Semis-on-Fire 29-May-2026: 1Q26 Earnings Season Themes + MRVL(ous)

Four key themes have driven semiconductor outperformance during the 1Q earnings season: (1) CPU Renaissance, driven by agentic AI, where ARM and INTC are up 107% and 76%, respectively, over the past 6 weeks; (2) AI Interconnect, with ALAB and MTSI up 104% and 50%; (3) Emerging XPU, where AMD and QCOM are both up more than 80%; (4) AI Power Chips, with ON and TXN up 55% and 42%. We expect these four themes to drive semi stocks through 2026, and view MRVL as a play on three of these four themes with a growing strategic role across AI interconnect, custom silicon/XPU, and AI-CPUs. Marvell delivered AprQ EPS 1% above Street and JulQ EPS outlook 2% above. We model MRVL CY28 EPS at $11 vs LT Target Model at $8. We see a path to $11.4bn of Optical revenues and $4bn of custom silicon revenues in CY27. We remain buyers, recommending MRVL and other CPU Renaissance plays (ARM, INTC, AMD, NVDA).