LRCX's Memory Strength: Will DRAM and NAND Fuel Future Gains?

Lam Research’s LRCX memory segment, accounting for both Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) divisions, is gaining traction among its customers. In the third quarter of fiscal 2025, the company’s memory segment revenues jumped nearly 24% year over year to $1.31 billion.

In its NVM division, LRCX is experiencing strong demand driven by technology conversions as its customers transition from low-layer to 256-layer class NAND devices. NAND revenues are further driven by growth in chip demand to support the massive input-output speeds required for AI workloads. The NVM division’s sales grew approximately 21% year over year in the third quarter.

The growth in LRCX’s DRAM division was led by a demand shift to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and rising DDR5 adoption among customers, which is boosting demand for its etching and deposition tools. Furthermore, LRCX reported that its DRAM customers are upgrading and repurposing existing tools for new applications, boosting its Customer Support Business Group (CSBG) division, which supports such endeavours. LRCX’s DRAM division revenues grew 26.7% year over year in the third quarter.

Lam Research is futureproofing its business with new innovations. Its recently introduced atomic layer deposition (ALD) innovations, like the ALTUS Halo systems and Striker SPARC ALD, are experiencing traction among customers and so is the Akara etch system, which won multiple applications with an important customer just after its launch. The company is now heavily investing in technology upgrades of DDR5, LPDDR5, and HBM technology processes.

Despite having intermittent trade restrictions with China from the U.S. government, the company was able to keep its revenue growth consistent, as major customers for its DRAM and NAND technologies belong to Korea and Taiwan. Korea and Taiwan combinedly contributed 48% of LRCX’s revenues in the third quarter, while China contributed 31%. With large chip memory chip manufacturing customers like Micron Technology, Samsung, SK hynix and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, LRCX’s memory segment growth is expected to remain stable.

How Competitors Fare Against Lam Research

Applied Materials AMAT is a direct competitor of Lam Research across critical wafer fabrication stages, including deposition, etch, CMP, and inspection. Applied Materials offers processes for both memory and foundry/logic markets like LRCX and has a strong installed base and service business, rivaling Lam Research's CSBG.

In the broader market, Lam Research competes with ASML Holdings ASML, which is a lithography tools provider, with specialisation in extreme ultraviolet lithography. Since Lam Research is moving toward EUV lithography and dry photoresist space from its primary etch and deposition expertise, LRCX is facing stiff competition from ASML Holdings.

Both Applied Materials and ASML Holdings are experiencing a surge in demand for their DRAM technologies. ASML’s strong product demand was driven by its DRAM and logic customers, which are ramping leading-edge nodes using ASML’s NXE:3800E EUV systems. AMAT’s management projected that revenues from its advanced DRAM customers to grow more than 40% in fiscal 2025.

LRCX's Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of Lam Research have gained 26.8% year to date compared with the Zacks Electronics – Semiconductors industry’s growth of 6.5%.

From a valuation standpoint, its forward price-to-earnings ratio of 22.99 is significantly below the industry’s average of 26.82.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Lam Research’s fiscal 2025 earnings has been revised upward by 7.2% over the past 60 days to $4 per share. The estimated earnings figure suggests year-over-year growth of 33.78%.

Lam Research currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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