Shows
Semi DopedMicron's Record Profits, Apple's CXMT Plea: AI is Eating All the MemoryAustin and Vik break down the current memory crisis, where AI demand is driving unprecedented profits for memory makers like Micron, while simultaneously causing inflation and price hikes for consumer electronics. They discuss how even premium brands like Apple are struggling to secure supply, leading them to controversial suppliers. The hosts also explore the long-term implications of AI's insatiable memory appetite and its impact on both data center and consumer markets.Chapters:0:00 Memory crisis hits1:20 AI impacting consumers3:00 AI causing inflation6:48 Consumer demand drop?8:49 AI demand inelastic10:56 Long-term memory outlook11:02...
2026-07-0350 minSemi DopedQualcomm's HBC Memory, Alphawave, Modular, and moreQualcomm flew Austin to New York for its investor day, where the communications company laid out a plan to make data center, automotive, and IoT two-thirds of its business by FY29. Austin was in the room and asked Cristiano Amon a question on the record. Vik watched the whole thing on YouTube. Together they break down what actually changed.The technical centerpiece is High Bandwidth Compute (HBC): stacking LPDDR on top of logic to expose the whole face of the chip for interconnects, claiming up to 100x more lanes and a path around the HBM bandwidth bottleneck...
2026-06-2959 minSemi DopedAdvanced Packaging, TSMC CoWoS, Intel EMIBNew episode: Advanced packaging for AI chips, from wire bonds to TSMC CoWOS and Intel EMIB.Packaging is no longer an afterthought. It is the chip, and Intel's EMIB challenges TSMC's CoWOS.Three CoWOS flavors: silicon, organic RDL, local bridgesEMIB embeds tiny bridges into the substrate, no interposerEMIB-T and EMIB-M add through-silicon vias and power capacitorsGoogle is booking 3M TPUs on EMIB via MediaTek by 2028Package sizes keep climbing: 5.5x reticle today, 40x aheadThis episode is brought to you by SambaNova. Try SambaNova's fast inference today at the SambaNova Dashboard!...
2026-06-191h 09
Semi DopedComputex Mania 2026: Optics and PowerAustin and Vik discuss their recent experience at Computex, where they met for the first time in person after six months of podcasting together. They share insights about the massive show, the people they connected with, and the exciting developments in AI hardware and interconnect technology. Connect with Vik and Austin via a daily free newsletter:https://www.semidoped.comVik's Paid Substack: https://www.viksnewsletter.comAustin's Paid Substack: https://www.chipstrat.comChapters00:00 Meeting in Person for the First Time03:05 Experiencing Computex...
2026-06-1248 min
Wellness Your Way with Dr. Megan LyonsE292: Stop Fighting Your Body: The Power of Adaptation, Not Perfection with Dr. Nahal DelpassandIn this episode:I talk with psychologist Dr. Nahal Delpassand about chronic illness, invisible conditions, and the pressure many high-achieving women feel to constantly push through discomfort. We discuss how to better listen to your body, separate your identity from your health challenges, and shift from always trying to “fix” yourself toward a more balanced and sustainable approach to wellness.Dr. Nahal Delpassand is a licensed psychologist based in Austin, Texas, with nearly a decade of experience in private practice. She has particular expertise in working with individuals navigating chronic illness, disability, and the psychological impl...
2026-06-0241 min
Semi DopedHuawei's Tau Scaling Law: Is the "EUV Killer" Real?Huawei dropped a paper claiming 1.4nm-class performance without EUV, and the internet immediately declared ASML dead and US export controls useless. Austin and Vik recorded one day after Memorial Day to unpack what Huawei actually announced at ISCAS 2026 — and why the "EUV killer" headline gets the story backwards.They walk through the tau scaling law (tau is delay, and the idea is to attack it at the system level instead of the transistor), logic folding via hybrid bonding, the Kirin 2026 that doubles transistor count without shrinking, and who can actually manufacture stacked logic. Then the other tau kn...
