Really appreciate this. You’re spot on about HBM being a structural, not cyclical, shift. The market still treats it like “fancy DRAM,” even though the economics and bottlenecks look more like advanced packaging. If Samsung narrows that qualification gap, the operating torque into 2026 could be far higher than models imply.
And yes, Intel’s entire story keeps collapsing back to the same pivot: can 18A attract real, sustained external demand, not just test chips. The product side is finally stabilizing, but without foundry scale the math doesn’t hold. The next 12–18 months will tell us if this rebuild becomes durable or just a temporary bounce.
Really appreciate this. You’re spot on about HBM being a structural, not cyclical, shift. The market still treats it like “fancy DRAM,” even though the economics and bottlenecks look more like advanced packaging. If Samsung narrows that qualification gap, the operating torque into 2026 could be far higher than models imply.
And yes, Intel’s entire story keeps collapsing back to the same pivot: can 18A attract real, sustained external demand, not just test chips. The product side is finally stabilizing, but without foundry scale the math doesn’t hold. The next 12–18 months will tell us if this rebuild becomes durable or just a temporary bounce.