Tag Archives: intc

HTC Vive Gutted: Micron Chips Stomp Facebook’s Oculus Rift

HTC Vive pummels Facebook ( FB )-owned Oculus Rift in terms of memory, but both tapped Apple ( AAPL ) supplier Texas Instruments ( TXN ) to lead their virtual reality headsets, teardowns from iFixit show . On Tuesday, iFixit unveiled its “Vive-section,” gutting HTC’s VR device to discover four Texas Instruments chips, including a variant on the 16-channel LED driver discovered inside the Rift. But the devices diverge largely on memory. Micron Technology ( MU ) supplies four Vive chips accounting for 72 megabits of flash memory vs. a single Winbond 64-MB chip supplying memory for the Rift. Vive and Rift both employ STMicroelectronics ( STM ) for an ARM-based microcontroller, and the former added in an STM transceiver for speed data transmission. Both also use a Toshiba converter. C-Media supplied an audio controller for the Vive, whereas Oculus tapped Apple supplier Cirrus Logic ( CRUS ) for the Rift audio codec. HTC chose  InvenSense ( INVN ) for its two gyroscope/accelerometer combos, vs. a Bosch Sensortec inertial sensor inside the Rift. HTC also added three NXP Semiconductors ( NXPI ) microcontrollers and a Broadcom ( AVGO ) Bluetooth smart system-on-a-chip. Nordic Semiconductor provided Bluetooth for the Rift. After broadly falling 1.3% Monday on Wall Street, IBD’s 41-company Electronic-Semiconductor Fabless industry group was up nearly 2% in afternoon trading on the stock market today . Micron stock was up more than 9.5%, after rival SK Hynix reported Q1 sales and earnings that fell sequentially and year over year in a tough DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) PC environment. NXP stock was up 4.5% after topping Q1 earnings views late Tuesday and ahead of Apple’s fiscal Q2 report late Tuesday. On Monday, NXP stock fell 1.2% on after an iFixit teardown showed Apple included Intel ( INTC ) and Broadcom inside its Retina MacBook 2016, but not NXP. Shares of fellow Apple suppliers InvenSense, Cirrus Logic and Broadcom were up a respective 4.5%, 2% and 1.5%. STMicroelectronics stock was up nearly 3%, and Texas Instruments stock was up a fraction.

Apple Supplier Integrated Device Rated Buy; Discount ‘Unwarranted’

Apple ( AAPL ) Watch supplier Integrated Device Technology ( IDTI ) is outgrowing the broad chip market with “superior” financial returns, a Needham analyst wrote Monday as he initiated coverage of the stock. But Integrated Device stock hasn’t recovered from a Feb. 2 nosedive that saw shares plunge 27% on the company’s massive March-quarter guidance miss. Wall Street had set the high bar after Integrated Device acquired privately-held ZMDI in December. Shares are now down 23% for the year. Intraday on the stock market today , Integrated Device stock was down more than 1%, near 20, despite Needham analyst N. Quinn Bolton’s buy rating and 26 price target. Integrated Device stock trades at an “unwarranted” discount to rivals, Bolton wrote in his research note. The company leads in its bread-and-butter wireless charging market with design wins at Samsung, Apple, LG, Ikea and Marriott ( MAR ). Bolton estimates the market will be a $500 million opportunity by 2020. By 2019, the market for memory interfaces — which improve computer memory bandwidth in servers — will grow to a $452 million opportunity from $144 million in 2011, Bolton estimates. “Though we expect a pause in Integrated Device’s memory interface revenue in 2017 as Broadwell-based servers ramp, we forecast a resumption in growth in 2018 as Intel ‘s ( INTC ) Purley platform ramps,” he wrote. Sales of high-performance, energy-efficient analog/mixed-signal chips will grow to $138 million in 2018 from $5 million in 2014, he says. Integrated Device diversified into that segment with its ZMDI acquisition.

Apple Retina MacBook 2016: Intel, Broadcom Inside; NXP Loses?

Heavyweight chipmakers Broadcom ( AVGO ), Intel ( INTC ) and Texas Instruments ( TXN ) again dominated as chip suppliers for the Apple ( AAPL ) Retina MacBook 2016, according to an iFixit teardown , which notes the MacBook finally joined its iPhone and iPad cousins in rose gold solidarity. The 12-inch MacBook comes equipped with “a faster processor and zippier flash memory.” Intel again supplied the core processor and an HD graphics card, and both flash-memory NAND chips (256 gigabytes) came from Toshiba. Samsung and Micron Technology ( MU ) split the difference in other memory vectors. Two Samsung chips provide a total 8 GB of RAM, and Micron supplied a single 4 GB DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) chip. Broadcom re-won its touchscreen controller and what iFixit believes to be a wireless chipset, and STMicroelectronics ( STM ) again supplied a microcontroller. Texas Instruments supplied a total of four chips, including a system management controller. The Dallas-based chipmaker showed up six times in the earlier iteration, but the 2016 teardown wasn’t as extensive as the 2015 teardown , iFixit said. Fellow Apple supplier NXP Semiconductors ( NXPI ) was seemingly ousted from the Retina MacBook 2016 logic board. In the 2015 model, the teardown showed NXP supplied a microcontroller and two interface expanders. Like its 2015 counterpart, the Retina MacBook 2016 earned a 1 out of a possible 10 in repairability from iFixit. The main reason is because the display is a single, fused unit, so “if the display needs replacing, it’ll cost a pretty penny.” In early afternoon trading on the stock market today , shares of both NXP and STMicroelectronics were down 2%, while Intel and Micron stock were each down 1%. Broadcom stock was lower by a fraction, and Texas Instruments stock was up a fraction.