TD Cowen and Wells Fargo cut Microchip to $75 and $80; the 26-analyst consensus still holds $107
TD Cowen and Wells Fargo marked Microchip Technology down to its own share price in one session on October 19, 2026, after a month of AI data-center launches that attached no revenue figure to any of them. The September quarter, reported on November 5, 2026, is where the argument gets numbers.
Richard Tang · 3 min read
Two brokerages cut their price targets on Microchip Technology+2.33% — Microchip Technology, up 2.33 percent today (Nasdaq: MCHP) down to the share price in a single session on October 19, 2026 12. The stock sits just above $74, where TD Cowen now sees $75 and Wells Fargo $80 12.
The 26-analyst consensus still sits above $107, an average the two houses that just marked the stock down no longer support 1. Nothing in Microchip's October announcements can settle that disagreement, because none of it carries a dollar. The September quarter, reported after the close on November 5, 2026, is the first thing that can 3.
Two houses cut to the price; the street average held above $107
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Street average (26 analysts) | $107.24 |
| Wells Fargo, 19 Oct | $80 |
| TD Cowen, 19 Oct | $75 |
The engineering is real and none of it has a price tag
The October 5, 2026, reference design with Navitas, a gallium-nitride power-chip maker, is genuine work: Microchip's dsPIC33AK digital control chips drive Navitas transistors to take 800-volt rack power straight down to the six volts a GPU board wants, collapsing two conversion stages into one 4. At the Open Compute Project summit, the data-center standards body where it was exhibited, the power layer moved on paper only. The power-rack specification landed on October 8, 2026, while products, this design among them, stayed at the exhibit stage with no production date 5.
The month kept the same shape: a PCIe Gen 6 switch and NVMe storage refresh for servers 6, a radiation-tolerant power converter for satellites 7, and VORAGO, an Austin, Texas radiation-hardened chipmaker bought on undisclosed terms Microchip itself calls immaterial 8. The partners are less shy. Navitas, which spent October 20 on an investor call titled Breaking the AI infrastructure Power Wall, expects AI infrastructure to pass a third of its sales this year 910. Peer chipmaker STMicroelectronics+4.14% — STMicroelectronics, up 4.14 percent today puts its data-center revenue above $1 billion 10. Microchip attached no figure to any launch.
Both camps get their number on November 5
UBS's October 16, 2026, semiconductor survey, which we ran for Analog Devices+2.67% — Analog Devices, up 2.67 percent today, expects Microchip's September quarter to grow 8.5% sequentially against a 4.3% seasonal norm; that is the bull case in one line 11. The bear case sits in the same note: market microcontroller prices fell 7% last quarter, Microchip's own prices fell in every category, and inventory still covers 175 days of sales 11.
Half of Microchip's revenue is microcontrollers 1, the stock trades near 101 times trailing earnings 3, and the shares have slid from the low $80s on the morning of the Navitas launch to the mid-$70s 121.
Revenue has grown five straight quarters off the cycle bottom
Data
| Quarterly revenue | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '23 | $2.25B |
| Q4 '23 | $1.77B |
| Q1 '24 | $1.33B |
| Q2 '24 | $1.24B |
| Q3 '24 | $1.16B |
| Q4 '24 | $1.03B |
| Q1 '25 | $0.97B |
| Q2 '25 | $1.08B |
| Q3 '25 | $1.14B |
| Q4 '25 | $1.19B |
| Q1 '26 | $1.31B |
| Q2 '26 | $1.49B |
The reward arrives when sockets ship
Nvidia+2.41% — Nvidia, up 2.41 percent today has framed one-megawatt 800-volt racks as a 2027 event, and Microchip's controllers are inside the design that leads there 54. Revenue arrives when sockets ship, quarters after the showcase, and whoever turns the reference board into production racks has earned the reward. Until then the AI story is a dated promise, and the date is November 5 4. Navitas, the partner, reports its own quarter two days earlier 4.
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