Alpha and Omega Semiconductor Limited

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Alpha and Omega Semiconductor Fiscal Q1 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. So I would like to hand the conference over to your host, Mr. Gary Dvorak.

Sir, you may begin. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Alpha and Omega Semiconductor's conference call to discuss fiscal 2022 first quarter financial results. I'm Gary Dvorak, Investor Relations Representative for AOS. With me today are Dr. Mike Chang, our CEO, Stephen Chang, our president, and Yvonne Leong, our CFO. This call is being recorded and broadcast live over the web. The replay will be available for seven days following the call via the link in the investor relations section of our website. Our call will proceed as follows. Mike will begin with strategic highlights. Then Stephen will provide business updates and a detailed segment report. After that, Yvonne will review the financial results and provide guidance for the December quarter. Finally, we will have the question and answer session. The earnings release is distributed over wire services today, November 4th, 2021, after the close of the market. The release is also posted on the company's website. Our earnings release and this presentation include certain non-GAAP financial measures. We use non-GAAP measures because we believe they provide useful information about our operating performance that should be considered by investors in conjunction with the GAAP measures that we provide. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures is included in the earnings release. We remind you that during this conference call, we will make certain forward-looking statements, including discussions of the business outlook and financial projections. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from such expectations. For a more detailed description of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our recent and subsequent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update the information provided in today's call. Now, I will turn the call over to our CEO, Dr. Mike Chang, to provide strategic highlights. Mike?

Thanks, Gary. I would like to welcome everyone to today's call. I am excited to be speaking with all of you again today. In a moment, I will review the operating highlights of the September quarter, which were strong. Before I do that, I want to highlight an important milestone in the history of AOS and what it means in a broader context. Today, you see that we earned over $1 per share on a non-GAAP basis. We believe this legitimately reflects real economical earnings power of over $4 per share annually. Why do we think this earning power is sustainable? Because of the early momentum we have demonstrated over the past two years. Because of the achievement of this milestone, and because of our prospects for growth in the years ahead. Yes, we are in a cyclical industry, so our EPS on a quarterly basis will fluctuate. But in most quarters, we believe that a quarterly EPS of more than $1 is achievable. And when you leverage our earnings, we believe that $4 to $5 per share is the annual earnings power of business we have built. Think about what we have achieved over the years. We have developed new silicon and packaging platforms to expand our stand and offer higher performance products. We broaden our demo technology to cover a full range of voltage applications. and have established a strong power IC portfolio in addition to a lineup of IGBT and module solutions. This has allowed us to diversify beyond our computing base into consumer, communications, and industrial markets. This also led to the success we see today in smartphones, home appliances, and next-generation computing applications. We have also engaged with our customers, strengthened the relationship and have become their trusted strategic partner. We count among our expanding customer base some of the most well-known, sophisticated and successful electronics companies in the world. Giants that are leaders in mobile phones, computing and gaming. All this work translates not only into earnings, but into earnings power. Our product portfolio is outstanding, but our R&D capability is even more valuable because it will keep our product line fresh, competitive, and relevant in the years ahead. Our design wins are wonderful, but our sales and marketing teams are even more valuable because they will drive more design wins in the years ahead. Our production capacity is state-of-the-art, but our production teams mean more to us because they will ensure we continue to be state-of-the-art a decade from now. That is the difference between earnings, which can come and go in our industry, and earnings power, which is a long-term source of value. When we look at our companies, we see valuable earnings power of $4 to $5 a share annually. We intend to build even better organization and grow the earnings power even more. With our stock price in the middle 30s range, the market is assigning a multiple of only seven to nine times our clearly demonstrated earnings power. Today, We celebrated this milestone of earning $1 a share in a single quarter. The joy our team has today is justified, but it is also just the beginning. Earnings power does not come on a single day or a quarter. It comes from a lifetime of work. This milestone has energized our team to serve our customers even better, make our product even more competitive, and create even more value for our shareholders. In this long-term effort, we thank all of you for your confidence in us and your support. Now, let me turn to other important highlights of the quarter. First fiscal quarter results were strong across the whole P&L. Revenue was $187 million. Non-GAAP gross margin was 35.3%. And the non-GAAP earnings per share were $1.06. We delivered double-digit growth in each of our market segments with record quality revenue excellent profitability and outstanding bottom line performance. Let me update you a critical issue. How we are dealing with the supply chain constraint in the broader semiconductor industry. We are expanding our production capacity in our Oregon fab, ramping production in our joint venture fab in Chongqing, and leveraging our relationships with our foundry partners to secure wafer supply Stephen will provide more details on our strategy later on this call. We believe we are doing an outstanding job in managing the industry-wide supply chain constraints. We want to be sure we minimize any interruptions to our customers. While our own supply is tight, we are in an excellent position to access both internal and external capacity to support our business. In summary, This strong quarter once again proved the strength of the team we have at AOS. I am very proud of and thankful for our team's execution and tireless work. We continue to believe that we have the right foundation for long-term growth and the right technology in place to ensure that we are successful in scaling our business. More importantly, We have the people and the capabilities to ensure that our earnings power expands even more in the years ahead. We are on track to achieve our mission of being a trusted technology partner and global supplier of a broad portfolio of power semiconductors. Now, I will turn the call over to Stephen for an update on our business and a detailed segment report. Stephen?

Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start with an update on our business and then provide detailed segment highlights for the September quarter. As Mike noted in discussing our earnings power, our products, revenue, and market share today are but a point in time. But the capability we have built ensures that we can maintain and continue this leadership for years, if not decades, to come. Our technical expertise enables us to develop a broader variety of power discrete and power IC technology platforms. We invest in core competencies of silicon packaging and ICs as the foundation of our product technology. This allows us to expand our product offerings and deliver complete power solutions for more target applications. Over the years, we have evolved from a component supplier to a solution provider. we have become a valued supplier to multiple Tier 1 customers. We fell into the number one global smartphone maker, number one gaming console manufacturer, number one global home appliance manufacturer, and number one power tool provider. In the September quarter, in several end markets, demand for our products was greater than we could fulfill. To manage these component shortages, we strategically shifted production to meet customer needs while driving growth in both revenue and gross margin. Furthermore, we are relentlessly focused on customer engagement. This focus on strategic customers enables us to leverage the current environment to stay closer to Tier 1 customers, optimize product mix and capacity allocation, and deliver strategic value to those customers. Like our industry peers, we are managing longer lead times and limited component availability, but we believe that our competitive market position, strong customer relationships, and supply chain responsiveness enable us to meet these commitments. We are taking a three-pronged approach to grow our capacity to meet the growing demand for our products. First, we are expanding capacity and enhancing the technological sophistication of our organ fabs. We will invest approximately $100 million, including $20 million, to upgrade our capabilities and $80 million to expand capacity. When complete, we believe this expansion will enable us to generate an additional $70 million in annual revenue. We expect the new capacity to come online in the December quarter of 2022. Importantly, we expect the investments to strengthen our competitive advantage in our target markets. This is a part of our long-term strategic plan for sustainable growth and technology improvement. With current challenges in the semiconductor industry, especially the global capacity shortages, we want to own and control our supply chain as much as possible. Second, the phase one capacity ramp at our JV fab in Chongqing is complete. We reached the target run rate of $150 million of annualized revenue in the September quarter. The JV company is well into the process of determining how it will implement phase two. Third, we have close relationships with multiple foundry partners and are actively working with them for additional wafer supply. Now let me throw down into each of our business segments. Unless otherwise noted, the following figures refer to the September quarter of 2021. Let's start with computing. Revenue was up 17.5% year-over-year and up 1.5% sequentially. This segment represented 42% of our total revenue. As expected, end demand for our products was strong. To best allocate capacity, we shifted resources and production to support the computing segment, especially notebook, tablet, and desktop applications. On the other hand, the graphics card business was temporarily down sequentially as we strategically shifted production capacity to support other segments in the face of component shortages. Looking ahead, we expect computing revenue to be up modestly in the December quarter. We expect strong demand to continue at our ODM customers for desktop. In addition, we expect our graphics card business to rebound and grow significantly from the September quarter level. This will be partially offset by a slight decline in Notebook as we allocate our resources to support growth in our desktop and graphic cards. Turning to the consumer segment, which was 21.8% of total revenue, up 11.4% year-over-year, and up 8.9% sequentially. This segment played out as expected. Gaming grew double digits due to both share gain and system growth at a major customer with both our MOSFET and Power IC products in multiple sockets. Our overall home appliance business also demonstrated solid growth across different geographies. We ship higher volumes of module solutions to key home appliance customers in Korea, China, and Japan. Looking to the December quarter, we expect the consumer segment to increase by a low single-digit percentage with strength in gaming and home appliances. Next, let's discuss the communication segment, which was 13.8% of total revenue. up 26.8% year-over-year and up 13.9% sequentially. This segment played out as expected, as demand for battery protection was strong at two of our global smartphone customers to support the launch of new models. That said, our shipments to China declined due to an inventory cleanup in the quarter. For the December quarter, we expect communications segment sales to decrease by mid-single-digit sequentially. While the major smartphone players in Korea and the U.S. are expected to reach peak production in the December quarter, we expect China's smartphone shipments to decline as smartphone manufacturers are navigating the component shortage. We continue to believe we are in an excellent position for growth in battery protection over the next couple of quarters as we have secured designs at all the major global smartphone makers. Finally, let's talk about the power supply and industrial segments, which accounted for 20.3% of total revenue. This segment was up 51.5% year over year and up 4.6% sequentially. The solid growth was due to a couple of factors. First, the demand for ACDC power supplies for laptop adapters was strong, with incremental medium voltage design engagement with major power supply customers in Taiwan. Second, demand for our industrial solutions from a major power tool customer in the U.S. was strong. Power tools is an emerging application for us with great synergy, given our product strengths in low and medium voltage products, targeting battery management and brushless PC motors. Looking ahead, we expect this power supply and industrial segment to decrease slightly in the December quarter due largely to the temporary slowdown in our ACDC power supply business attributable to end-system production shortages and offset by growth in solar power. In sum, we are off to a great start to fiscal year 2022. Our business momentum continues, and we have the right strategy in place which is generating strong results. Despite the ongoing industry-wide semiconductor component shortages, we are working diligently to deliver products to our customers. Our track record of consistent execution gives us confidence in our ability to capitalize on the many growth opportunities ahead of us. With that, I will now turn the call over to Yvonne for a discussion of our fiscal first quarter financial results and our outlook for the next quarter.

