In short: Subscriber view, passing: named in the "sell the knives" upstream-supplier list; cheaper inference should drive "greater demand for compute, memory, and semiconductor manufacturing capacity."
13:22In this knife fight, you want to be the one selling the knives. Upstream semiconductor suppliers such as ASML, KLA, LAM Research, and Applied Materials, together with memory suppliers such as Micron and SK Hynix. They benefit regardless of whether the winner is Nvidia, a hyperscaler, an AI lab, or some architecture we haven't seen yet.
In short: The ramp steepens. Q4 revenue (June quarter) +30% Y/Y to $6.7B ($50M beat), adjusted EPS $1.82 ($0.14 beat), gross margin 52% — the highest in 20 years — and a record 38% operating margin. Unlike the semi-equipment names that sold off this season, Lam rallied, because the Q1 FY27 guide was far ahead: September-quarter revenue of $8.1B at the midpoint against ~$7.1B consensus (more than 20% sequential growth) with EPS $2.00–$2.30 vs ~$1.84. AI demand is broadening across the franchises: NAND revenue doubled sequentially on 200+ layer architectures and AI's appetite for persistent memory; advanced-packaging growth guidance jumped to more than 70% Y/Y on chiplets, HBM stacks and panel-level packaging; CSBG +17% sequentially to $2.5B. The margin framework moved up too — mid-50s gross and mid-40s operating margin targeted over the next several years, tracking to a high-30s share of WFE faster than the 2025 Investor Day plan. CEO Tim Archer called for a third straight year of outperforming WFE. The constraint is now whether customers can absorb tools at this delivery pace. (Recap, not a stance call.)
Lam sells the machines chipmakers use to build chips, so its orders lead the industry by a year or more. While most chip-related stocks sold off this season on fears that AI spending is peaking, Lam rose — because it guided next quarter to $8.1 billion against roughly $7.1 billion expected, more than 20% growth in a single quarter. That is a company telling you the buildout is accelerating, not fading. The demand is broadening too: sales into NAND flash memory doubled in one quarter, and advanced packaging (the technique used to stack memory next to AI processors) is guided to grow more than 70%. Management even raised its long-run profitability targets. The only constraint left is physical — whether customers can install tools as fast as Lam can ship them. A recap, not a call.
In short: Named alongside ASML as the "supply chain" you would have to phone for fab equipment — same get-in-line point about how hard memory supply is to add. Passing reference.
52:16We'll keep doing research. We can report back to you. But it's if you woke up today said, "Hey, I'm going to phone, all the supply chain lamb researchers and so forth, say, I want equipment to build. I need to call up ASML." Yeah. Get in line. And so I think it's I think it's but I come back to my valuation discipline.
In short: One of the semi-equipment leaders moving the S&P higher (up ~8-9% on the day), and a memory derivative (with KLA and Applied) levered to the extended cycle.
Lam Research builds the etching and deposition machines that are especially important for making memory chips — so it's tightly levered to the memory boom Terranova thinks is secular. It was one of the semi-equipment names leading the S&P higher on the day (up ~8-9%). Same logic as KLA and Applied: own the picks-and-shovels suppliers to the memory build-out.
In short: Of his three semicap names, "Lam's probably done the best" — up on the order of 200% year-over-year (deposition/etch, levered to the memory boom). Semicap correlations are high: "you could own the basket and be okay."
Lam Research makes the equipment that deposits material onto silicon wafers and etches it away — two of the four basic steps repeated dozens of times to build a chip. Lam is especially levered to memory chips, which are the hottest corner of the boom (memory prices "have gone crazy"), and it has been the best performer of Rasgon's three equipment names — up on the order of 200% year over year.
His broader point about the equipment makers: the "big five" (Applied Materials, Lam, KLA, ASML, Tokyo Electron) control 70%+ of the market and move together — "you could own the basket and be okay."
46:24And and you could own all of them. You you'd be okay. You could own the basket. There's been divergences. Lamb has probably done I I definitely but year over year Lamb's probably done the best of at least of my three. I cover AAT Lamb and KLA. — Okay. — Um Lamb's probably done the best. KLA's probably done the quote unquote worst, but I mean they're all up.
In short: "Lam Research happens to be my favorite" — high exposure to memory, where the market's still skeptical after years of under-spending; a "middle of 27, 28 story" with "a boom in spending." The street may be "50 to 70% too low"; he sees ~$55B revenue and margins "significantly higher."
Lam Research makes the machines that chip factories use to manufacture memory chips (it's a "semiconductor equipment" or WFE — wafer-fab-equipment — company). It's Shaulov's favorite idea. His logic: for years memory makers barely invested in new capacity, so the market is skeptical that big orders are coming.
He thinks that's wrong — a wave of memory spending is coming around 2027-2028, and because Lam is heavily tied to memory, its sales and profits should jump well past what Wall Street expects (he says estimates are 50-70% too low, with revenue around $55 billion and fatter margins). When the chipmakers finally spend, the toolmaker gets paid first.
22:40I don't see very much downside.
23:15billion dollars of revenue and margins will go significantly higher. That's one of my favorites. And I actually think the analog semiconductor sector is quite interesting. There's a decent chance that this could look like memory from a pricing standpoint of how tight things are. So someone pretty smart pitched Finian earlier at the conference.
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