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spk15: Thank you for holding and welcome everyone to the Navitas Semiconductor 4th Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, again, press the star 1. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Stephen Oliver. VP Corporate Marketing and Investor Relations.
spk17: Mr. Oliver, please go ahead. Good afternoon, everyone.
spk32: I'm Stephen Oliver, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Investor Relations. Thank you for joining Navitas Semiconductor's fourth quarter and full year 2022 results conference call. I'm joined today by Jean Sheridan, our Chairman, President, CEO, and Co-Founder and Ron Shelton, our CFO and Treasurer. A replay of this webcast will be available on our website approximately one hour following this conference call, and the recorded webcast will be available for approximately 30 days following the call. Additional information related to our business is also posted on the investor relations section of our website. Our earnings release includes non-GAAP financial measures, Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures with the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our fourth quarter earnings release and also posted on our website in the investor relations section. In this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements about future events or about the future financial performance of Navitas, including acquisitions. You can identify these statements by words like we expect or we believe or similar terms. We wish to caution you that such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from expectations expressed in our forward-looking statements. Important factors that can affect Navitas business, including factors that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements, are described in our earnings release. Please also refer to the risk factors sections in our most recent 10K and 10Qs. Our estimates or other forward-looking statements may change, and Navitas assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changed assumptions, or other events that may occur, except as required by law. And now, over to Gene Sheridan, CEO.
spk09: Thank you, Steve, and welcome to everyone on the call today. I am very pleased with our Q4 results, which came in above our midpoint guidance across all key metrics. For 2022 in total, I'm especially happy with the dramatic expansion and diversification we achieved both organically and through acquisitions. Navitas entered this year with a solid position in five major growth markets with leading-edge GAN and silicon carbide, along with complementary silicon drivers and controllers. Such a position gives us confidence to reiterate our expectations to double our revenues in 2023 as compared to 2022. This month, we completed the buyout of our silicon controller joint venture, constituting our third transaction in just nine months. All major steps in building a portfolio of leading-edge GaN, silicon carbide, with silicon-based digital isolators and analog controllers optimized for wide band-gap materials, which we believe is unequaled in our industry. This pure-play focus on next-generation power semiconductors without any distraction or dilution by traditional silicon power devices uniquely positions Navicos for growth and leadership in next-generation electrified systems from EV and renewables to industrial and appliance markets to mobile, consumer, and data center segments. In total, these transactions have expanded our market opportunity by 75% from $13 billion to over $23 billion per year by 2026. 2022 was an extraordinary year for our company. We rapidly expanded into these new market segments, transitioning from a company in 2021 that was 100% mobile consumer-focused to a more diversified set of markets resulting in 2022 revenues, with approximately 30% in appliance and industrial, 12% in solar and storage, 5% in EV, and 40% in mobile and consumer segments. With these diversified markets, also comes a diversified regional footprint with 24% of our 22 sales in North America, 32% in Europe, and 44% in Asia. Let me explain further about our joint venture controller transaction. Elevation Semiconductor was a JV created in 2021 with Halo Microelectronics. The JV was started to create application-specific silicon analog controllers optimized for high-frequency GaN and silicon carbide to enable even higher efficiency, density, and integration at a lower cost. As you know, Navitas has a unique capability with our GaN integrated circuits. Much of what we're integrating in GaN has traditionally been designed into these silicon analog controllers. With this new capability and controllers, we can accelerate our pace of development and innovation with the optimal partitioning and integration between the silicon controllers and the GaN power devices to deliver more value and a more complete solution to our customers. The initial products from this venture target mobile chargers, consumer adapters, and appliance auxiliary power supplies. Over time, we expect this technology will be introduced in all of our target markets, including EV, solar and storage, data center, and more industrial applications. We closed the elevation transaction last week with 20 new employees joining our company, composed mainly of design, applications, product, and test engineers. The first-generation products were introduced last year and already have generated dozens of customer wins and appreciable ramping revenues. These products will be rebranded as Navitas, plus we will launch a new generation family in March at the APEC Paralectronics Show.
