Semi-Important Stuff

Research evidence excerpt

Semi-Important Stuff

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focus. While we believe WFE demand for ASML and ASM will remain strong in 2026 and 2027, we believe it is too early to be confident about this

strength being sustained into 2028 and beyond, especially in memory.

Cisco sees increased security concerns following Mythos as a key driver of equipment demand: At Nasdaq conference meetings Cisco stated

that bringing equipment up-to-date to deal with security threats identified by cybersecurity models like Anthropic's Mythos is a key factor driving

higher levels of investments at its customers, especially in the enterprise segment. The company is now putting out security related software

patches for its equipment on a bi-monthly basis, but many of the older equipment in the installed base needs to be upgraded to cater to the more

enhanced level of security threats. Demand also continues to be very strong from the hyperscaler segment as reflected in Cisco's $9bn of orders,

both in Scale Out switches as well as in Scale Across optical pluggable transceivers. Similar to Cisco, while Nokia is seeing its recent acceleration

being mainly driven by the strength in Scale Across pluggable transceivers and Scale Out switches, we believe the company is also beginning to

see an acceleration in its non-hyperscaler customers, including telcos.

Microchip reinforces increasing tightness commentary from analog peers: At the Nasdaq conference Microchip stated that it is continuing

to see a shift towards order pull-ins within the 45-day purchase window. At the same time, capacity remains available following peak-cycle

investments, with some ongoing underutilisation, and any ramp is expected to be gradual given constraints such as labour and the inherent lag in

scaling production.