A twice-cyclical Japanese power-semi laggard that just wrote off its SiC bet (¥163B impairment) and simultaneously round-tripped to an all-time high on an AI-server SiC re-rating — the story got re-priced two quarters before the P&L can confirm it, and at ¥5,950 the tape now demands the AI-power pivot actually shows up in the numbers. WATCHING, tilting BEARISH into the print.
No Friday close is on the record for 6963.T yet. The weekly job prices the covered universe; a name it cannot price is listed as missing rather than estimated.
The verdict
A twice-cyclical Japanese power-semi laggard that just wrote off its SiC bet (¥163B impairment) and simultaneously round-tripped to an all-time high on an AI-server SiC re-rating — the story got re-priced two quarters before the P&L can confirm it, and at ¥5,950 the tape now demands the AI-power pivot actually shows up in the numbers. WATCHING, tilting BEARISH into the print.
ROHM is a ~¥480B-revenue ($3.2B) integrated device manufacturer (IDM) founded in Kyoto in 1958 by Kenichiro Sato — who started by inventing a small precision resistor in 1954 and built it into a global semiconductor house ``. It designs, fabricates, and sells its own chips (IDM, not fabless) across four reported segments:
The business model in one line: ROHM sells the "energy-saving + downsizing" analog and power layer that sits between a battery/grid and a motor/processor — the boring-but-critical silicon that switches and regulates power. Its self-declared vision is "power and analog solutions" ``.
Contract structure: classic broad-line semi — no take-or-pay, no single mega-contract; revenue is a long tail of automotive OEM/Tier-1 design-wins (multi-year, sticky once designed-in) plus catalog/distribution volume. Payment terms are ordinary trade, not recurring/subscription. Concentration is by end-market, not by single customer (see Lens 4).
ROHM is unusually vertically integrated for its size — a deliberate strategic choice that is the whole SiC story. Named map, upstream → downstream:
. For silicon wafers, standard Japanese/global suppliers (Shin-Etsu, SUMCO). Gold/copper for packaging — a real cost line (material costs +¥12.8B YoY partly on **gold prices**) .Chokepoints / single-source: ROHM's own SiCrystal substrate line is both a moat (self-supply) and a risk (it built 6-inch capacity into a market that moved to 8-inch and then oversupplied — the direct cause of the impairment). Distribution runs through the big global cats (Digi-Key, Mouser, Arrow) plus direct.
Where the moat is real:
. Owning SiCrystal (substrate) + wafer + device + the analog control IC around it is a genuinely rare full-stack position — only Infineon, STMicro, Wolfspeed and onsemi sit in the same tier; the top-5 control **>90% of SiC revenue** .Where the moat is weaker than bulls think:
By business segment (Q3 of the year ending March 2026, i.e. Oct–Dec 2025 quarter — the cleanest recent split) ``:
| Segment | Quarterly revenue | YoY | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Semiconductor Devices (Discrete/Power incl. SiC) | ¥55.8B | +19.2% | The growth engine — SiC-for-inverters + AI-server pickup |
| LSI (analog/mixed-signal ICs) | ¥55.1B | +6.7% | Steady recovery, the ballast |
| Modules | ¥7.7B | −1.9% | Structural laggard |
| Others | (residual) | — | Passives/foundry/printheads |
Full-year (ended March 2025) segment growth ``: LSI +7.1%, Semiconductor Devices +9.7%, Modules +3.0%, Others +3.6% — a broad, unspectacular recovery masking the SiC write-down beneath it.
By end-market (year ended March 2025) ``: Automotive 49.2%, Consumer 21.9%, C&S/Components-&-Systems 12.3%, Industrial 12.7%, Communication 3.8%. The trajectory that matters: automotive has climbed from ~45% (FY-ended-Mar-2023) to ~49% — ROHM is levering itself into EV/auto power right as the EV growth curve flattened. That is the crux of the whole thesis.
No our figures on the shelf — every number here is , not .