Thank you, Stephen. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Unless otherwise noted, the following figures refer to the September quarter of 2021. Revenue was $187 million, up 5.5% from the prior quarter, and up 23.4% from the same quarter last year. In terms of product mix, DMOS revenue was $130.7 million, up 2.7% sequentially and up 14.3% year-over-year. PowerIC revenue was $52.3 million, up 12.5% from the prior quarter and up 51.9% from a year ago. Assembly service revenue was $4 million as compared to $3.6 million last quarter and $2.7 million for the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP growth margin was 35.3%, up from 34.9% in the prior quarter, and up from 29% in the same quarter last year. The quarter-over-quarter increase in non-GAAP growth margin was mainly driven by better product mix. Non-GAAP gross margin excluded $0.8 million of amortization of purchased IP each for the September quarter, the prior quarter, and the same quarter last year. In addition, Non-GAAP gross margin excluded $0.6 million of shared base compensation charges as compared to $0.6 million for the prior quarter and $0.4 million for the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP operating expenses were $35.1 million compared to $32.8 million for the prior quarter and $28.6 million for the same quarter last year. The quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily due to higher variable compensation accrues this quarter to reward our outstanding financial performance. Non-GAAP operating expenses excluded $4.1 million of share-based compensation charges and $.4 million of legal expenses related to the government investigation. This compares to $4.8 million of share-based compensation charges and $0.6 million of legal expenses related to the investigation for the prior quarter, as well as $2.5 million of share-based compensation charges and $1.1 million of legal expenses related to the investigation for the same quarter last year. Income tax expense was $1.3 million compared to $1.2 million for the prior quarter and $1 million for the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP EPS attributable to AOS was $1.06 per share as compared to $0.95 for the prior quarter and $0.55 for the same quarter last year. Now let's look at cash flow. On a standalone basis, Not including the JV, AOS generated $84.4 million of GAAP operating cash flow. $44.2 million was from operations, and $40.2 million was net customer deposits to secure capacity. The non-deposit operating cash flow grew nicely. In the June quarter, we generated $22.6 million, and non-deposit cash flow in the same quarter a year ago was $12.7 million. Looking to Chongqing, GAAP operating cash flow used by the JV company was $3.8 million, compared to $11.6 million of cash flow provided by the JV company in the prior quarter, and $2.9 million of cash flow used by the JV company in the same quarter last year. Consolidated EBITDAs was $45.3 million compared to $40.9 million for the prior quarter and $27.6 million for the same quarter last year. EBITDAs attributable to AOS was $39.9 million as compared to $33.6 million for the prior quarter and $22.2 million for the same quarter last year. EBITDAs for the JV company was $3.4 million as compared to $7.8 million for the prior quarter and $4.6 million for the same quarter last year. Now let's look at the balance sheet. We completed the September quarter with a cash balance of $252.5 million, including $231.6 million at AOS and $20.9 million at the JV company. This compares to $202.4 million at the end of last quarter, which included $164.9 million at AOS and $37.5 million at the JV company. Our cash balance a year ago was $154.7 million, including $112.7 million at AOS and $42 million at the JV company. The bank borrowing balance was $159.2 million, including $22.2 million at AOS and $137 million at the JV Company. During the quarter, AOS and the JV Company repaid $2.1 million and $4.3 million of existing term loans, respectively. Net trade receivables were $39.3 million as compared to $35.8 million at the end of the prior quarter and $26.3 million for the same quarter last year. Day sales outstanding for the September quarter were 27 days compared to 26 days in the prior quarter. Net inventory was $163.4 million at the quarter end, up from $154.3 million last quarter, and up from $137.7 million in the prior year. Average days in inventory were 117 days for the quarter, compared to 115 days in the prior quarter. Net property, plant, and equipment was $441.3 million, slightly up from $437 million last quarter and up from $421.6 million last year. Capital expenditures were $23.9 million for the quarter, including $15.5 million at AOS and $8.4 million at the JV company. Now I would like to discuss December quarter guidance. We expect revenue to be approximately $188 million, plus or minus $3 million. Gap growth margin to be 34.8%, plus or minus 1%. We anticipate the non-gap growth margin to be 35.5%, plus or minus 1%. Non-GAAP gross margin excludes $0.8 million amortization of acquired IP and $0.6 million of estimated share based compensation charges. GAAP operating expenses to be in the range of $39.3 million plus or minus $1 million. Non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be in the range of $34.5 million plus or minus $1 million. Non-GAAP operating expenses exclude $4.3 million of estimated share-based compensation charges and $.5 million of estimated legal expenses relating to this government investigation. Income tax expense to be approximately $1.2 million to $1.4 million. loss attributable to non-controlling interest to be approximately $0.5 million. Before we open the line for questions, I will turn the call back to Stephen. He will briefly discuss a shareholder proposal to be voted on at the upcoming annual shareholder meeting. Stephen.