spk17: Let's turn our progress to each of our target markets.
spk09: In EV, we have established a strong position with our silicon carbide technology and ultra-fast roadside chargers. Our level 3 DC fast chargers deliver up to 350 kilowatts of power, or up to 20 miles per minute of charging, and a 10 to 80% charge in only 18 minutes, dramatically reducing range anxiety concerns for consumers. Our silicon carbide differentiation resides in the technology itself, in which we deliver industry-leading in-circuit efficiencies and cooler temperatures. Furthermore, level 3 charger architectures are moving to a higher bus voltage from 1,000 volts to 1,500 volts, which helps to increase power density, simplify designs, and further improve efficiency, reliability, and cost. A 1,500-volt bus requires up to 3,300-volt silicon carbide device capability. A voltage range for an Albatross silicon carbide brings unequal performance with limited competition. Our silicon carbide technology has already been adopted by over a dozen roadside charger customers and is being integrated in over 50% of the U.S. roadside chargers, including Electrify America and EVgo. Just one of these customers, we expect shipments to approach a million units by the end of Q2. The total roadside charger potential for silicon carbide is estimated to be over $1 billion by 2030, growing at a 30% annual growth rate. We believe this year's rollout of the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $7.5 billion for EV charging infrastructure, will accelerate this roadside charger growth rate and add significant upside to this market. This month, the Biden administration announced a goal to install a half a million EV chargers in the U.S. by 2030, with all EV chargers funded through the bipartisan infrastructure law built in the United States. Also, by July 2024, at least 55% of the cost of all components will need to be manufactured domestically, which matches well with our Texas-based silicon carbide wafer manufacturing with our supply chain partner, XFAT. In addition to the roadside chargers, our silicon carbide technology is in development or production for EV onboard chargers with major customers that include General Motors, BYD, and Mercedes-AMG. As previously announced, we have created a joint EV design center with GE, a rising China-based EV player with almost 10% of worldwide EV sales in 2022. This center will initially co-develop next-generation onboard chargers for GE, utilizing a combination of argand, silicon carbide, and digital isolators to address both 400-volt and 800-volt battery systems. With the GE Center and our existing EV system design center, we are developing five onboard system platforms supporting 10 customer projects to utilize our GaN or carbon carbide, and we are still on track for our first GaN-based EVs in production in 2025. Let's turn to renewable energy, where installed solar power capacity is expected to exceed that of natural gas in 2026 and of coal by 2027, becoming the largest in the world. reflecting a 3x increase in installed capacity from 2022 to 2027. In commercial string inverters, we have over 20 customers in production or development today, including AP Systems, Power Electronics, Chint, GrowWatt, SunGrow, BYD, and Exide. As with EV DC fast chargers, bus voltages and solar and energy storage are also rising to 1500 volts, driving more of this market to our strength with 3,300 volt silicon carbide capability. As recently announced, Germany's OTEC has achieved 25 degrees C cooler temperatures and 3x longer expected lifetime in their 4.6 kilowatt solar string inverters thanks to our unique trench-assisted planar silicon carbide technology. For residential solar, microinverters convert low-voltage DC to high-voltage AC power at 350 to 450 watts per individual panel. Here, GAN is still on track for a significant 2024 revenue ramp with multiple solar residential customers. We also anticipate accelerated growth in this segment as the Inflation Reduction Act dedicates over $50 billion to solar, storage, and wind starting this year. Turning to home appliance and industrial applications, we continue to make excellent progress across GaN and silicon carbide, and we now have over 45 customer projects, either in production or development. In gallium nitride, our GaNsense half-bridge ICs are shipping in high volume in the appliance market, while silicon carbide is shipping in volume today with high-power industrial motor control applications. In total, we anticipate 2023 appliance and industrial revenues will increase nicely as a percentage of novice house revenues. Here again, the Inflation Reduction Act dedicates $9 billion to upgrade U.S. home appliance efficiencies, which we anticipate will create additional tailwinds in this segment. In data center news, the European Union's high efficiency requirement for power supplies, known as Titanium Plus, came into effect on January 1st. Novatov's dedicated