The defining print — year ended 31 March 2025 ``:
| Metric | Year ended Mar-2025 | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Net sales | ¥481.1B | +7.3% |
| Operating profit | ¥10.8B | +2.3% |
| Operating margin | ~2.2% `` | — |
| Net income (loss) attrib. | −¥158.4B | (from prior-yr profit) |
| SiC-related impairment (extraordinary) | ¥163.2B | — |
| Dividend | ¥50/share | maintained |
The story is unmistakable: operationally roughly break-even, but a ¥163.2B SiC impairment turned it into a ¥158B net loss — one of the larger single write-downs by a Japanese semi in the cycle. ROHM's own stated cause: "slowdown in BEV market growth and the rise of Chinese manufacturers," plus "excess investment" and declining demand for 6-inch substrates ``. Translation: ROHM built SiC capacity (6-inch) for an EV ramp that decelerated, into a market that then oversupplied and moved to 8-inch — and wrote off the mismatch.
Current year (ending 31 March 2026) — mid-recovery, but guidance walked down twice:
Balance-sheet flags (as of 31 Mar 2025) ``: Total assets ~¥1.12T, total equity ~¥915B, total debt only ~¥40B → net cash position, equity ratio very high (~80%). This is the single most important defensive fact: ROHM took a ¥163B hit and its balance sheet barely flinched. A fortress balance sheet is why the equity survived the write-down.
Market reaction: not a crash — the opposite. The stock is at an all-time high (see Lens 8). The impairment was treated as a kitchen-sink event that clears the SiC overhang; the market is now paying for the recovery + AI-server optionality.
No transcripts on the shelf; sentiment reconstructed from earnings briefs + IR materials ``. The tonal arc across the last ~4 quarters:
Phrases that appeared: "800VDC / HVDC," "AI server," "battery backup unit (BBU)," "power + analog." Phrases that receded: the aggressive "6.5×/35× SiC capacity" ramp targets from the 2023 Toshiba announcement — quietly de-emphasised. The stopped-saying is as informative as the started-saying: ROHM is re-badging the same SiC capacity from an EV story to an AI story.
Global power/analog peers. Multiples are `` with source/date; where I could not source a figure it is n/a (never fabricated).
| Company | Ticker | Mkt cap (USD) | Fwd P/E | EV/EBITDA | ROE | Div yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ROHM | 6963.T | ~$15.5B (¥2.30T, 2026-07-03) | at-loss TTM; ~45–140x normalized `` | 23.5x `` | −4.5% (TTM, loss year) `` | ~0.8–1.4% `` |
| Infineon | IFX.DE | ~$119.7B `` | 37.0x `` | 27.4x `` | n/a | n/a |
| STMicro | STM | ~$69.7B `` | 39.8x `` | 21.2x `` | 0.9% `` | 0.5% `` |
| onsemi | ON | ~$35.5B `` | 35.1x `` | 17.8x `` | 7.5% `` | n/a |
| Renesas | 6723.T | ~$52.6B `` | 23.9x `` | 23.8x `` | n/a | n/a |
Read: ROHM is the smallest of the credible power-semi set — ~1/8th of Infineon, ~1/2 of Renesas. On EV/EBITDA (23.5x) it sits mid-pack, richer than onsemi/STM, near Renesas, cheaper than Infineon — but that is on depressed EBITDA (a near-break-even operating year). Its Market capitalisationThe share price multiplied by the number of shares. What the market says the equity is worth. doubled in a year (stock +241%), so the "cheap Japanese small-cap" framing is gone; ROHM is now priced as an AI-power growth name, not a cyclical laggard. ROE −4.5% is the ugly number — even in a loss year, it flags that ROHM's capital efficiency has lagged peers for years, not just this cycle.
