Lattice Semiconductor: A Rising Star in AI Chip Field
Lattice Semiconductor: A Rising Star in AI Chip Field
A battle is quietly brewing, and a small company called Lattice is secretly winning. After a number of large acquisitions from chip design giant Intel in 2015 and another by AMD in 2022, I've written about how small chip design house Lattice Semiconductor (NASDAQ: LSCC) is the last FPGA pure-play company left standing.
Lattice may be small, but it has been quietly winning a market share battle with its two larger competitors, Intel and AMD.
What's Lattice's secret? Historically, it has focused on low-end and 'small' FPGAs, those with fewer logic cells that can be reprogrammed. These small FPGAs are used in things like industrial equipment and sensors, critical applications for things like factory automation and for control of many simple functionality features in modern cars.
In recent years, in search of better financial efficiency, both Intel and AMD have sunsetted some of their small- and mid-sized FPGA product lines. This has left the door open for Lattice to expand its customer base and sell a broader range of FPGA chips to existing customers once this current industry downtrend is over.
It's not just Lattice benefiting either.
The upshot for Lattice: Less competition means Lattice could sell more and boost its profit margins, too. And, of course, with all sorts of AI applications beginning to proliferate across multiple industries, Lattice small- and mid-sized FPGAs could be more important than ever before.
This article was prepared using information from open sources in accordance with the principles of Ethical Policy. The editorial team is not responsible for absolute accuracy, as it relies on data from the sources referenced.