Semiconductor Stocks Just Had Their Worst Day in Years. Is the AI Chip Boom Cracking, or Is This a Buying Opportunity?

The iShares Semiconductor ETF fell about 10% on Friday, one of its steepest single-day drops in years.

Softer guidance from Broadcom and a strong jobs report triggered the broad sell-off.

After a year of enormous gains, even strong results may no longer be enough to push these stocks higher.

Friday was brutal for chip stocks. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SOXX) , a broad gauge of the group, sank about 10% to around $540 -- one of its worst single sessions in years -- as investors fled the corner of the market that has powered much of the artificial intelligence (AI) trade. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell more than 4% -- its worst day since April 2025, and the selling reached well beyond semiconductors.

Helping put some of the damage to the chip sector into perspective, consider some of the dramatic moves in a few individual names. Marvell Technology tumbled about 17% on Friday, and Micron Technology fell about 13%. Additionally, chipmakers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices each dropped around 11%.

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A few overlapping forces were behind the drop. But none of them, on its own, says the AI boom is over. Together, however, they gave investors who had ridden these stocks for enormous gains plenty of reason to lock in some of those gains.

The spark came from Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) . The chip and software company reported fiscal second-quarter results (the period ended May 3) after the close on Wednesday. But there really wasn't any weakness in the chipmaker's results. In fact, they were staggeringly good, featuring record revenue of about $22.2 billion, up 48% year over year, with AI chip revenue surging 143% to $10.8 billion.