data center team continues to develop four high-performance system platforms to deliver titanium plus efficiencies, higher power density, and lower system costs compared to legacy silicon systems. These system platforms have enabled 10 customer development projects, all of which target production later this year or early 2024. In mobile, fast, and ultra-fast charging for smartphones and laptops, Design wins continue at a strong pace despite the market slowdown in 2022. Last year, Navitas and our customers developed nearly 100 new GanFast charger designs from Samsung, Oppo, Lenovo, Dell, Anker, and more, plus the recent 210-watt GanFast charger for Xiaomi's Redmi Note 12, which enables 100% charge in a lightning-fast nine minutes. In addition, our GaN technology is utilized in the new OnePlus 210-watt fast charger, and now the fast was just featured in the global OnePlus 11 5G launch alongside Google, Qualcomm, and other major technology partners. And this week, we announced the real meat GT3 with a 240-watt GaN fast charger. Given our market expansion and diversification, we anticipate our mobile and consumer business to be appreciably less as a percentage of revenue in 2023 as compared to 2022. In summary, 2022 was a year of significant expansion and diversification in technology, markets, and regions. Now, with Needing Edge and silicon carbide, digital isolators, and analog controllers, we are uniquely positioned to displace legacy silicon power devices in multi-billion-dollar established markets, while also enabling the electrification of major new growth markets like solar, energy storage, and electric vehicles. Now, over to Ron Shelton, our CFO.
spk26: Thank you, Gene, and thanks everyone for joining us this afternoon. In my comments today, I'll first take you through our fourth quarter and annual 2022 financial results. Then I'll walk you through our outlook for the first quarter and the full year of 2023. Revenue for the fourth quarter grew to $12.3 million. That represents 68% growth from the fourth quarter of 2021. For the full year of 2022, we grew revenue to $37.9 million, representing year-over-year growth of 60%. This was in line with our guidance. Looking back, 2022 was truly a pivotal year for Navitas. As we entered the year, we had most of our revenue coming from GAN-based products focused on the China mobile market. We exited the year with our end markets diversifying beyond that smartphone market into home appliances, solar, data center, industrial, and EV. Not only have we maintained our leadership position in the GAN market, our acquisition of Genesys immediately gave us entry into the silicon carbide market with industry-leading products for which we are seeing significant demand. Together with GAN, we exit the year as a pure play next generation power semiconductor company with a complete set of products, industry leading technology, organizational scale, and our most important asset, a group of incredibly talented and committed employees to successfully address a market opportunity totaling over $23 billion by 2026. Before addressing expenses, I'd like to refer you to the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations in our press release earlier today. In the rest of my commentary, all costs and operating expense commentary will refer to non-GAAP costs and operating expenses. Non-GAAP gross margin in the fourth quarter was 40.6%, an increase from 38.4% in the third quarter, as we benefited from a shift in the mix of our product revenues. For fiscal year 2022, non-GAAP gross margin was 40.8% compared to 45.4% in the prior year, as we were adversely impacted during the year by higher wafer prices from TSMC and a strategic decision early in 2022 to absorb lower margins in a targeted new market. Margins in this new home appliance industrial market will significantly expand through 2023 as we transition to cost-optimized Gen4GAN products. Total non-GAAP operating expenses were $16.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2022. Our non-GAAP SG&A expense was $7.1 million, and non-GAAP R&D was $9.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Fourth quarter expenses reflect a full quarter of Genesic operations and continued investment in that business, a full quarter of consolidating results from our joint venture, which we subsequently acquired and closed last week, and, as we mentioned in our remarks last quarter, increased compensation, including a bonus paid to China employees, which was effectively an additional month of salary. For fiscal year 2022, non-GAAP operating expenses were $56.2 million, compared to $35.3 million in the prior year. This increase reflects continued significant investments in new products, technologies, and markets, and includes expenses rising from the completion of our Genesic and VDD acquisitions and consolidation of our joint venture beginning in Q3. All of these investments are laying the stage for significant growth in the future. Putting all this together, the non-GAAP loss from operations was $11.9 million compared to a loss from operations of $6.