, and CEO Gary Dickerson said in the fiscal third-quarter earnings release that based on increased demand visibility from customers, the company expects another strong growth year in 2027. Applied guided fourth-quarter adjusted earnings per share to $4.02, plus or minus $0.20, up about 85% from the year-ago quarter's $2.17, and shares trade around $462, down about 38% from their 52-week high of $739.67.

Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell said enterprises are still in the early stages of adopting artificial intelligence infrastructure, with only about 10% to 15% of companies understanding AI's strategic importance and moving to implement it. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Dell said the company exited the quarter with $95 billion in AI server backlog after converting $130 billion in orders over the past year, and it now supports 6,500 enterprise AI Factory customers. He said roughly 85% of data remains on-premises, and that most of the world's 50 largest economies have two or three sovereign AI projects underway, with perhaps half of that opportunity outside the United States. Dell said the semiconductor supply environment could stay structurally constrained and become more difficult in 2027 than in 2026, though customers are now focused on securing product availability rather than price alone. He also said Dell IP storage grew 26% and PC revenue rose 20% in the prior quarter, and that operating expenses have fallen to roughly 8% of sales.

Jim Cramer told a Mad Money caller on September 9 that he would go beyond holding Applied Materials and make it a long-term buy, citing CEO Gary Dickerson's interview with David Faber that day. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference on September 9, Dickerson said Applied's semiconductor equipment business was approaching 40% revenue growth in 2026, up from forecasts of more than 20% in February and more than 30% in May, driven largely by AI and data-center demand, with agentic AI identified as a major 2026 driver. Dickerson said the company has an eight-quarter rolling forecast and customer commitments extending through 2030, and that growth in 2027 would be strong and growth beyond 2027 very strong, though he gave no specific 2027 figure. Applied Materials' fiscal third-quarter revenue rose 25% year over year to a record $9.12 billion, while GAAP EPS increased 43% to $3.17. The stock closed at $468.85 on September 9, a 26.25 forward P/E, with China at $2.506 billion, or 28% of fiscal third-quarter revenue, down from 35% a year earlier, and the company recorded a $253 million charge tied to a settlement with the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security over export-controls compliance. Hedge fund holders of Applied Materials numbered 137 in the second quarter versus 138 in the first, and short interest stood at approximately 1.5% of the float.

Micron Technology lost $57 billion in market capitalization on Thursday even as the memory shortage driving its earnings worsened, with the stock closing at $977.41, down 4.9%. The company reported fiscal Q3 2026 revenue of $41.46 billion, beating the $35.25 billion consensus by 17.60% and rising 345.7% year over year, while non-GAAP EPS of $25.11 beat the $20.28 consensus by 23.79%. Guidance for fiscal Q4 calls for revenue of $50 billion plus or minus $1 billion, non-GAAP EPS of $31 plus or minus $1, and gross margin of approximately 86%, the highest revenue outlook the company has ever issued. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said management does not yet have line of sight as to when memory supply will catch up with demand, and the company expects tight supply-demand conditions to persist beyond calendar 2027. Micron has signed 16 Strategic Customer Agreements, typically five-year take-or-pay contracts covering roughly 20% of DRAM volume and a third of NAND volume, with 14 of the 16 carrying a minimum-price commitment worth about $100 billion cumulatively, alongside roughly $18 billion in cash deposits and $4 billion in letters of credit. An Intel-backed memory startup entering the market added a competitive overhang to the session, and management said it intends to increase capital returns from December 9, 2026.

Lam Research said semiconductor equipment demand is "fundamentally sold out," with eight to 10 new clean rooms expected at its tier-one customers between now and the end of next year. Speaking during a Goldman Sachs discussion, an unnamed Lam executive said the company is prioritizing customer execution, capacity readiness and product-roadmap delivery, and is expanding manufacturing, hiring and installation resources to meet tool demand that customers want sooner than Lam can provide it. Lam's Customer Support Business Group posted its third consecutive record revenue quarter at nearly $2.5 billion, covering spare parts, services, equipment upgrades and the Reliant mature-node product line. The company reported gross margin of 52%, its highest in 20 years, and reiterated guidance of 51% to 52%, while saying differentiated products, operating closer to customers and pricing efforts could lift gross margin into the mid-50% range over several years. Lam expects DRAM wafer-fab-equipment spending to remain the largest contributor next year, followed by leading-edge foundry and logic, with NAND also growing, and it said the NAND conversion cycle should involve about $40 billion in spending through the end of next year. The executive added that major M&A is not part of Lam's ongoing strategy, though the company may pursue small tuck-in acquisitions from time to time.