Broadcom (AVGO) said that it expects to sell at least 1M chips by 2027 based on its stacked design technology, Reuters reported, citing Harish Bharadwaj, vice president of product marketing at Broadcom.
Bharadwaj said the 1M chips the company projects it will sell are based on an approach Broadcom developed, which stacks two chips on top of each other, allowing the distinct pieces of silicon to be tightly bound to improve the speed at which data can be transferred from one chip to another, the report added.
The forecast marks a new product and sales target for Broadcom which could represent a revenue stream potentially worth billions of dollars, the report noted.
Broadcom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
Broadcom has refined the technology over five years to the point where its first customer, Fujitsu, is making engineering samples to test the design. Fujitsu intends to produce the stacked, or 3D, chips later this year, according to the report.
The million-chip number includes several other designs besides the Fujitsu chip, the report added.
Bharadwaj said that Broadcom’s stacking approach gives its customers the ability to develop chips that have more horsepower and use less energy to tackle the rapidly growing computing requirements AI software presents, the report noted.
“Now, pretty much all of our customers are adopting this technology,” said Bharadwaj.
The company usually does not design entire AI chips itself. Broadcom works with companies like Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) for its tensor processing units, or TPUs, and OpenAI (OPENAI) for its in-house custom processors. Broadcom’s engineers help translate an early design into the physical layout of a chip which can be fabricated by chip manufacturers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), the report noted.
Broadcom’s chip business has grown significantly due to its custom deals with companies like Google. The company forecast that its AI chip revenue would double year-over-year to $8.2B in its fiscal first quarter.
Fujitsu is using the new technology for a data center chip. Taiwan Semiconductor is fabricating the chip using its advanced 2-nanometer process and fusing it with a 5-nanometer chip, the report added.
Companies can mix and match which manufacturing process Taiwan Semiconductor uses with the Broadcom technology. Taiwan Semiconductor fuses the top and bottom chips during the fabrication process, according to the report.
Broadcom has many designs in the works and expects to ship two more products based on the stacking tech in the second half of 2026 and to sample an additional three in 2027, the report noted.
Broadcom spent about five years developing the groundwork for the stacked chip tech and testing several designs to come up with a commercial product. Engineers are working to make chips that have as many as eight stacks of two chips each, the report added.
Shares of Broadcom fell about 3% on Thursday.