ROHM has round-tripped violently. Key moves ``:
What the pattern reveals: ROHM's stock is now a pure-play sentiment vehicle on the SiC narrative. It sold off through the EV-SiC disillusionment (2024–25), bottomed on the impairment, and has exploded on the AI-server-SiC re-rating (2026). The market reacts to (1) the SiC demand narrative (which end-market is buying), (2) sell-side price-target resets (the JPM double), and (3) forex (¥/$). It does NOT trade on the current P&L — which is still barely profitable. This is a story-ahead-of-numbers stock.
): the founding family's direct stake is now low-single-digit/below-threshold, but influence persists through the **Rohm Music Foundation (10.76% holder)** and the conservative Kyoto-IDM culture . Top holders: Master Trust Bank of Japan 14.84%, Rohm Music Foundation 10.76%, foreign ~36.4%, treasury ~6.3% ``. No single controlling shareholder.Web-only; no filings on shelf to line-check. Accounting-risk read is directional ``.
Regulatory findings (required sub-section). Per regulatory/regulatory-findings.md: ROHM has no SEC CIK — not an SEC filer, so no EDGAR LR/AAER search is possible (total_sec_findings: 0, which reflects non-applicability, not a clean SEC audit). Non-SEC web search surfaced one material historical finding:
Verdict: No going-concern or fraud signal. The books tell a clean story of a bad capital decision — the write-down is honest. One resolved historical antitrust settlement (capacitors). Verified via web search + the regulatory-findings file (SEC non-applicable) as of 2026-07-07.
Building bottom-up from the current run-rate. **All outputs , inputs labeled. No `our model` logged (watchlist/unattended run — per skill rules, only log a committed base case).** Fiscal years end 31 March; shares outstanding ~386M (ex-treasury) .
Anchor: year ending Mar-2026 tracking to ~¥460B revenue, ¥9B net income (¥23 EPS) on guidance ``; but 9M already did ¥14.8B net / ¥38.4 EPS, implying a soft Q4 or conservative guide.
; op margin recovers to ~6% as SiC quality-assurance costs normalize and Kunitomi (April-2026 start) absorbs → net income ~¥28B → **EPS ~¥72** . FY-end-Mar-2028 revenue ¥525B, net ~¥40B → EPS ~¥104 ``.The number that matters: at ¥5,950, on base-case ~¥72 FY-Mar-2027 EPS, ROHM trades ~83× forward earnings ``. Even on a generous bull ¥145 EPS two years out, that's ~41×. The stock is priced for the bull case to be largely correct. There is little valuation cushion if the AI-server SiC ramp slips or a second SiC impairment lands.
Bull case. ROHM is a rare full-stack SiC IDM (owns the substrate via SiCrystal) with a fortress net-cash balance sheet, that has already taken its pain (¥163B kitchen-sink impairment clears the EV-SiC overhang) and pivoted its SiC capacity toward the fastest-growing power market on earth — AI-server / data-center HVDC, where its 750V SiC MOSFET (SCT4013DLL) is already designed into battery-backup units for ±400V/800VDC architectures, with mass production ramping Q2–Q3 2026 and volume peaking 2027 ``. Automotive is recovering (+13.9% YoY), the new CEO has a clean slate, and 92GW of incremental AI-data-center power demand by 2027 is a secular tailwind that needs exactly ROHM's product. If SiC re-rates as an AI-power story rather than an EV story, the earnings base can triple by 2028 — which is what JPM's doubled ¥8,000 target and Simply Wall St's ¥543B-revenue/¥54B-earnings 2028 path encode.
Bear case (2–3 permanent-impairment risks). (1) SiC is commoditizing, and ROHM is #5. Substrate prices collapsed >20% below $500/wafer and now sit near $400 or cost, driven by Chinese overcapacity backed by $15B of state subsidies and BYD-style localization ``. Being the smallest of the credible players in a price war is a structural disadvantage — the ¥163B impairment may be the first, not the last. (2) The AI-server SiC TAM is real but early and contested — mass production is Q2–Q3 2026 with volume "after 2027," and Wolfspeed, STMicro and onsemi are chasing the same BBU/PSU sockets; ROHM has no disclosed anchor customer yet. (3) Expectations are stretched: the stock is at an all-time high, +241% in a year, ~83× base-case forward EPS, on ~2% operating margins — a story fully priced before the P&L confirms it.
