泛林集团投资15亿美元扩建俄勒冈芯片研发实验室

Shares of Lam Research just surged at the end of last month. This was just after you reported results closing higher by close to 18%. Your reported fourth quarter results in an outlook for adjusted earnings that beat expectations. You said in a statement at the time that record revenue, operating margin and earnings per share at a record as AI driven demand continues to reshape the semiconductor industry. Can you give us some color of what you've seen day to day over the past four weeks that show what you're seeing with demand right now?

Well, thanks very much for having me today. It's a look, I think those results, you know, just indicate we're in an accelerating demand environment for semiconductors. And you know what Lam does I think most people realize. But you know, we make the machines that that help make all of those chips. And especially our strengths are in some of the most advanced manufacturing processes for chip making. So we're seeing tremendous demand with the AI build out and and all the chips required to support AI.

And I think that just week by week by week, we continue to just, uh, see, not only, uh, really, we don't talk a lot about capacity. In fact, the announcement we're making here today is about a new R&D lab. We're just seeing an acceleration of the pace of innovation. Um, the capabilities of each of those chips is something that we, uh, uh, we're we're investing to stay ahead of that demand. Tim, it's ed in San Francisco, and you're right, we don't really talk about at least lam in the context of more capacity.

Your challenge is to make increasingly tiny three dimensional structures at atomic level precision. And that's only getting more difficult in the air. How do these these lab investments help you get there? You know, one of the keys to to really accelerating innovation is, uh, working very closely with our customers. And so one of the things that's very unique about the announcement and, you know, the groundbreaking we have here in Oregon, I mean, the Oregon has been kind of the heart of the Silicon Forest for more than three decades.

And so a lab here in Oregon puts us close to a lot of the advanced chip making. That happens very close by here and by some of our very large customers. And, uh, we also have labs, uh, in Asia and Europe as well, to put us close to those customers. We think that by, um, shortening that distance and really building incredibly tight collaboration with our customers who understand what those next problems are to be solved.

Um, that that accelerates, uh, the velocity of innovation with, uh, um, them for those next generation. So that's what's unique about our lab strategy and the type of work that's, uh, that's done. So, Tim, why is the timing on this? I mean, why is lam investing so heavily? Now, what does the semiconductor manufacturing technology matter? Yeah. It, uh, you know, if you think about this, this lab here is part of a much bigger investment that we announced.

Uh, it's $3 billion across that global lab network. And you know why now, the pace of innovation I is fundamentally changed. The rate at which we have to be innovating. You know, I, I look back just a few years ago. And, you know, when the markets were driven by things like smartphones and PCs that cycle was operating, you know, kind of on the everyone 2 to 3 years, you needed to really innovate something new. Uh, I has changed that requirement such that, uh, with new AI models coming every, every few months and each of those demanding more computational power, uh, even better, high bandwidth memory, even more storage.

Um, you know, Lam is, uh, Lam is looking to meet those needs. We are a manufacturer of machines that make each and every one of those types of devices. And, uh, so, uh, there's a lot of demand for us to continue to come out with the, the next great innovation in process in manufacturing technology to keep up. Um, we've also seen a tremendous boom in the what's called advanced packaging. Um, it used to be that that in most cases, you built a single chip and it had a certain function, and you increased the performance of that chip by making it smaller and introducing new materials.

Advanced packaging changes the game, because now it is about putting many different types of chips together to create system level performance and, uh, putting all of these chips together and stacking them into a three dimensional architecture. It requires a lot of etch and deposition equipment. Uh, we said that our business in advanced packaging this year would be growing, uh, more than 70% year on year. And, uh, one of the particular tools, the copper electroplating tool that plays such an important role, that tool is actually developed and manufactured here in Oregon, which makes this such an important site for us.

Tim, you know, it's really important to underscore Nvidia as an example, is not your direct customer, right? It is TSMC and the memory makers. But, you know, it is the demand for lead edge chips across logic and memory. HBM that is the story out in the world. How much of that that growth in demand directly reads through to LAN? And how do you respond to it? Yeah, it's, uh, you know, if you look at advanced chips today, one of the trends that just is, uh, it's been a it's been around for a few years and I has really put it into hyperdrive is the three dimensional scaling of every device.

And so, of course, that's been true in, uh, foundry logic with technologies like gate all around introduction, a gate all around, which is a three dimensional transistor structure. But really, it comes to bear when you think about what high bandwidth memory is. High bandwidth memory is the stacking of multiple Dram chips, uh, on top of each other to create, um, higher bandwidth, uh, performance for I. And so clearly a three dimensional architecture that that requires a lot of deposition equipment and a lot of innovation for us to be able to support the manufacture of those structures.

Uh, Nand has been 3D, uh, has had a 3D architecture since, uh, more than ten years. And Lam is, uh, been a very strong player. In fact, it has traditionally been our our strongest market because of that 3D, um, um, architecture. And what we're seeing now is, as other devices go, 3D, it just drives a lot more demand for our specific types of equipment. Hey, Tim, we only have 20s left, but you mentioned this is part of a $3 billion effort to expand your global net lab network over the next five years.

You made that announcement just a couple of weeks ago. I'm curious, where do you think we are in the cycle right now, and why you're so confident that demand will still be high in five years? Yeah, well, there's the need for innovation never ends, regardless of where you are in the cycle. And so one thing we've, uh, we've seen, I've been in the industry more than 30 years, lots of cycles. And so regardless, the investment in innovation, the investment in R&D labs, putting yourself close to the customer to accelerate collaboration.

Um, clearly, we think we're in the early stages of a big build out. But regardless, we need to invest in innovation. And that makes the company stronger, uh, throughout any cycle.