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, as we continue to invest simultaneously across new markets in this phase of our company's growth. Our weighted average basic share count for the fourth quarter was 152.4 million shares. Turning to the balance sheet, it continues to remain strong with high levels of liquidity. After paying off debt of $4.5 million, cash and cash equivalents at quarter end were $110.3 million. Components of working capital would continue to remain a focus, and we are seeing progress on that front. Accounts receivable was $9.3 million compared to $10.9 million in the prior quarter, reflecting improved day sales outstanding. Inventory rose to $19.1 million compared to $17 million in the prior quarter, and that was largely due to the transition from one generation of products to the next. We carefully managed that transition, and days in inventory were relatively flat sequentially. Over time, we're confident that our inventory levels will trend towards our long-term target for inventory turns of better than three times. Moving on to guidance for the first quarter, we currently see revenues as relatively flat on a sequential basis. This represents substantial year-over-year growth of approximately 85% over the $6.7 million we recorded in the first quarter of 2022, and it reflects expansion of our product lines and new market opportunities. Our guidance assumes continued strength in demand for silicon carbide products, with some limitations in supply and a shortened quarter due to Chinese New Year. As we look further out into 2023, we believe with our expansion of supply availability for silicon carbide products, recovery in the mobile market beginning in Q2, and anticipated expansion into new markets, that we can double revenue over 2022. Gross margin for the first quarter is also expected to be relatively flat on a sequential basis due to an increase in GAN wafer pricing from our foundry partner. However, we continue to expect that gross margins will expand over the next few quarters as we transition to Gen 4 GAN products and gain share in new higher margin market segments. For these reasons, we expect that our gross margins will continue to grow through the year and trend to the mid-40s as we exit 2023. In total, our non-GAAP operating expenses in Q1 are expected to be approximately $18 million. And this excludes stock-based comp, transaction expenses, and amortization of intangible assets. The sequential increase is due primarily to compensation increases and incremental audit fees. We will continue to invest in growth, but expenses will decline as a percentage of revenue as we scale throughout the year. With that in mind, we expect that expenses will increase at a rate of mid to high single digits on a quarterly sequential basis. For the first quarter of 2023, we expect our weighted average basic share count to be approximately 156 million shares. So, in closing, we are pleased with the results for the quarter, and we are excited about the significant opportunities in front of us. As the only pure play next generation power semiconductor company in the industry, we intend to invest resources in our targeted end markets, products, and technologies with the intent of becoming one of the fastest growing power semiconductor companies in the world. Operator, let's begin the Q&A session.
spk15: Certainly. At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, again, Press star one. Our first question comes from the line of Ross Seymour with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
spk06: Hi, guys.
spk15: Hi, guys.
spk06: Thanks for the question. Thanks for the end market color. The diversification is very impressive to see. Just wondered if you thought by those end markets within the doubling of revenue growth and even the first quarter guidance, any sort of directional color by those end markets?
spk09: Yeah. Hi, Ross. Nice to hear from you. Yeah, I think each of them are growing. We commented that the mobile recovery we see starting in Q2, but given that recovery is starting Q2 and flowing into the second half of the year, we see that growing less than the others overall. But each market shows strong growth year on year.
spk06: And then, Gene, for my follow-up, you talked about the gross margin increasing and exiting the year at about 45% or the mid-40s. Can you just talk about the puts and takes? I know mix is going to be a tailwind, Gen 4 traction, but any sort of color on those metrics?
spk09: Really, as Ron said, it's primarily the Gen 4 transition. Silicon carbide prices are stable. Those margins are north of 50%, as we've commented before. We'll also benefit from increasing margins as the GAN enters higher margin, higher power markets. So those are the primary factors driving that incremental improvement.
