Lam Research CEO谈AI基础设施投资与3D芯片需求

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We've got with us the CEO of Lamb Research, Tim Archer, who joins us alongside Ed Lello, the host of Bloomberg Tech. Ed's out there in San Francisco. Tim is out there in Tolatin, Oregon. Tim, I want to get to this project. We'll get to it. Um, but before we do, shares of Lamb Research just surged at the end of last month. This was just after you reported results closing higher by close to 18%. You reported fourth quarter results and 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 AIdriven 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 uh look, I think those results, you know, just indicate we're in an accelerating demand environment for semiconductors.

And you know, what Lamb does, I think most people realize, but you know, we make the machines that that help make all of those chips and especially uh our strengths are in some of the most advanced manufacturing processes for chipm. So we're seeing tremendous demand with the uh AI buildout and uh 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 and it's something that we uh uh we're we're investing to 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 Lamb in the context of of more capacity. Your challenge is to make increasingly tiny threedimensional structures at atomic level precision, and that's only getting more difficult in the AI age.

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 chipm that happens very close by here u 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 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 generations. 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 Lamb investing so heavily now? What does 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 AI has fundamentally changed the rate at which we have to be innovating. You know, I I I've looked back just a few years ago and you know, when the markets were were driven by things like smartphones and PCs, that cycle was operating, you know, kind of on the every one to to 3 years, you needed to really innovate something new.

Uh AI has changed that requirement such that uh with new AI models coming every few months and each of those demanding more computational power uh even better high bandwidth memory, even more storage. Um, you know, Lamb is uh Lamb 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 and 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. uh and you increased the performance of that chip by making it smaller and and 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% yearonear 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 the demand demand for lead edge chips across logic and and memory HBM that is the story out in the world. How much of that that growth in demand directly reads through to LAM 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 um it's been a it's been around for a few years and AI has really put it into hyperdrive is the three-dimensional scaling of every device. And so uh of course that's been true in in foundry logic with technologies like gate allar around introduction of gate allaround 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 AI and so clearly a three-dimensional architecture that that requires a lot of etch and deposition equipment and a lot of innovation for us to be able to support the manufacturer of those structures.

Uh NAND has been 3D uh has had a 3D architecture since uh more than 10 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 uh 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.