Newsletter Update: Semi Doped Podcast, Jan Articles and Feb Plans
A summary of all published content, in case you missed it.
Thanks to everyone who signed up to the newsletter before the price increase earlier this month, and for those who continued to sign up after. I pour enormous effort into each and every post that takes up every available moment of my day. I very much appreciate your support, and thank you for placing your trust in me to bring you semiconductor insights when there are so many excellent options available. Rest assured that I will continue working hard on this newsletter to provide you with the best possible content I can.
Now, on to some announcements, a summary of content on this newsletter, future directions for next month, and a few recent developments that are noteworthy in the industry.
Semi Doped Podcast
Those following me on social media might already know that Austin Lyons - of ChipStrat fame on Substack - and I have started a semiconductor industry podcast called Semi Doped where we discuss both the business and engineering of semiconductors. Here’s how the whole idea came about.
We’ve both been writing on Substack for nearly 2 years now, and I read nearly every post on ChipStrat because Austin has a great conversational way of explaining things (highly recommend that you subscribe if you haven’t already). I messaged him and suggested that we hop on a call since we’ve only exchanged messages before.
In our 30 min chat, Austin proposed we start a podcast which I thought was a fantastic idea because we have a high overlap in our Substack audiences; it only makes sense to talk about the industry together. We had our first episode published in the same week. Yes, we move fast!
In the month of January, we have five podcast episodes up and with over 2,000 episode downloads and 300 watch hours on our YouTube channel. We have ambitious plans for this podcast and have a variety of high quality guests who both Austin and I interview on the show. There are going to be so many fun conversations and we can’t wait to have all of them!
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Here are the podcast episodes this month (YouTube links, but all available in your podcast player):
“The Music Has Stopped” — Innoviz CEO on Winning the LiDAR Market
An Interview with Microsoft CVP Saurabh Dighe About Maia 200
Newsletter Content You Might Have Missed
The semiconductor industry moves really fast these days, and it’s entirely likely you’ve had your plate full. Here are the articles this month that you might have missed.
2025 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM): Detailed Conference Report
The industry’s premium conference on transistor devices; all the latest developments brought to you in a single post.
A Close Look at SRAM for Inference in the Age of HBM Supremacy
This deep dive post co-authored with Subbu from Chip Log dispels a lot of myths surrounding the use of SRAM for AI inference. We cover the pros and cons of SRAM vs HBM in depth.
Nvidia announced context memory storage as a first-class citizen. This post explains these storage systems in depth, explores its impact on tokenomics in the agentic AI area, and discusses memory pooling with flash and DRAM.
High Stakes Advanced Node Poker: TSMC Goes All-in, Intel Folds
The two biggest advanced node fabs in the world had earnings calls just weeks apart, and their messaging could not have been more different. This post surveys the scene in leading-edge process technologies for 2026.
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February Topics
The semiconductor industry has so many moving parts that it is hard to keep track of it all. For this newsletter, I have to pick and choose topics to focus on. Here are some themes I am considering exploring this month:
Coherent optics and scale-across: For the next 2-3 years, connecting datacenter centers together places a massive emphasis on having high speed, low latency interconnects over 10s-100s of kilometers. While coherent optics is not new as a technology, its use in datacenters is imminent and 800ZR interconnects are poised to be a big growth driver in the coming years. Ciena, Nokia, and Cisco are key players in the space to look into. Cignal AI has as a positive outlook on coherent optics.
Memory and storage dynamics: I wrote about the memory supercycle in what seems like the “early days” now considering the dizzying heights of memory stock prices. The lack of memory at reasonable prices is driving margin pressures on consumer electronics. The supply buildout is beginning, major suppliers are investing in capacity, and China getting involved into the fray. Could this be the beginning of the end? I made what I call a “conservative call of the memory decade.” 🤦🏽♂️ Memory stocks are still rising, with no end in sight. I now am starting to feel storage is in the same “early days” that memory was a mere 3 months ago.
Physical AI and Analog Electronics: This is a topic I have been thinking about for quite some time, and maybe February is when I will finally write about it. Robots are the closest AI gets to interacting with the real world. The real world means analog electronics - sensors, motors, controllers, etc. How far out are we to the “chatGPT” moment for robotics?
Power Semis: It has been a hot minute since I looked up this sector, but with the energy constraints in datacenter deployments, there seems to be increasing interest in this area.
These are only guidelines I have for myself, but the industry moves so fast that I often end up writing about other topics. As much as I try to plan out content, something important happens and I scramble to make sense of it.
If you have thoughts on what I should cover in the newsletter, get in on the chat below and let’s discuss. As a paid subscriber, you get to chime in on the content that goes in this newsletter.
Here’s to another crazy month in semiconductors! 🍻