spk17: Great. Thank you. Thanks, Ross.
spk15: Blake Friedman with Bank of America. Your line is open.
spk03: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up on the gross margin side of the business. Is there any way you can quantify the headwind that's coming from the higher wafer costs that you mentioned in the opening remarks?
spk09: Yeah, we had actually mentioned it. It's been commented on by many in the industry. There was a 6% additional increase one time that kicked in in January of this year. That's causing some of the muted margin or flat margin Q4 to Q1. But to put that in perspective, for the full year, that's no more than 1% gross margin impact and is quickly offset by our margin expansion and cost reduction coming from Gen 4.
spk03: Got it. Helpful. And then just quickly following up, I believe you previously said that SICK-related sales were on track to grow at a 60% CAGR into this year. I just want to confirm that you remain on track to that target for this year.
spk09: Yeah, we haven't given a breakdown or a specific growth target for GAN and SICK, but it's fair to say both are growing very strongly year-on-year, contributing to that doubling.
spk17: Great. Thank you.
spk09: Thanks, Blake.
spk16: Tristan Guerra with Baird.
spk15: Your line is open.
spk10: Hi, this is Tyler on for Tristan. Thanks for taking the questions. Could you provide an update on the adoption rate in smartphones for GAN that you currently see and maybe provide a year-end target of where you think adoption rates could go?
spk09: Yeah. Hi, Tyler. Thanks for your question. Yeah, I think as we've described before, a few factors. Number one, the adoption rate is We don't have a specific percentage, but it's certainly very strong in what we call the ultra-fast chargers, 100 watt and higher. You saw us highlight a number of them. We see that trend now moving and strong adoption moving into more mainstream in the 60 to 100 watt range. And we see some adoption picking up even below that. But certainly the strongest adoption is in that 100 watt and above, and we think that will continue. The other comment I would make is we're also on track for system cost parity with silicon chargers. That will contribute heavily to accelerating the adoption of that mainstream category of sort of 30 to 100 watt range.
spk10: Great. And then for my follow-up, what are the implications of the ramp of AI and data centers on power supplies and the potential benefit for the adoption of URGAN technology in the data center?
spk09: Yeah, great question. In fact, we didn't really give that color, but you have two fundamental challenges. You've got these new standards for higher efficiency, titanium plus demanding higher efficiency. At the same time, the AI intensive data centers are demanding more power. That's putting a lot of pressure on the power supplies that have to deliver on both of those requirements. That pressure, of course, is great for GAN because silicon struggles to deliver the higher power density, but also struggles to have the higher efficiencies of titanium plus. So we think all of that is contributing to the acceleration in that market. And of course, we'll be launching our first GAN-based data centers, as we talked about, or shipping into those markets later this year and ramping significantly into 24.
spk16: Great.
spk11: Thanks again.
spk17: Thanks, Tyler.
spk16: Kevin Cassidy with Rosenblatt Securities.
spk15: Your line is open.
spk10: Hi, guys. This is McLean on for Kevin Cassidy. Thanks for taking my question. In your prepared remarks, you spoke briefly on this, but could you give just some detailed commentary on the current silicon carbide supply dynamic? Thanks.
spk09: Yeah, very good question. We didn't talk much about it, but last quarter we announced that we signed a multi-year long-term agreement with XFAB and the material suppliers for the silicon carbide substrate and epi. that enables a 5X increase in supply from middle of last year when we acquired the company throughout this year and ramping into next year. So that's a major supply agreement. As you know, we're shipping all we can build, as much of the industry is. And that supply agreement starts in Q1, but it's for wafer starts and the material to feed those starts. So we actually feel the significant capacity expansion and therefore the commensurate revenue growth in Q2 when all that increased supply goes through the supply chain. So that's on track. It's a great deal for us and will fuel a lot of the silicon carbide growth from Q2 and beyond.
