Compare moats
Up to three covered companies, band by band. Every call is a curated editorial judgment, never a disclosed figure — and every band carries its cited basis.
| Lattice Semiconductor | Intel | |
|---|---|---|
| Moat rating | narrow Lattice holds long-lived, low-power sockets that an outside analyst calls sticky, and it kept its gross profit high through a sharp revenue fall. But each new customer product is competed for again, and the 10-K concedes larger rivals. William Blair's research initiation (2026-10-06, https://www.williamblair.com/News/Lattice-Semiconductor-Corporation-Research-Initiation) says 'Lattice has built a leadership position in the high-volume, sticky sockets where power efficiency is critical'. The FY2025 10-K's financial data (as carried in TradingPilot fundamentals) report gross profit of $340,400 thousand on revenue of $509,401 thousand in fiscal 2024, when revenue fell from $737,154 thousand in fiscal 2023. Against that, the same 10-K says 'The selection process for our products to be included in our customers' new products is highly competitive' and 'There are no guarantees that our products will be included in the next generation'. It also says many competitors 'have substantially greater financial, technological, manufacturing, marketing, and sales resources than us'. Operating income was $11,232 thousand in fiscal 2025. Narrow rather than wide, because the sockets are re-won each product generation against larger competitors, and no independent share figure was found. | eroding The FY2025 10-K (filed 2026-01-23) repeats the concession, now broadened: 'we have lost market share in recent years, including in both client and data center markets, in the market for x86-based semiconductor products, and more generally in the markets for semiconductor compute products, as competitors have introduced highly competitive data center and client platform products.' It adds that the data-center business 'has been further negatively impacted in the past few years by the significant shift of customer spend toward GPUs optimized for AI workloads' — a historically wide moat still actively eroding. |
| Moat type | switching costs The lock is the design socket and the product's long life. The FY2025 10-K cites 'a commitment to product longevity, with a large number of Lattice devices having been supported in the market for over 20 years'. It says the sales team works to 'drive multi-generational design wins', and that Lattice still supports FPGA families 'that have been in market for more than a decade and still garner strong customer demand today'. William Blair (2026-10-06) calls the same sockets 'sticky'. The 10-K limits the lock to products already designed in: selection for customers' new products 'is highly competitive'. | intangibles ip The durable assets remain the x86 architecture and process-technology IP: the FY2025 10-K claims 'We are a global leader in the design and manufacturing of CPUs and other semiconductor products' and stakes the recovery on process IP — 'Intel 18A introduces two industry firsts in high-volume semiconductor manufacturing: gate-all-around transistors (RibbonFET) and backside power delivery (PowerVia).' |
| Leadership | co leader William Blair (2026-10-06) calls Lattice 'a leader in low-power programmable silicon' with 'a leadership position in the high-volume, sticky sockets where power efficiency is critical'. It gives no share figure, and it notes that 'larger FPGA competitors' focus on compute-intensive work. The 10-K's 'Lattice is the low power programmable leader' is the company's own claim. Without a tracker's share number, and with larger rivals in the wider FPGA market, the band is co-leader rather than clear leader. | fast follower The FY2025 10-K still opens 'We are a global leader in the design and manufacturing of CPUs', yet concedes lost share 'in both client and data center markets' and a spend shift 'toward GPUs optimized for AI workloads' where Intel participates via 'Xeon, AI PCs, Arc GPUs and our open software stack' plus 'inference-optimized GPUs on a targeted annual cadence' — following the AI compute market rather than setting its pace. |
| Pricing power | moderate Gross profit has stayed high through the cycle. The FY2025 10-K's financial data (as carried in TradingPilot fundamentals) show gross profit of $514,670 thousand on revenue of $737,154 thousand in fiscal 2023, $340,400 thousand on $509,401 thousand in fiscal 2024, and $356,943 thousand on $523,262 thousand in fiscal 2025. The 10-Q filed 2026-08-04 shows $141,332 thousand on $201,079 thousand for the quarter ended 2026-07-04. William Blair (2026-10-06) says Lattice is 'replacing legacy small footprint FPGAs with higher-price Nexus 2 devices'. The 10-K's risk factors still warn that downturns 'can result, and in the past has resulted, in ... erosion of average selling prices'. | weak The FY2025 10-K states the mechanism itself: higher-priced products 'have lower margins as they are produced at external foundries rather than in our manufacturing facilities. To the extent demand shifts from our higher-margin to lower-margin products in any of our market segments, our gross margin percentage has decreased and may decrease again' — plus $878 million of 2025 inventory reserves on the early Intel 18A ramp. |
| Summary | Lattice makes small and mid-range FPGAs that work as companion chips to a system's processors, or as primary processors, handling control, bridging, security and sensor connectivity in servers, communications gear, factories, cars and consumer devices. It competes on power and size rather than compute. William Blair says it 'specializes in low-power, small and midrange programmable silicon', while 'larger FPGA competitors focus on the compute-intensive market'. Distributors took approximately 84% of fiscal 2025 revenue, per the 10-K. In 2026 Lattice bought AMI for $1.65 billion, which William Blair says 'extends the company into platform firmware, security, and infrastructure manageability'. This profile rates the FPGA franchise described in the 10-K, not the newly acquired firmware business. | Still the incumbent x86 CPU designer-manufacturer — FY2025 revenue was $52.9 billion, roughly flat — but the filing concedes lost share in client and data center and an AI-driven customer shift toward GPUs; the counter-thesis is process IP, with Intel 18A shipping in Core Ultra Series 3 ('the first products to be manufactured using our new Intel 18A process technology') and Intel 14A 'designed from inception as an offering to external customers.' |
| Chain position | Layer-4 companion silicon: low-power FPGAs for control, security and connectivity beside processors in servers and communications gear, and in industrial, automotive and consumer systems, mostly sold through distributors. | x86 compute incumbent and would-be US leading-edge foundry; its 18A/14A ramp is the main Western alternative to TSMC at the leading edge. |
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| Long-horizon vote | +0.13 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. | -0.24 at weight 0.20 · swarm neutral Editorial prior, not backtested. |