2026-05-2938 min
Semi DopedLithography MasterclassSpend one hour here and you've caught up on the entire arc of semiconductor lithography. Austin and Vik run a masterclass on the technology that decides who gets to make leading-edge chips, and why so few companies can afford to.The thread is economics. An EUV machine runs about $400 million, a new fab needs roughly 15 of them, and the total bill clears $20-30 billion before a single wafer ships. Austin and Vik trace the whole story: Rock's Law and the cost of a fab, what it actually takes to build one, the evolution from 193nm DUV through...
2026-05-221h 03Semi DopedCerebras IPOCerebras IPO is the only thing to talk about this week. 🔥IPO prices at $185/share. Pops nearly 70% right after. The first wafer-scale chip company to make it public — after a 40-year curse killed every prior attempt.A water-cooler-style convo on what Cerebras actually builds, why a 23 kW wafer is a power and cooling nightmare, why 44 GB of SRAM is both the magic and the wall for LLM inference, and the cursed Trilogy Systems saga that Gene Amdahl tried — and failed — to pull off in 1983.Why does Cerebras leave the whole wafer intact instead of dicing...
2026-05-1550 minSemi DopedGimlet's Cross-Vendor Inference CloudGimlet Labs runs an inference cloud built on heterogeneous silicon. Their software traces a PyTorch workload, segments it into its component parts, and schedules each piece onto the best-suited hardware — connecting chips from different vendors on a single high-speed fabric.In this interview, Gimlet co-founder Natalie Serrino and former Intel executive Beltir walk through the architecture (graph trace, optimal split points, lowering each segment to TensorRT on NVIDIA and equivalents elsewhere), the three customer segments they sell into (frontier labs, sovereign clouds, AI natives), and a concrete demo: on GPT-OSS 120B at 8K input / 1K output, running th...
2026-05-1248 min
The Story LensJoanna Lyons x The Story Lens"I couldn't have written these stories back then when I was younger, in my 30s. I hadn't lived enough. I hadn't suffered heartbreak. I hadn't lost anyone close to me. hadn't, you know, I didn't have friends that felt ill."Author Jo Lyons tells The Story Lens how she uses life experience in every book!Joanna Lyonshttps://jolyonsauthor.com/Michael Leckiehttps://www.michaelleckie.co.uk/The Story Lenshttps://thestorylens.co.uk/
2026-05-1258 minSemi DopedPower as the Next Physics Wall for AIWhat's common to optics and power that ruins everything in the era of AI?Resistance.The same physics that drove interconnects to optics is now driving low-voltage power delivery up to 800V. Austin Lyons (Chipstrat) and Vik Sekar (Vik's Newsletter) unpack it using the Kyber rack as an example.At 600kW and 48V, you're pushing 12,500 amps through a single rack. Power loss scales with I². The math doesn't work. The fix is 800V — and the parts come straight from the EV traction inverter ecosystem (SiC, GaN, IGBTs).We cover the full gri...
2026-05-0841 minSemi DopedCapEx is just Memory Tax Now, Deepseek V4 NAND impactThe hyperscaler memory tax quarter.More CapEx? Pssh. We knew flops needed scaling.But $25B at Microsoft alone just to pay higher component prices? A memory tax. That's the news.NAND? Sold out. HBM? Sold out.What we cover:SanDisk revenue +97% sequential.78% gross margin. Guidance above 80% next quarter.Samsung HBM4 first to ship. Demand outstripping supply.DeepSeek v4 goes SSD-centric. KV cache offloads to flash.Microsoft: $25B of 2026 CapEx is just memory pricing.Jassy: memory shortage pushes on-prem to AWS.Qualcomm: mystery custom ASIC. Ships December.New S...
2026-05-0445 min
Semi DopedMasterclass on Google's TPU v8 NetworkingGoogle's Cloud Next 2026 keynote? Fire. 🔥The TPU is now two chips instead of one — 8t for training, 8i for inference — but more interestingly, it's two scale-up networking topologies too.Austin Lyons (Chipstrat) and Vik Sekar (Vik's Newsletter) walk through what actually changed, one day after the announcement. OCS? Yes. AECs? Yep. Copper? Yep. Optics? Yep.We cover Virgo (Google's 47 petabit/second scale-out fabric, built entirely on OCS), Boardfly (the new scale-up topology for MoE inference that cuts hop count from 16 to 7), and the 3D torus Google still uses for training.Why is opti...
