MaxLinear, Inc

Greetings and welcome to the MaxLinear first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Leslie Green, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Maria. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss MaxLinear's first quarter of 2026 financial results. Today's call is being hosted by Dr. Kishore Sigriput, CEO, and Steve Litchfield, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer. After our prepared comments, we will take questions. Our comments today include forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements relating to our guidance for the second quarter of 2026, including revenue, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin, GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses, GAAP and non-GAAP interest and other expense, GAAP and non-GAAP income taxes, and GAAP and non-GAAP diluted share count. In addition, we will make forward-looking statements relating to trends, opportunities, execution of our business plan, and potential growth and uncertainties in various product and geographic markets. including without limitation, statements concerning future financial and operating results, opportunities for revenue and market share across our target markets, new products, including the timing of production and launches of such products, demand for and adoption of certain technologies, and our total addressable market. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including risks outlined in our risk factors section of our recent SEC filings, including our 10Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, which we filed today. Any forward-looking statements are made as of today, and Max Linear has no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. The first quarter 2026 earnings release is available in the investor relations section of our website at maxlinear.com. In addition, we report certain historical financial metrics, including but not limited to gross margin, income or loss from operations, operating expenses, interest and other expense, and income tax on a both GAAP and non-GAAP basis. We encourage investors to review the detailed reconciliation of our GAAP and non-GAAP presentations in the press release available on our website. We do not provide a reconciliation of non-GAAP guidance for future periods because of the inherent uncertainty associated with our ability to project certain future changes including stock-based compensation and its related tax effects, as well as potential impairments. Non-GAAP financial measures discussed today are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for comparable GAAP financial measures. We are providing this information because management believes it is useful to investors as it reflects how management measures our business. Lastly, this call is also being webcast, and the replay will be available on our website for two weeks. And now let me turn the call over to Dr. Kishore Sindhipu, CEO of MaxLinear. Kishore.

Thank you, Leslie, and good afternoon, everyone. Q1 was a strong and important start to the year, and we believe it marks the beginning of a multi-year growth phase for MaxLinear, led by our optical data center business. Revenue grew 43% year-over-year, reflecting strong execution, accelerating adoption of our newest products, improving visibility and bookings, and sustained momentum across our infrastructure programs. Infrastructure is now our largest revenue category, growing 136% year-over-year in Q1, driven by robust production ramps and optical data center-oriented platforms. We see this momentum continuing to build as hyperscale customers rapidly scale AI-centric architectures. Based on customer orders and rising visibility of the program ramps, we are increasing our expectations for 2026 optical data center revenue to $150 million to $170 million range. We also expect a step function data center revenue increase beginning in Q2 with expected strong upside as run rates expand into 2027. At the center of this data center momentum is our Keystone PAMFORD DSP optical transceiver platform. Keystone is now ramping at multiple major high-skill customers across both the U.S. and Asia, supporting 400G and 800G PAMFORD deployments for scale-up and scale-out applications. These ramps validate our differentiation performance, power efficiency, and integration standards. At OFC this year, we showcased our 1.6 terabit data center platform featuring Rushmore, our 200 gigabit per lane PAM4 DSP, Washington, our matching 200 gigabit per lane TIA, and Annapurna, which is our 1.6 terabit AEC and 3.2 terabit onboard electrical retimer platform for scale-up applications. Rushmore and Annapurna are foundational to the next wave of data center optical architectures, including LPO, LRO, AECs, XPO, and co-packaged optics. With Keystone validating our ability to execute at scale, customer engagement around Rushmore has accelerated faster than expected. We anticipate production ramps beginning in late 2026 with revenue growth expected to continue strong growth through 2027 as the next generation speed and bandwidth cycle unfolds. We are also expanding our footprint within hyperscale data centers beyond PAM4-based optical and electrical interconnects. We have secured our first XGS PON design win at a US hyperscale data center through a Tier 1 OEM partner as cloud operators deploy resilient, dedicated, pond-based control plane architectures spanning multiple data centers. Adjacent to compute, we have also run USB bridge controller designs with two major hyperscalers to support rack-level AI system management, which opens the door to increasing content per rack over time. Our Panther Hardware Storage Accelerator SoC family continues to build momentum with growing design-win activity among tier one network appliance and cloud service providers. Persistent memory constraints are highlighting Panther's advantages in hardware accelerated compression, high throughput, and ultra-low latency memory access. We're actively sampling next generation Panther 5 with key customers, and based on current engagement, we expect storage accelerator revenue to at least double in 2026 compared to 2025. Beyond data centers, wireless infrastructure momentum is improving as carriers increase investments in 5G RAN access and backhaul to support cloud-connected and edge AI functionality. Our Sierra single-chip radio associates are now deployed with multiple North American operators with expanding opportunities as 5G networks continue to evolve. In broadband and connectivity, we are executing large-scale deployments of our single-chip fiber pawn and Wi-Fi 7 gateway platforms with the second major tier one service provider in North America with additional ramps expected later in the year in Europe. These long-cycle deployments provide a stable foundation, leverage the same strengths in integration and power efficiency that clearly differentiate MaxLinear's data center portfolio. In summary, we are very pleased with the strong start to 26 and are especially excited by the momentum accelerating in our optical data center business. With multiple customers entering meaningful ramps of our 800-gigabit Keystone family and broader engagement across our 1.6-terabit Rushmore and Annapura product families across scale-out and scale-up AI architectures, we believe MaxLinux is exceptionally well-positioned for sustained transformative growth. Our disciplined focus on execution and innovation gives us confidence that 2026 will be a pivotal year as we continue to evolve our strategy and deliver long-term value for our customers and shareholders. With that, let me now turn the call over to Steve Litchfield, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer.