Chip & memory factories
What the chip and memory makers spend on factories. Their outlooks set the chip equipment makers' orders, and a memory maker spending more is the old sign of a coming glut, which AI demand for high-bandwidth memory is testing now. The designers (Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom ...) own no fabs: their capex is small, and what they spend on wafers and memory shows up in the factory builders' sales instead. TSMC, SK Hynix, GlobalFoundries, ASE and Arm file abroad: their outlooks are here, their quarterly figures are not.
Memory makers capex $30.7B, free cash flow $59.0B over the past 4 quarters
Foundries, packaging & logic capex $14.7B, free cash flow $10.1B over the past 4 quarters
| Company | Latest quarter | Capex | Free cash flow | Capex / cash | Capex vs yr ago | FCF < 0 | Capex outlook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSM TSMC | no quarterly SEC figures (files abroad) | — | |||||
| INTC Intel | Jun 27, 2026 | $2.6B | $4.5B | 36% | -28% | 1/4 | — |
| TXN Texas Instruments | Sep 30, 2026 | $463.0M | $3.0B | 14% | -61% | 0/4 | 2026 $2–3B Oct 23 |
| GFS GlobalFoundries | no quarterly SEC figures (files abroad) | — | |||||
| ASX ASE (packaging) | no quarterly SEC figures (files abroad) | — | |||||
Chip designers capex $12.7B, free cash flow $187.0B over the past 4 quarters
| Company | Latest quarter | Capex | Free cash flow | Capex / cash | Capex vs yr ago | FCF < 0 | Capex outlook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVDA Nvidia | Jul 26, 2026 | $2.7B | $21.4B | 11% | +41% | 0/4 | — |
| AMD AMD | Jun 27, 2026 | $808.0M | $1.6B | 34% | +187% | 0/4 | 2027-2028 $5B Aug 5 |
| AVGO Broadcom | Aug 2, 2026 | $532.0M | $13.7B | 4% | +275% | 0/4 | — |
| QCOM Qualcomm | Jun 28, 2026 | $496.0M | $495.0M | 50% | +69% | 0/4 | — |
| MRVL Marvell | Aug 1, 2026 | $126.7M | $478.8M | 21% | +167% | 0/4 | — |
| ARM Arm | no quarterly SEC figures (files abroad) | — | |||||
Capex is purchases of property and equipment as each company tags it in its SEC filings (XBRL); some companies' own free cash flow also subtracts finance-lease payments, so theirs can be lower. Each quarter as first reported; fiscal years differ (Microsoft's ends in June, Oracle's in May), so "latest quarter" is not the same calendar quarter for all. Outlooks are read by AI from earnings releases and 10-Q / 10-K filings; some companies give theirs only on the earnings call, which Wallsti does not read.
Who lives on it
| Chip equipment | ASML ASML · AMAT Applied Materials · LRCX Lam Research · KLAC KLA · TER Teradyne · ONTO Onto Innovation · FORM FormFactor · AEHR Aehr Test · abroad: Tokyo Electron (Tokyo) |
When a chip maker reports after the close, its stock page and the ranking show the equipment makers' after-hours moves next to it. Listings abroad are context only.