2026-04-2446 min
Semi DopedMeta VP Matt Steiner on Ads Infra, GPUs, MTIA, and LLM-Written KernelsMatt Steiner, VP of Monetization Infrastructure, Ranking & AI Foundations at Meta, walks through how Meta's ad system actually works, and why the infrastructure behind it differs from what you'd build for LLMs.We cover Andromeda (retrieval on a custom NVIDIA Grace Hopper SKU Meta co-designed), Lattice (consolidating N ranking models into one), GEM (Meta's Generative Ads Recommendation foundation model), and the adaptive ranking model, a roughly one-trillion-parameter recommender served at sub-second latency.We get into why recommender workloads aren't embarrassingly parallel like LLMs (the "personalization blob"), what that means for Meta's MTIA custom silicon roadmap...
2026-04-2039 min
Semi DopedCredo + Dust Photonics, XPO, NuvacoreAustin and Vik discuss Credo's acquisition of Dust Photonics, XPO as the new standard for scale-out (maybe instead of CPO?) and some thoughts about Nuvacore entering the CPU scene for agentic AI.Gavin Baker's tweet: https://x.com/GavinSBaker/status/2044410644301046031?s=20Vik's Substack: https://www.viksnewsletter.comAustin's Substack: https://www.chipstrat.comChapters00:00 Introduction to the Semiconductor Landscape02:49 The Rise of Nuvacore and CPU Innovations05:27 The Demand for CPUs in the AI Era07:59 Photonics: The Next Frontier in Semiconductors10:26 Credo's Acquisition of Dust Photonics13:12...
2026-04-1738 min
Semi DopedIs Intel Finally Back with a $300B market cap? OpenClaw can Dream?In this episode, Austin and Vik discuss if Intel is finally back with CPU partnerships with Google, and heterogeneous inference with SambaNova, while market cap soars above $300B. Vik tries to get his OpenClaw instance to dream every night.Chapters00:00 Anthropic's New Direction: Chip Development02:30 Navigating Subscription Changes and Token Costs05:25 Exploring Alternative AI Models08:10 The Economics of AI: Rent vs. Buy10:56 Intel's Resurgence and Market Dynamics15:23 Intel's Strategic Partnerships and Market Positioning19:37 The Role of IPUs in Modern Computing25:08 Coexistence of x86 and ARM Architectures29:55 Innovations...
2026-04-1034 min
Semi DopedReiner Pope (MatX): Designing AI Chips From First Principles for LLMsReiner Pope is the co-founder and CEO of MatX, the startup building chips designed from first principles for LLMs. Before MatX, Reiner was on the Google Brain team training LLMs, and his co-founder Mike Gunter was on the TPU team. They left Google one week before ChatGPT was released.A counterintuitive throughput insight from the conversation:“Low latency means small batch sizes. That is just Little’s law. Memory occupancy in HBM is proportional to batch size. So you can actually fit longer contexts than you could if the latency were larger. Low latency is not...
2026-04-0938 minSemi Doped$300M for 70K Viewers | Intel x Elon, OpenAI x TBPN, Citrini's Strait of Hormuz StuntIntel Foundry just partnered with Elon Musk’s Terafab. What is Terafab anyway, why vertically integrated fabs make sense but the economics don’t (yet!), and what Intel is doing here (hint: no idea).Then: OpenAI acquires TBPN for an estimated $100-300M. Not sure why, but the more interesting thing is the value of niche audiences when five companies control a trillion dollars in AI capex.And finally, Citrini Research sent an analyst to the Strait of Hormuz with a Pelican case full of spy gear, $15K cash, and Cuban cigars. The most unhinged rese...
