Semiconductor & Technology Specialist, Ingenuity

William Keating

Dr. William Keating is a highly experienced senior executive with over 25 years experience in the IT/Semiconductor Industry. The majority of Dr. Keating's career was spent at Intel Corporation where he held senior leadership positions in Europe, the US and Asia from 1992 through 2014. He served as Intel's IT Director for APAC, China & Japan from 2005 through 2014 when he was based in Hong Kong and was responsible for the IT systems (Infrastructure, Networks, Data Centres, ERP, Sales & Marketing systems, Business Intelligence etc. ) for all of Intel's offices & factories through the region. From 1998 through 2005, he was the founder & director of an internal IT Consulting Organisation (IT Flex Services), a 500-person team which remains a core part of the Intel IT Organisation to this day. Dr. Keating's first 6 years at Intel were spent in charge of the Factory Automation Systems (Robotics, Databases, Networks, Servers, Clients etc.) supporting Intel's then state-of-the-art 200mm factory network. Since leaving Intel in 2014, Dr Keating established his own Technology Research & Consulting Company (www.ingenuity.hk) where he focuses on the products, roadmaps & technologies of companies such as Intel, AMD, Samsung, Apple, Micron- as well as the key equipment suppliers to those companies e.g. ASML, AMAT, Canon, Nikon etc. Dr. Keating specializes in niche topics of high significance within the semiconductor industry. These include the future of Moore's Law and in particular the significance of Lithography in maintaining Moore's Law (EUV, SDA, NanoImprint), the role & growth of the GPU in specialised applications such as Deep Learning (Neural Networks) for Voice, Image & Pattern recognition at companies such as Facebook, Google & Baidu. He also holds regular discussions on the future of memory, in particular the rise of 3D NAND and the emergence of new memory technologies such as 3D Xpoint.

Semiconductor & Technology Specialist

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Ingenuity

Our focus is exclusively on in-depth research & consulting in the broader semiconductor industry. We focus on the key players, namely Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, NVIDIA, AMD, TSMC & Global Foundries - as well as some of the lesser known, but nonetheless critical, companies such as ASML (for EUV), Mellanox, Cavium, Xilinx etc. We specialise in their products, roadmaps, process technologies, competitive advantages & threats etc. We also help our clients understand the implications of new and emerging technologies, e.g. 3D X-Point, 3D NAND, Carbon Nanotubes, Autonomous Driving, Graphene, Silicon Photonics, Wafer-Level Optics, Artificial Intelligence, FPGA, GPU, ASIC etc. 

Semiconductor Analysis & Research

Equity Bottom-Up

<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/western-digital-corp" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1094:1" rel="noopener">Western Digital</a> reported earnings this week with revenues of $4.3 billion, marginally below the midpoint of their forecast. Their outlook for current quarter for revenues of $3.8 billion at the midpoint, down 11.6% sequentially, was a nasty surprise that led the company's share price to decline by more than 16% the following day. Western Digital's outlooks stands in contrast to their peers. <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/micron-technology-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:13382:1" rel="noopener">Micron</a> called for current quarter revenues to increase roughly 10% QoQ. While neither <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/sk-hynix-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:16955:1" rel="noopener">SK Hynix</a> or <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/samsung-electronics-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:191:1" rel="noopener">Samsung Electronics</a> are in the habit of providing specific next-quarter guidance, there was little on their earnings calls to suggest that we should expect anything untoward.Separately, DRAMeXchange published a <a href="https://www.trendforce.com/presscenter/news/20200730-10416.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> on July 30 claiming that the NAND flash market would weaken rapidly in the third quarter, directly contradicting a <a href="https://www.trendforce.com/presscenter/news/20200629-10363.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> they published one month earlier where they predicted NAND prices would remain relatively stable. So what's really going on at Western Digital and how should we think about NAND pricing through the remainder of the year?

Western Digital reported earnings this week with revenues of $4.3 billion, marginally below the midpoint of their forecast. Their outlook for current quarter for revenues of $3.8 billion at the midpoint, down 11.6% sequentially, was a nasty surprise that led the company's share price to decline by more than 16% the following day. Western Digital's outlooks stands in contrast to their peers. Micron called for current quarter revenues to increase roughly 10% QoQ. While neither SK Hynix or Samsung Electronics are in the habit of providing specific next-quarter guidance, there was little on their earnings calls to suggest that we should expect anything untoward.Separately, DRAMeXchange published a report on July 30 claiming that the NAND flash market would weaken rapidly in the third quarter, directly contradicting a report they published one month earlier where they predicted NAND prices would remain relatively stable. So what's really going on at Western Digital and how should we think about NAND pricing through the remainder of the year?

Western Digital. NAND Recovery In Doubt As QoQ Revenue Downturn Forecasted