KeyBanc Asia research reshapes chip stock ratings: Smartphones' cold winter drags down RF leader Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (SWKS.US), Intel Corporation, NVIDIA Corporation continues to thrive.

Notice that after the recent Asia research, investment bank KeyBanc adjusted the ratings of several chip stocks. The bank downgraded the stock rating of Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (SWKS.US) from "hold" to "neutral", while raising the target price of several chip stocks, including NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) and Intel Corporation (INTC.US). The analyst team led by John Wang stated, "After the recent Asia trip, we revised performance forecasts and target prices for several companies. The most notable trend is the strong and continued demand for data centers, which is having a broad cross-industry impact on the semiconductor industry, supporting continued shortages and price rises in memory chips, further tightening supply conditions. This also led to advance stocking of personal computers (PCs) and flagship smartphones. We see better performance than expected for analog chips, driven by demand from data centers and industries, extending delivery cycles, driving widespread price rises and improvements in order volumes, maintaining the early momentum of this cycle." The analysts added that their research results were most favorable for Intel Corporation, Marvell Technology, Inc. (MRVL.US), and Micron Technology, Inc. (MU.US); they held a positive attitude towards AMD (AMD.US), as well as analog chip manufacturers such as Monolithic Power Systems, Inc. (MPWR.US), Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI.US), Microchip Technology Incorporated (MCHP.US), NXP Semiconductors NV (NXPI.US), ON Semiconductor Corporation (ON.US), and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TXN.US); and they held a pessimistic view towards Skyworks Solutions, Inc., Qorvo, Inc. (QRVO.US), and Cirrus Logic, Inc. (CRUS.US). Intel Corporation KeyBanc raised Intel Corporation's target price from $110 to $155 while maintaining a "hold" rating. The team led by Wang stated, "The positives include: 1) Given the strong smart AI trend, the demand for server CPUs remains exceptionally high, and Intel Corporation has successfully expanded production capacity for Intel 3 process to support a 25-30% increase in server shipments this year, and over 50% growth next year. 2) The yield of the 18A process continues to significantly improve, rising from below 65% last quarter to above 85% now. 3) With the improvement in yield and winning customer designs, we see signs of Intel Corporation's plans to significantly expand 18A production capacity. We believe that, aside from Apple Inc., Intel Corporation has successfully partnered with AMD, NVIDIA Corporation, Marvell Technology, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Micron, and OpenAI in design cooperation." Additionally, the analysts stated that besides Alphabet Inc. Class C's TPU Humu Fish, Intel Corporation also secured a second major design collaboration around EMIB-T package technology with Amazon.com, Inc. AWS's Trainium 3 chip. A 6% to 15% price increase for client CPUs is expected in the third quarter of 2026, which is another positive factor. NVIDIA Corporation The institution raised the target price of NVIDIA Corporation's stock from $310 to $330, maintaining a "hold" rating. The analysts stated that their research results for NVIDIA Corporation were mixed, but overall leaning towards positive. The mass production process of the Vera Rubin architecture appears to be slightly delayed, with Rubin's momentum seeming slightly mild due to thermal cap issues and SK Hynix's validation delay on HBM4. However, the analysts pointed out minimal risk in performance forecasts, as they expect NVIDIA Corporation to ship more B300 GPUs to replace R200. They added that positives include an increase in the supply of chip wafers for chip-on-wafer packaging (CoWoS) for NVIDIA Corporation to 1.1 million wafers in 2027 (a 69% increase), reflecting strong demand, with most shipments expected to be Rubin, while Rubin Ultra is expected to make some contributions later in 2027. Arm KeyBanc raised Arm's target price from $300 to $430, maintaining a "hold" rating. The analysts stated, "Although Arm's short-term demand trends are mixed, we expect the surge in demand for smart AI to offset the impact of memory chip shortages, which continues to drive strong demand for Arm architecture server CPUs from NVIDIA Corporation (Vera), Amazon.com, Inc. AWS (Graviton), and Alphabet Inc. Class C (Axion)." Wang and his team pointed out that while they believe there may be risks in short-term performance forecasts, they ultimately believe that as Arm begins to build server CPU chips for clients, the long-term opportunity around server CPUs will be a more significant and far-reaching opportunity for Arm. The analysts believe that with Arm starting chip production, achieving revenue of $25 billion and over $9 EPS in the 2031 fiscal year is achievable. Skyworks Solutions, Inc. The institution downgraded the stock rating of Skyworks Solutions, Inc. from "hold" to "neutral" and lowered performance forecasts for Skyworks Solutions, Inc. and Qorvo, Inc. In October 2025, Skyworks Solutions, Inc., a supplier of RF chips to Apple Inc. and other smartphone manufacturers, announced plans to acquire Qorvo, Inc. for approximately $22 billion in cash and stock. The analysts stated that they downgraded Skyworks Solutions, Inc. based on three reasons: First, the analysts stated that the original assumptions they had when they initially upgraded the stock to "hold" in October 2025 no longer held true. They said, "We initially upgraded Skyworks Solutions, Inc. to 'overweight' in October 2025 based on its pending acquisition of Qorvo, Inc., where we anticipated significant cost and revenue synergies, with cost synergies estimated to exceed $500 million. However, that was predicated on a stable smartphone market environment and the assumption that the merged company could be in a better position to compete for Apple Inc.'s slot share. While we still believe this, the benefits of the new content are likely to be offset by the shrinking total addressable market (TAM)." Second, Wang and his team noted that the smartphone market continues to deteriorate, with all market segments and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) including Apple Inc., Samsung, and Chinese manufacturers cutting back. Lastly, the analysts stated that while the stock may have an attractive risk-return ratio, they believe that in a shrinking market, the stock price is unlikely to perform well as 60% of the post-merger company's revenue comes from smartphones. Other Target Price Changes KeyBanc also raised the target prices of the following stocks while maintaining a "hold" rating: Micron Technology, Inc.'s target price was raised from $1,600 to $1,750; Marvell Technology, Inc. was raised from $385 to $400; AMD was raised from $530 to $725. At the same time, the institution lowered Cirrus Logic's target price from $200 to $190 but retained a "hold" rating on the stock.