2026-04-0736 min
Semi DopedNVIDIA's Marvell Strategy, Is Memory Different This Time?, Intel's Ireland FabIn this episode, Austin and Vik analyze NVIDIA's $2 billion investment in Marvell NVLink Fusion, exploring its implications for AI infrastructure, interconnect protocols, and the broader chip ecosystem. They also discuss the current memory market surge, DRAM pricing, and Intel's strategic fab buyback, providing deep insights into industry trends and future directions.On SubstackVik: https://www.viksnewsletter.com/Austin: https://www.chipstrat.com/Chapters00:00 NVIDIA's $2 Billion Investment in Marvell20:11 The Memory Market Crisis20:16 The Future of Memory Pricing and Consumer Impact22:55 The Cycle of Supply and Demand in...
2026-04-0342 min
Semi DopedARM AGI CPU has entered the chat, TurboQuant thrashes memory stocksIn this episode, Austin and Vik analyze recent developments in GloFo patent lawsuits, the impact of TurboQuant on AI inference, and ARM's strategic move into silicon for agentic AI workloads. Read Vik's substack: https://www.viksnewsletter.comRead Austin's substack: https://www.chipstrat.comChapters00:00 Patent Wars in Semiconductor Industry07:14 Understanding TurboQuant and Its Implications24:42 Innovations in Memory Management28:00 The Rise of ARM AGI CPUs32:56 Agentic AI and CPU Compatibility39:54 Performance Metrics in Agentic AI44:52 ARM's Market Timing and Challenges
2026-03-2752 min
Semi DopedMicroLEDs Ain’t Dead, Micron Snags Vera RubinAustin and Vik break down a packed week in semiconductors, covering GTC, OFC, and Micron earnings. The conversation kicks off with Jensen Huang's bold claim that engineers should spend $250K/year on AI tokens, and whether companies will buy tokens or token generators (i.e., on-prem hardware like the Dell Pro Max with GB300). They dig into the CapEx vs OpEx tradeoffs, data security concerns, and how sharing GPU resources might end up looking a lot like the old EDA license model.Next up: Micron crushed earnings and appears to be designed into Vera Rubin for HBM4 — de...
2026-03-2043 min
Semi DopedQuick Takes: Nvidia Keynote at GTCVik and Austin unpack the Nvidia GTC keynote with fresh, top-of-mind takes while trying to breakdown key announcements, what matters and what doesn't. They discuss Groq's LPX, optics+copper for scale up, new CPU requirements, CPO for networking, and what agents means for software, and much, much, more.Check out Austin's substack: https://www.chipstrat.comCheck out Vik's substack: https://www.viksnewsletter.comChapters00:00 Introduction and Keynote Context03:18 Keynote Highlights and Gaming Innovations06:18 Generative AI: The Three Eras09:28 Inference: The New Revenue Generator12:21 NVIDIA's Tiered...
2026-03-1758 min
THINQ Media PodcastNavigating the Digital Control Grid: Catherine Austin Fitts | Episode 376In this interview, Catherine Austin Fitts looks beneath the surface of screens and algorithms to reveal how systems like Digital ID and programmable money influence our attention, behavior, and culture. Rather than rejecting technology, she encourages us to approach it with discernment and intention, offering a way to steward our digital lives more thoughtfully. If you have ever felt your attention was hijacked or tech felt addictive, this conversation provides the wisdom needed to engage your screens without surrendering your mind. Resources: Watch the interview, Navigating the Digital Control Grid by Catherine Austin Fitts on THINQMedia.com. Listen...
2026-03-1618 min
Semi DopedMeta's Inference Accelerator & Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI)Austin recaps moderating an agentic AI panel at Synopsys Converge, then gives an in-depth technical breakdown of Meta's MTIA custom silicon. Why they're building it, how chiplets let them ship a new chip every 6 months, and how the roadmap is shifting toward gen AI inference. Vik digs into Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI), the vertically integrated Texas laser shop whose stock went from $1.48 to $100+, and whether history is about to rhyme. Austin Lyons: https://www.chipstrat.comVik Sekar: https://www.viksnewsletter.com/ Topics covered:• Agentic AI in chip design — how it changes roles for junior and senior engineers• Optical circuit switching and what it means for...
2026-03-131h 01
Semi DopedThe Great Optics-Copper CrossroadsThis week, Austin and Vik break down the optics vs. copper debate that rocked semis this week. Nvidia dropped $4 billion on Lumentum and Coherent, Credo posted a blowout quarter betting on copper, and then Hock Tan shocked everyone claiming 400G per lane works over copper in Broadcom’s labs — potentially pushing CPO out to 2030+. Plus, Vik’s 4D chess conspiracy theory on why Hock Tan is talking up copper when Broadcom is a CPO company.Like, subscribe, and drop your thoughts on the copper vs. optics debate in the comments!Subscribe to our newsletters:* Chipst...
2026-03-0748 min
Semi DopedOptical Supply Chain: What would you buy?This week, we move from optics technology to optics companies. We walk the AI optical supply chain from bottom to top. Main debate: Who has a moat? Who is already priced for perfection? *Not investment advice, do your own due diligence*AXTI - Indium phosphide substrate supplier. Critical bottleneck in the laser stack. Major China export-control risk. Massive stock run vs thin earnings.Tower Semiconductor - Leading silicon photonics foundry. 5x capacity expansion with customer prepayments. Strong process lock-in. Pure-play optics exposure.GlobalFoundries - 300mm monolithic photonics p...
2026-02-271h 01
Semi DopedOptical Networking Supercycle - ALL the Tech You NEED to knowAustin and Vik delve into the evolving landscape of optics and networking, particularly in relation to AI and data centers. The conversation covers various scales of networking, including scale across, scale out, and scale up, while also addressing the demand-supply dynamics in laser manufacturing and the future of optical circuit switches. The episode highlights the technological advancements and market opportunities in the optics sector, emphasizing the significance of these developments for the future of AI.TakeawaysSilicon photonics is becoming crucial for data center connectivity.Optics is essential for overcoming...
2026-02-2046 min
Semi DopedMemory Mayhem & AI Capex MadnessIn this episode of the Semi Doped podcast, Austin and Vik delve into the current state of the semiconductor industry, focusing on the memory crisis driven by increasing demand from AI applications. They discuss the implications of rising memory prices, the impact of hyperscaler spending on the market, and the strategic moves of major players like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon in the AI landscape. TakeawaysMemory prices are skyrocketing, impacting consumer electronics.The memory crisis is affecting the production of lower-end devices.DRAM prices have doubled in a single quarter, creating challenges for...
2026-02-1358 min
Semi DopedThe future of financing AI infrastructure with Wayne Nelms, CTO of OrnnIn this episode, Vik and Wayne Nelms discuss the emerging financial exchange for GPU compute, exploring its implications for the AI infrastructure market. They discuss the value of compute, pricing dynamics, hedging strategies, and the future of GPU and memory trading. Wayne shares insights on partnerships, the depreciation of GPUs, and how inference demand may reshape hardware utilization. The conversation highlights the importance of financial products in facilitating data center development and optimizing profitability in the evolving landscape of compute resources.TakeawaysWayne Nelms is the CTO of Ornn, focusing on GPU c...
2026-02-1040 min
Semi DopedA New Era of Context Memory with Val Bercovici from WEKAVik and Val Bercovici discuss the evolution of storage solutions in the context of AI, focusing on Weka's innovative approaches to context memory, high bandwidth flash, and the importance of optimizing GPU usage. Val shares insights from his extensive experience in the storage industry, highlighting the challenges and advancements in memory requirements for AI models, the significance of latency, and the future of storage technologies.TakeawaysContext memory is crucial for AI performance.The demand for memory has drastically increased.Latency issues can hinder AI efficiency.High bandwidth flash offers new storage...
2026-02-0654 min
Semi DopedOpenClaw Makes AI Agents and CPUs Get RealAustin and Vik discuss the emerging trend of AI agents, particularly focusing on Claude Code and OpenClaw, and the resulting hardware implications.Key Takeaways:2026 is expected to be a pivotal year for AI agents.The rise of agentic AI is moving beyond marketing to practical applications.Claude Code is being used for more than just coding; it aids in research and organization.Integrating AI with tools like Google Drive enhances productivity.Security concerns arise with giving AI agents access to personal data.Local computing options for AI can reduce costs and increase control.AI...