We want to call your attention to a proposal coming up for a vote at our annual shareholder meeting next week. As described in the proxy statement for the annual meeting, Proposal No. 3 requests an additional 1 million shares to be authorized under our equity incentive plan. We understand that ISS has recommended a vote against the proposal, primarily for certain technical reasons outlined in our proxy supplement filed with the SEC. We are encouraging our shareholders to vote for the proposal. As explained in our proxy statement and supplement, we expect to use these additional shares to incentivize our hard-working, non-executive employees. These additional shares will only be earned if the company achieves certain revenue growth criteria and stock price appreciation over a multiple-year period, which directly benefits shareholders despite the potential dilutions. Our employees show up every day and work diligently to create and sustain the earnings power that Mike described at the start of our call. We want to motivate our people to stay and participate in the wealth creation they enable. Technology companies like AOS face intense competition for talent, and therefore, equity incentive awards are critical for us to retain our best employees. All of us share a common interest in offering meaningful performance incentives to the broadest range of employees possible. You can learn more about our reasoning for the proposal in our proxy filing. We hope you agree and will vote for Proposal 3. With that, we will now open the call for questions. Operator, please start the Q&A session.

To attendees who would like to queue up for a question, please press star and then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Again, that is star 1. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A, Foster. Your first question is from Craig Ellis from B. Reilly Securities. Your line is open.

Yeah, thanks for taking the questions and congratulations on the strong financial result and outlook, guys. I wanted to start with more of a longer-term question. So it looks like with the customer deposits that have come in, the companies now have taken in and I think customer deposits that essentially will fund the Oregon fab expansion. And the question was really on the visibility that you have into the tools that are needed and, and the other work that needs to be done so that that can actually start producing, producing wafers and shipments in the fourth quarter. So can you just provide some color on, on how that capacity expansion is coming and your confidence in getting wafers out and, and revenue generation in the fourth quarter of next year?

Sure. You know, as we stated in our last earnings call, we are investing over $100 million in our Oregon FAB. So the cleanroom constructions has been – started already. So and most of the purchase orders already placed for the two purchases. So we are at this point and we are expecting we can get the additional capacity online in the December quarter of calendar year 2022. So that's our current expectation.

That's real helpful, Yvonne. The second question is more of a near-term question, maybe better directed to Stephen. So there have been some other chip companies this reporting season that have remarked that communications-related issues more, I think, on the supply side with some Tier 1 OEMs were suppressing shipments in the calendar fourth quarter. Obviously, there's been news out there about softer, lower-end smartphones in the Android supply chain in the fourth quarter. But but there is a view that the first quarter, first calendar quarter's communications revenues could be above seasonal just on some catch-up demand and product cycle releases in Android. So can you talk a little bit about what you see as you look a little bit further out into the first quarter and any color on gives and takes across the other segments for the first quarter would be helpful as well. Thank you. Sure. Great.

