Broadcom is a Portfolio of Valuable Semiconductor Businesses
The U.S. semiconductor designer and manufacturer is a patchwork of individually profitable parts that are nonetheless unlikely to cohere into a whole that can drive technical or industrial progress.
After Nvidia, Broadcom is the second-most valuable U.S. semiconductor company, with a market capitalization as of November 2024 of over $750 billion (AVGO).1 Rather than high-end chips used in computing like graphics processing units (GPUs) or central processing units (CPUs), Broadcom’s primary business is selling a wide range of secondary chips and electronic components—especially for transmitting and receiving signals—in devices ranging from Apple’s iPhones to cable television boxes. But the company also offers custom chip design for its clients, including for high-end chips. In October 2024, it was reported that Broadcom was helping OpenAI design and secure manufacturing capacity for its first in-house artificial intelligence chip.2 The company has provided similar services to Google and ByteDance, the leading Chinese tech company behind TikTok.3