The maker, the merchant, the hybrid. Drag the assumptions, reweight the scenarios, and watch the targets move. Every chart and calculator below is live.
Each name has a bear, base and bull case. Move the probability sliders (they auto-normalize to 100%) or edit the scenario prices, and the probability-weighted target recomputes live against the current spot. Switch the company with the toggle.
House case probabilities: SIMO 30/45/25, Phison 30/40/30, SanDisk 30/40/30 (bull/base/bear). The dashed marker on the chart is the current spot price; the solid claret marker is your weighted target.
A forward-earnings DCF. Fair value = projected EPS, grown at your CAGR for N years, capitalized at your exit multiple, discounted back at your WACC, plus net cash per share. Drag the inputs; the implied price, the upside gauge, the EPS projection and the sensitivity grid all update together.
House assumptions, tuned so each default lands near its base case. SIMO: $8.73 FY26E EPS, 14% CAGR, 3 yrs, 30x exit, 11.5% WACC, $6 net cash. Phison: NT$188, 12% CAGR, 3 yrs, 16x, 12.5%, NT$60. SanDisk: $180 FY27E EPS (peak), 0% CAGR, 2 yrs, 13x, 13%, $0. Dial the exit multiple to where each name actually trades to see how much quality premium is embedded. These are model outputs, not price targets.
The three earn money in different ways, governed by one question: is NAND flash in your cost of goods? That decides whether a segment has stable, high-quality margin or is a leveraged bet on the NAND price. The mix charts below show where each company's revenue comes from today.
Cal Q1 2026 · the NAND maker
Q1 2026 · the fabless controller
Q1 2026 · controller + module (est.)
$M · Datacenter is the AI-driven leg, exploding from a small base
All three on one scale. SanDisk and Phison ramp hardest
| Segment | Rev $M | % mix | YoY | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edge | 3,663 | 61.6% | +295% | SSDs / embedded NAND for PC & phone OEMs |
| Datacenter | 1,467 | 24.7% | +645% | Enterprise SSDs for hyperscalers / AI |
| Consumer | 820 | 13.8% | +44% | Retail cards, USB, branded SSDs |
Bit shipments were flat YoY and down high-teens QoQ. Revenue nearly doubled on ASP alone (price per gigabyte up ~130% QoQ). Fixed-cost fabs mean a rising NAND price drops almost entirely to gross profit, and reverses just as hard.
| Segment | Est. mix | YoY | NAND cost? | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| eMMC + UFS controllers | ~47% | +140% | No | Chip for phone / IoT / auto storage |
| Client SSD controllers | ~38% | +43% | No | NVMe controller chip in PC SSDs |
| SSD solutions (Ferri, boot, MonTitan) | ~13% | +755% | Yes | Finished drives SIMO assembles |
| Segment | Est. mix | Growth | NAND cost? | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI / enterprise modules (Pascari) | ~38% | 10 to 38% | Yes (cheap LTA NAND) | Highest now |
| Client SSD controllers | ~50% share | +490% ship | No | 60-70% |
| Mobile / eMMC / UFS controllers | low single % | +12x | No | High |
| Retail / consumer modules | <10%, shrinking | declining | Yes (spot NAND) | Low ~20-30% |
One chart tells the whole quality story. Over the last five quarters, SanDisk's gross margin rocketed from a 22% trough to 78% as NAND ASPs exploded; Phison's climbed from 29% to 61% on its enterprise mix shift; SIMO's stayed roughly flat in the high-40s, because its controller-IP margins do not swing with the NAND price. Flat is the feature, not the bug.
SanDisk is the cyclical (it is the NAND price). SIMO is the stable IP house. Phison sits between.
SanDisk figures are calendar-mapped from its fiscal quarters. Q1 2025 SanDisk 22.5% was the cycle trough; Q4 2026 guidance is 79-81%.
Where the durable money is versus the rented money
Controller IC margin is stable across the cycle. Enterprise-module margin is high now but cyclical. Consumer-module margin is structurally low.
Two different competitive maps matter here. In raw NAND, SanDisk is the smallest of five scale makers. In merchant controllers, Phison and Silicon Motion are a duopoly that the NAND makers increasingly outsource to. And the NAND ASP line below is the single variable that drives every earnings model in this report.
Q4 2025 · SanDisk plays here, as the smallest of five
SIMO and Phison play here, as a duopoly-plus-one
The whole thesis in one line. Doubled in 6 months, with steep further increases guided
Jul 2025 $4.80 to Nov 2025 $10.70 (+123%). Q1 2026 contract +50-60% QoQ, Q2 2026 guided +70-75% QoQ (TrendForce). The Q1/Q2 2026 points are projections from those guided step-ups.
Plot forward P/E against expected revenue growth and the trap is visible: the fastest-growing, cheapest-looking names (SanDisk, Phison) are the most cyclical, and the low multiple is the market discounting peak earnings, not a free lunch. Bubble size is market cap.
Lower-left looks cheapest. It is also where the cyclical risk concentrates. Bubble = market cap
| Company | Mkt cap | Fwd P/E | Rev growth | Gross mgn | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silicon Motion | $10.1B | 34.5x | +83% | 47% | Fabless controller |
| Phison | $19.2B | 15.0x | +219% | 61% | Controller + module |
| SanDisk | $267B | ~10x | +162% | 78% | Integrated NAND maker |
| Micron (ref) | $1.20T | 11.3x | +67% | 58% | Integrated DRAM + NAND |
Phison sits between: the cheapest controller exposure and the best probability-weighted number, but carrying a NT$72B NAND-inventory tail that the other two do not.
| Risk | Type | Prob | Impact | Applies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NAND ASP reversal in H2'26/27 collapses EPS | Cyclical | M | H | All |
| NAND wafer COGS inflation crushes module margin | Financial | M | H | Phison, SNDK |
| NT$72.2B inventory mark-down if NAND reverses | Financial | M | H | Phison |
| Operating deleverage swings SanDisk back to losses | Cyclical | M | V.HIGH | SanDisk |
| NAND makers insource controllers (Samsung RISC-V) | Execution | L-M | H | SIMO, Phison |
| Valuation: all near highs, at/above targets | Market | H | M | All |
| Taiwan Strait conflict; TSMC dependency | Geopolitical | L | V.HIGH | SIMO, Phison |
| Hedge-fund semi exposure at ATH; insider selling | Sentiment | M | H | All |