Thanks for talking to you. And Definitely, we are seeing that our customers in many of our segments are still facing shortages, and not only of power components, but other system components that are necessary to produce their end systems. Specifically for smartphones, we did see softness in the China market for Android phones there. And that's strictly tied to lack of supply and lack of ability to get certain components, if not due to lack of demand. It's possible that this demand will extend further than the typical season. Just similar to last year, we observed that the smartphone season kind of got prolonged because of delays in the launches. But it's also tied to your supply also, too. So that is quite possible. For us, you know, more immediately, yes, we do see, especially in the China market, that there's a little bit of a slowdown, mainly due to the more challenging difficulty in procuring other components.

Got it. And it sounds like from the commentary that for the most part the company is still meaningfully on allocation, Stephen, and is just navigating the demand environment with its capacity to best serve the highest areas and highest margin opportunities. But you should look at the order book and the backlog that you have. Do you think that that allocation position is likely to persist through the fourth quarter and into next year, or do you see that Do you see capacity for whatever reason or order activity being able to bring you back into equilibrium?

I do think that allocation will still be with us for a few more quarters. Right now, we are in a typical, in a regular year, it will be a peak season. So you have smartphone demand. You also have PC demand and other things lining up at the same time. And normally, there would be seasonality going into the December quarter and into the March quarter. I think some of that demand may subside a bit, but because everyone is backlogged, I'm talking about our customers being backed up in their order's And we do expect that allocation will still be ongoing. When we meet with our customers, we are frequently being told that they are not shipping to demand. And they are not able to fulfill the demand that they have and that demand that they see is sustainable too. So I do think at least for the next three quarters, we'll still be in some form of allocation, at least in that kind of mid-term time frame.

Got it. That's helpful. I appreciate it, guys. I'll hop back into the queue.

Again, that is star one to queue up our question. Your next question is from David Williams from Benchmark. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon, and I also wanted to congratulate you on the milestone of EPS over a dollar, but another one of nearly a billion dollars in market cap. I think the open market opens tomorrow, so congratulations on all fronts there. Thank you. Thanks, David. You guys are clearly doing a good job executing, dropping the gross margin, and you've been on allocation for some time. The JBE helped there. But I guess as you kind of think about your longer-term plans and your capacity additions, do you feel like you're building to demand that you have? or do you think you're still going to be short on your capacity front? And just kind of just thinking about what other opportunities are there available to you outside of what maybe we've discussed already in terms of capacity, especially kind of given the newfound growth that you've experienced this year?