Pre-mortem (18 months out, thesis broke): It's early 2028. AI-server SiC design-wins went to Infineon/Wolfspeed at 8-inch scale; ROHM's 6-inch legacy and sub-scale cost position lost the price war; Chinese SiC took auto share; a second SiC impairment landed; EV stayed soft; the stock round-tripped from ¥5,950 back toward ¥3,000 as the AI-power narrative failed to show up in margins. The tell in hindsight: the market re-rated on a narrative pivot (EV→AI) using the same capacity that had just been written off, and paid an all-time-high multiple for optionality that a bigger, cheaper rival captured instead.
Are multiples too high? On current earnings, unambiguously yes — ~83× base-case forward EPS with 2% operating margins is a growth multiple on a cyclical laggard. Justified only if the AI-power SiC ramp is both large and ROHM-captured.
Contrarian view (what the market refuses to see): The bulls are treating ROHM's SiC capacity as an asset re-pointed at AI. But that capacity was impaired for a reason — it was the wrong node (6-inch) at the wrong scale (#5) at the wrong cost. Re-labeling it "AI-server SiC" doesn't fix the structural cost/scale gap versus Infineon. The market has priced the pivot's upside while ignoring that the same weakness that caused the write-down travels with the capacity into the new market.
Dismantling the bull case. Revenue concentration: ~49% automotive into a decelerated EV cycle — the exact exposure that just caused a ¥163B write-down; if EV SiC stays soft and AI-server volume is "after 2027," there's an air-pocket. Moat weaker than bulls think: the "world-first SiC MOSFET" pedigree is 15 years old; the current fight is about 8-inch scale and cost, where ROHM is sub-scale vs Infineon/STMicro and undercut by subsidized Chinese substrate. Owning SiCrystal is a double-edged sword — it's why ROHM couldn't just walk away from the capacity it had to impair. Most dangerous competitor bulls underestimate: not Infineon (obvious) but Chinese SiC substrate/device makers — they turned SiC into a commodity in 18 months and are localizing the auto supply chain ROHM depends on. Worst capital-allocation move: the ¥289B SiC build-out that produced a ¥163B impairment before a yen of profit — a textbook capacity-ahead-of-demand error, now owned. Assumptions that must hold for ¥5,950: (a) AI-server SiC is large and ROHM wins meaningful share, (b) no second SiC impairment, (c) auto SiC re-accelerates, (d) margins climb from ~2% to low-double-digits. If growth disappoints 20–30%: on ~83× base EPS, a miss re-rates the multiple and the earnings — a plausible path back toward ¥3,000–3,500 (near JPM's old ¥3,900 target). Single scenario that permanently impairs: SiC becomes a fully commoditized, Chinese-dominated component (like solar cells did) and ROHM is stuck as a sub-scale #5 with an impaired asset base and structurally low ROE — a value trap wearing an AI-growth costume.
Covered in the Knowledge Base
Hardware — Memory & Compute Architecture
| Industry | Semiconductors |
| Size | Public Company |
Where ROHM sits against the other names we cover on this beat. Each line is that company’s verdict, not a summary of it.
The Q2 beat was not a peak — July revenue accelerated to +44.7% YoY, the board appropriated a single-tranche US$29.4B of capacity capital, and H1 cape…
The Q2 print did the one thing the bear case could not survive
Cash $4.7B
The thesis got WIDER and the price got WORSE.
Cash $19.6B
The de-rate the June dossier warned about arrived early and for the exact reason it named
Cash $1.4B
LONG — MEDIUM (conviction DOWN one notch from the prior MEDIUM-HIGH, on wider risk, not a worse business).
Cash $25.0B