Macroplane › Investment Theses › Custom-ASIC duopoly w/ MRVL

Custom-ASIC duopoly w/ MRVL

AI supply-chain thesis — mapping bottlenecks, focus companies, and supply-chain exposure for investors.

**Bottleneck theme:** Custom Silicon **Focus:** $AVGO — Broadcom Inc. Broadcom is the custom-ASIC duopoly half (with $MRVL) — the silicon partner of choice for hyperscalers building their own AI accelerators (Google TPU, Meta MTIA, ByteDance, others) and also the leader in merchant AI fabric switching ASICs (Tomahawk 6 + Jericho 3-AI). Where NVIDIA sells the merchant GPU, Broadcom sells the custom silicon hyperscalers use to either supplement NVIDIA or build a credible second source. The Tomahawk 6 (102.4Tbps) and Jericho 3-AI roadmap also positions Broadcom as the dominant switch-ASIC supplier under Arista and Cisco AI fabrics — a second franchise on top of the custom-silicon business. The investment case is structural: every percentage point of hyperscaler accelerator spend that flows into custom silicon is incremental Broadcom revenue, and the network silicon under AI Ethernet fabrics is a second compounding driver. The bear case is concentration (a small number of hyperscaler programs drive most growth), TSMC CoWoS allocation (competing with NVIDIA), and an integrated software/service stack from VMware that the market has yet to fully reward. Pair with $MRVL (the smaller duopoly half) and $ANET (the system that uses Broadcom silicon).

Focus companies in this thesis (2)

  • Broadcom Inc. (AVGO)
  • Marvell Technology, Inc. (MRVL)

Supply-chain categories covered

  • Custom Silicon — Investment-thesis bucket from bottlenecks.app: Custom Silicon
  • EDA Software — Electronic design automation tools for chip design and verification
  • IP Cores — Licensed semiconductor IP blocks (ARM cores, PHY, SerDes, interfaces)
  • Foundry / Fab Services — Contract semiconductor manufacturing — wafer fabrication for fabless and partially-fabless customers, spanning leading-edge logic, mature-node analog/mixed-signal, RF, and specialty processes (BCD, BiCMOS, SiC, SOI).
  • ASICs — Application-specific integrated circuits (AI accelerators, crypto miners, custom SoCs)
  • Network Switches & Routers — Data center and enterprise networking equipment
  • Hyperscalers — Major cloud operators (AWS, Azure, GCP, Meta, Oracle, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Naver) and tier-2 / neocloud providers (DigitalOcean, OVHcloud, Rackspace, Kingsoft) tracked as a demand signal across multiple theses (photonics, HBM, AI accelerators, power, cooling). Excludes SaaS apps, telcos, REITs, and IT services firms.

Thesis milestones & bottleneck markers

  • AVGO Tomahawk 6 Tapeout — AVGO
  • MRVL Jericho3-AI Production — MRVL
  • AVGO AI Revenue >$20B — AVGO
  • Custom ASIC Market >$30B

Related baskets

  • Custom Silicon
  • Networking / Retimers

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Frequently asked questions

What is the Custom-ASIC duopoly w/ MRVL thesis about?

**Bottleneck theme:** Custom Silicon **Focus:** $AVGO — Broadcom Inc. Broadcom is the custom-ASIC duopoly half (with $MRVL) — the silicon partner of choice for hyperscalers building their own AI accelerators (Google TPU, Meta MTIA, ByteDance, others) and also the leader in merchant AI fabric switching ASICs (Tomahawk 6 + Jericho 3-AI). Where NVIDIA sells the merchant GPU, Broadcom sells the custom silicon hyperscalers use to either supplement NVIDIA or build a credible second source. The Tomahawk 6 (102.4Tbps) and Jericho 3-AI roadmap also positions Broadcom as the dominant switch-ASIC supplier under Arista and Cisco AI fabrics — a second franchise on top of the custom-silicon business. The investment case is structural: every percentage point of hyperscaler accelerator spend that flows into custom silicon is incremental Broadcom revenue, and the network silicon under AI Ethernet fabrics is a second compounding driver. The bear case is concentration (a small number of hyperscaler programs drive most growth), TSMC CoWoS allocation (competing with NVIDIA), and an integrated software/service stack from VMware that the market has yet to fully reward. Pair with $MRVL (the smaller duopoly half) and $ANET (the system that uses Broadcom silicon).

Which companies does the Custom-ASIC duopoly w/ MRVL thesis focus on?

The Custom-ASIC duopoly w/ MRVL thesis on Macroplane focuses on Broadcom Inc. (AVGO), Marvell Technology, Inc. (MRVL).

Which supply-chain categories does the Custom-ASIC duopoly w/ MRVL thesis cover?

It covers Custom Silicon, EDA Software, IP Cores, Foundry / Fab Services, ASICs, Network Switches & Routers, Hyperscalers.

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