Yeah, we've talked about this in the past. You know, our capacity expansion going forward is a three-pronged approach. We talked about in the last quarter that we are investing in-house in our 8-inch organ fab to grow capacity there. That will be coming on through the latter half of next year. We're also continuing to work with our joint venture also to continue to grow with them. But we're also, at the same time, working with boundaries, additional boundaries to build capacity as well. So we plan to have a more balanced approach. We believe that our demand is quite strong, and we do need to establish more sources of supply in order to keep up with our business.

Okay. Very good. Thanks for the color there. And maybe anything around the JV and the second phase, you said you were currently planning that. Is there been any updates there and what maybe could we expect in terms of that second phase of the JV in terms of your planning efforts? How are you thinking about that?

Sure. The JV company is well into the process of determining how it will implement its next phase of the growth and expansion. I mean, the process takes some time. I mean, this thing is like the last time, you know, it took two or three years to establish the joint venture agreement. I mean, I don't know. believe this time it will not much, but it needs to be some patience. This brings me to a saying that good things come to those who wait, right? We will disclose more when it comes.

Okay, perfect. Thanks. And then maybe just kind of on the geographies, is there anything specific maybe in China, just kind of given your manufacturing footprint there and the breadth of your product exposure, are you seeing the softer consumer trends? And have you been impacted by maybe some of the COVID infections that seem to be spreading or maybe even the power issues or raw materials? Anything, I guess, from a geographic standpoint in China that you're seeing? Well, right now – Go ahead.

Okay. Well, this one, you know, so far on our factories in Shanghai and joint ventures in Chongqing, we have not encountered any power outage. You know, COVID generally is prevented while there. So far, we have not seen some supply issues there. But if the power outage continues, it may start impacting on us. So that's why we are increasing some. For example, in the September quarter. And, you know, we intentionally build up some raw materials and spare parts and, you know, increased some inventory on hand. So just in case.

Okay, great. Well, thanks again, gentlemen, and the best of luck on the quarter. All right. Thank you.

Thanks, David. Again, thank you for your question. That is star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question is from Jeremy Kwan from Staple, Nikolaus. Your line is open.

Yes, thank you. And let me add my congratulations to the team on a very strong execution. Just a question first, I guess, in terms of the growth that you've experienced in the recent quarters. Do you have a sense for how much of that is share gains maybe versus new, when's the new socket? Just maybe for some industry context, it seems like, you know, everyone is kind of re-part or typing their portfolios and, you know, sometimes predators are exiting certain product lines. Is this something that you're seeing that you have insight to?

For us, I'm trying to get, it's a little hard to hear the question, but I think you're asking, is it shared gain or is it new sockets? Is that the gist of it? Yes, that's right. Yeah. So I think, you know, I'm, Definitely, you know, I think part of our growth and surge in revenue this year was because, you know, we were very well positioned in our core markets. And, you know, our biggest markets are still PC, smartphone, and home appliances. And these have grown because of the design that we have secured. So some of it is our existing business and getting more share and choosing to allocate more to a certain more strategic business. Some of it also is new designs that are ramping up even further. The home appliance is a great example of this with our IGBT, our model solutions. These were designed in probably about a year and a half ago into the big Korea customer there. It takes time for them to roll out from one project to other projects. Part of the growth that we see, for example, in that home appliance area is because of our existing solutions being used in new applications within that customer. So, you know, right now in this shortest time, it is actually a great time for us to, uh, to not only grow existing business, but also to design in, uh, new sockets, um, you know, where we want to be because, you know, our customers are, you know, are, um, are very much needing supply. So they're very receptive, uh, to getting, um, um, new parts designed.

Great. That's very helpful. And just another follow-up on the Oregon FAB, and just kind of understanding your utilization and your revenue potential more broadly. So if you've got the JVs seems to be fully utilized, it's reached that $150 million annualized revenue run rate. Your Oregon FAB, the expansion is not going to be online until December of next year. Is there some sort of – Do you have a line of sight to keep growing between now and December 22? Or is there some limits that you might bump up against as you, you know, wait for the organ fab expansion to kick in? Can you help us just kind of see that picture?