2026-02-0347 min
Semi DopedAn Interview with Microsoft's Saurabh Dighe About Maia 200Maia 100 was a pre-GPT accelerator.Maia 200 is explicitly post-GPT for large multimodal inference.Saurabh Dighe says if Microsoft were chasing peak performance or trying to span training and inference, Maia would look very different. Higher TDPs. Different tradeoffs. Those paths were pruned early to optimize for one thing: inference price-performance. That focus drives the claim of ~30% better performance per dollar versus the latest hardware in Microsoft’s fleet.Intereting topics include:• What “30% better price-performance” actually means• Who Maia 200 is built for• Why Microsoft bet on inference when designing Maia back in 2022...
2026-01-2852 min
Semi DopedCan Pre-GPT AI Accelerators Handle Long Context Workloads?OpenAI's partnership with Cerebras and Nvidia's announcement of context memory storage raises a fundamental question: as agentic AI demands long sessions with massive context windows, can SRAM-based accelerators designed before the LLM era keep up—or will they converge with GPUs?Key Takeaways1. Context is the new bottleneck. As agentic workloads demand long sessions with massive codebases, storing and retrieving KV cache efficiently becomes critical.2. There's no one-size-fits-all. Sachin Khatti's (OpenAI, ex-Intel) signals a shift toward heterogeneous compute—matching specific accelerators to specific workloads.3. Cerebras has 44GB of S...
2026-01-2638 min
Semi DopedAn Interview with Innoviz CEO Omer Keilaf about current LiDAR market dynamicsInnoviz CEO Omer Keilaf believes the LIDAR market is down to its final players—and that Innoviz has already won its seat.In this conversation, we cover the Level 4 gold rush sparked by Waymo, why stalled Level 3 programs are suddenly accelerating, the technical moat that separates L4-grade LIDAR from everything else, how a one-year-old startup won BMW, and why Keilaf thinks his competitors are already out of the race.Omer Keilaf founded Innoviz in 2016. Today it's a publicly traded Tier 1 supplier to BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler Truck, and other global OEMs.Chapters 00:00 Int...
2026-01-2246 minSemi DopedLiDAR, Explained: How It Works and Why It MattersAustin and Vik discuss why LiDAR is important for autonomy, how modern systems work, and how the technology has evolved. They compare Time of Flight and FMCW architectures, explain why wavelength choice matters, and walk through the tradeoffs between 905 nm and 1550 nm across eye safety, cost, and performance. The discussion closes with a clear-eyed look at competition, Chinese suppliers, and supply chain risk.Chapters(00:00) Introduction to LiDAR and why it matters(05:40) The case for LiDAR in autonomous vehicles(12:41) Wavelengths, eye safety, and system tradeoffs(15:38) How LiDAR works...
2026-01-1935 minSemi DopedNvidia CES 2026Episode SummaryAustin and Vik break down NVIDIA’s CES 2026 keynote, focusing on Vera Rubin, DGX Spark and DGX Station, uneducated investor panic, and physical AI.Key TakeawaysDGX Spark brings server-class NVIDIA architecture to the desktop at low power, aimed at developers, enthusiasts, and enterprises experimenting locally. DGX Station functions more like a mini-AI rack on-prem: Grace Blackwell for inference and development without full racks The historical parallel is mainframes to minicomputers, expanding compute TAM rather than displacing cloud usage. On-prem AI converts some GPU rental OpEx into CapEx, appea...
2026-01-1247 minSemi DopedInsights from IEDM 2025Austin and Vik discuss key insights from the IEDM conference. They explore the significance of IEDM for engineers and investors, the networking opportunities it offers, and the latest innovations in silicon photonics, complementary FETs, NAND flash memory, and GaN-on-silicon chiplets. TakeawaysPenta-level NAND flash memory could disrupt the SSD marketGaN-on-Silicon chiplets enhance power efficiencyComplementary FETsOptical scale-up has a power problemThe future of transistors is still bright
2026-01-0842 min