Sure. Yeah. So for us, you know, we do plan to continue to grow. And, yes, you know, we are on allocation now. But there's actually a lot we can do within the allocation. First of all, we are working on trying to find ways to de-bottleneck and to squeeze more output out of our sources of supply. And just as I mentioned in one of the earlier questions, we are working on three different fronts to expand that supply. So part of it, yes, we're counting on Oregon, but we're also working on the other two areas too, to grow capacity. In the meantime, one of the other things we've been doing during this shortage time is to streamline and to optimize our product mix. So you can see that we've been having success in some of the newer segments, such as the graphics cards or the gaming consoles. And because we put more emphasis on higher value sockets, And that could mean power ICs. It could mean higher module solutions or even our higher-end MOSFET solutions. So we believe that with product mix and better allocation and focusing on the strategic accounts, we believe that we still can grow to some degree in the coming quarters. Got it.

This is Mike Chen.

Can I add up the Q9? Yes, please. Jeremy? You know, AOS, from the very beginning, has paid a lot of attention to how to cultivate a strong partnership with our customers. And we care very much about the loyalty and the trust and credibility. And in this shortage period since last year, many of our customers recognize the value of AOS, the sincerity of AOS. So you can see from the deposit money, those are actually just a symbolic of the attitude. They are right now absolutely working with AOS for a long time, multiple years collaboration. So it's further secure our business growth. So this is something I'd like to share with our investors. Thank you, Jeremy.

Yes. No, thank you, Mike. And, you know, you guys have done a tremendous job, you know, gaining, like you said, those tier one customers top in your field. So. It's certainly validation of your execution and your strategy. I guess the other area you mentioned, going back to the three prongs that you mentioned, Stephen, that third prong, the foundry, can you help us, can we just dig a little bit deeper into that? Is this for, I assume this is for your PowerIC business, or are you actually looking even at MOSFETs, if that's kind of the constraints?

We're looking at both. Our business, actually each one of our product lines are growing pretty quickly. And we do need a plan ahead to accommodate the future growth. So we're working on multiple fronts, both for Mosset, Silicon, as well as for ICI.

Will there be any impacts in terms of the gross margin dynamics there? We're hearing foundry prices are going up everywhere, especially for the lagging generation type nodes. Presumably, they're pretty booked up in terms of capacity as well. Can you give us some insight into what your thoughts are on that going forward?

I think certainly if you go outside, you have to share that profit margin. But it sort of gets washed out because, again, we're addressing multiple products. Some are IC products. Some are MOSFETs. I don't think it may not be a huge difference between in-house and outside. And keep in mind that for us, even for us, our in-house supply – our costs are also increasing too. So the boundaries are increasing prices because their raw materials are going up. It's going up for us also too. So, you know, we're using that time also to help to share the burden a bit in select ways with our customers too after pricing. But, yeah, I think basically getting more supply is going to help our bottom line in the end. Got it.

And maybe just – You know, those are big foundries. They are also extremely professional and mature. So they also like to have long-term partnership. Yes, they will reflect their increase on their raw material and other costs. But I will say we thank very much to all of them. They are fairly reasonable. That's why we can maintain our price also to a reasonable level. Thank you, Jeremy.

Thank you, Mike. And if I could just squeeze in one more question. I guess, can you help us, you know, stepping back again, looking at the big picture, you know, you have the JV that has a shell built out. It's been waiting on phase two, it seems like, for a couple quarters. Why wouldn't you ramp that one before kicking in the Oregon fab? Is there some, maybe is this kind of a product scenario where certain ones are more suited for the Oregon FAB? It just seems like the China JVs is kind of going to be maxed out for a couple quarters until they can get maybe the financing. And maybe we can talk a little bit about the financing discussions going on there as well. It just seems like there's a little bit of a lag between when you're maxed out at the JV and when you might need to

access to the additional capacity well germany did um i mean this one as steven just emphasized that you know we take a three-pronged approach and then you know the different locations and different facts and that they're producing um different uh the products. So for our Oregon Fab, we saw the needs and we need to expand, then we invest them there. And also, we are in the, the JB company is in the process of doing their financing. So they're well into that process. At the same time, we're also working with third-party foundries to expand their capacity, so their supply to us. So we are working at all the fronts to support our continued growth.

That's very fair. And sorry, just one last question on the JV since I have you here. Sure. With the negative cash flow in the quarter, you know, my understanding was that it would be free cash flow neutral, you know, at full utilization. And so we've got like the negative operating cash flow and on top of that there's the $8 million in CapEx. So can you help us? Is this like a kind of a one-time kind of a timing issue or are there you know, different dynamics going on in the JV. Maybe there's, you know, the rising prices, energy, things like that, you know, get a better picture of what's going on.

Oh, sure. I mean, this, I mean, you know, our target originally for phase one was to, you know, get the 12-inch wafer cost on the per die basis and on par with our 8-inch wafer cost. So that was the target. So, I mean, in terms of free cash flow, I mean, this thing is impacted by the working capital changes, you know, CapEx payments. I mean, from time to time, you know, by and large, it's around there. I mean, that's why they are in the process of doing the financing for the further expansion.

Okay. Thank you, Yifan. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a follow-up question from David Williams. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks for letting me ask a follow-up. Just wanted to see if you had any updates on maybe your automotive efforts and maybe any color around design activity or distraction that you've seen there. I know we're still some time away, but just curious how the traction has been so far.

We're still a bit of time away, as we talked before, and automotive is definitely an area that we are entering into. But it's still in the early phase right now. We released products a few quarters ago. We're still in the early stage of releasing the automotive portfolio of products. So engagement is going on, but I don't expect to be talking about this not in the short term. As you know, again, the design cycles for automotive is three to four years or even longer between design into when the automobile rolls out of the assembly floor. So it will take time to get to revenue realization. But definitely it's something that we are engaged in. It is a big part of the market and that we have put aside in the past, but it's something that we are starting to address. Great. Thank you.

And we have a follow-up from Jeremy Kwan from Stiefel. Your line is open.

Yes. Hi, guys. In terms of the ramp for the Oregon FAB and the expansion, is that December quarter, is that the initial ramp that you can start getting revenues from? Or is this, you know, when, can you help us see the shape of the ramp from when you go from zero to that, you know, 70 million one rate?

from zero to 70 million right now, that will take a couple quarters. But in the December quarter, we expect the Oregon fabric can start producing at a higher level.

Got it. And then Can you talk about any impact of gross margin as you ramp, you know, looking at all the puts and takes between equipment being more expensive and kind of ramp-up costs? And also, you know, do you have any insight into, you know, where the shape of gross margins might look like as we move throughout the next year, you know, looking at your own costs, looking at your foundry agreements and things like that?

Thanks. Okay, sure. You know, When we expanded Oregon Fab, I would say at this point, you can assume it's like a neutral impact on our gross margin. I think when we get to the point, we will discuss more. I mean, in terms of gross margin for the near term or longer term, I think, I mean, you saw our gross margin growth in the last few quarters. You know, this money reflected, you know, better product mix. You know, we are selling more products with higher margins. We are optimizing, you know, product mix and customer mix. You know, we do have in some company, you know, company specific growth drivers. For example, you saw our PowerIC product line grew over 50% year-over-year in the September quarter. I think in the June quarter, it grew almost 100%. Right now, the The revenue from the PowerIC product line already crossed $50 million per quarter. And that's like $200 million annual business there. Right now, PowerIC product line accounts for almost 30% of our overall revenue. For our discrete product line, yeah, we are going very well, too. You know, more and more, we're selling more and more, you know, high-value products there to some large tier one customers. So then, you know, all in all, I mean, this, we believe in, you know, the product mix and that we can continue to improve. And then... Of course, we do see some input cost increases as well, and then let's know where we adjust our mix and our selling price to mitigate those impacts. So overall, I think we can on at least maintaining this mid 30 percent gross margin on a non-gap basis great thank you very much that's very helpful thank you and i'm showing no further questions at this time i would now like to turn it back to management for any additional or closing comments So this concludes our earnings call today. Thank you for your interest in AOS, and we look forward to talking to you again next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation, and have a great day.