spk10: Okay, thank you. And then kind of as a related follow-up, could you just give us the provider qualifications for your new substrate providers?
spk09: Yeah, we haven't revealed the name or disclosed the name of the suppliers, so there's not much more color to add about the substrate and epi suppliers at this point.
spk17: Okay. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Quinn Bolton with Needham.
spk15: Your line is open.
spk09: Yeah. Hey, guys. This is Trevor Janoski on for Quinn. Thanks for letting me hop on and ask a question. So on the EV silicon carbide announcements, and sorry if I missed this, but when do you expect the roadside charger and onboard charger opportunities to begin ramping and become a material part of revenue? Yeah, that ramp's already occurred. We were shipping even last year when we acquired the company. In fact, we commented that EV last year, and that's only with a quarter and a half benefit of the Genesic acquisition was at 5% of last year's revenue. So that's almost all OBC onboard charger as well as roadside charger. And we highlighted that both of those are growing nicely and really will be accelerated by our EV design center, both the general one supporting customers globally as well as the new Geely collaborative one that we've created. And we gave a number of comments about significant position in roadside chargers and why that's moving up into the right.
spk33: And can you comment on the ASPs for these solutions?
spk09: Yes, silicon carbide. It depends on the power level and the application, but in general, the silicon carbide devices tend to have ASPs that will range from anywhere from $2 to $20. It can extend beyond that range. It depends on the power level, and oftentimes we're paralleling many of them. In some systems, depending upon, again, the application and power level, it can be dozens of devices and dozens of dollars, if not $100 of content per system, but it really does vary depending on the power level and application.
spk33: Okay, thank you. And a quick clarification.
spk09: You stated that the mobile charging should be less of a percentage of revenue in 23 relative to 22.
spk17: Did you mean total revenue or gain revenue? Total. That's total. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Trevor.
spk16: Gould with Gould Tactical Growth. Your line is open.
spk14: Hi, yeah, this is Dick Gould. As a follow-up to Kevin's question on the silicon carbide supply, can you give a sense of how much the insufficient supply in silicon carbide held back your revenue? It sounded like you could have shipped more had you had the substrate available.
spk09: Yes, are you referring, Dick, to Q3, Q4 last year? Yes, yeah. Yeah, I don't think we gave specific numbers. It's always hard to judge because there's quite a bit of demand there that could have been shipped, but certainly a million or two per quarter is sort of a conservative estimate.
spk14: Okay. And then just to follow up on the GAN side, can you also describe your supply situation? I understand you are adding to supply over the course of this year. I guess, I mean, I'm assuming similarly to silicon carbide ramping gradually from first quarter on.
spk09: Yeah. Actually, last year we had announced this, that TSMC had tripled the capacity last year. Most of that capacity was added, I think, by the end of last year. When you couple that tripling, and we took a big share of that capacity as their leading customer, with the softening in the China mobile market that we saw middle of last year and the second half of last year, that opened up a lot of capacity. So it's a pretty different situation. We enter the year with a pretty strong capacity situation. We are not supply limited in the case of Gann, and we expect that will continue throughout the year.
spk16: Terrific. Thanks.
spk09: Thank you, Dick.
spk16: Peterman with Craig Hellam.
spk15: Your line is open.
spk05: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I think I heard Eugene say in response to a question earlier that mobile as an end market was going to show growth in 23 over 22. I guess that was a little surprising to me just given kind of the run rate that you're exiting the year at. Can you talk about – I guess did I hear that right? And then can you talk about kind of the assumptions that are baked into your mobile outlook for the year?
spk09: Yeah. Yeah. No, you heard it right. It will grow strongly, not as fast as the other markets since it gets sort of a slow start with that Q2 recovery just starting next quarter. But it does benefit not only from that market coming back. We see inventory levels on the channel quite low. We see forecasts and even backlog coming back and indicating that Q2 recovery in a stronger second half of the year. We also highlighted nearly 100 new GAN chargers developed with our customers last year. Adding to the ones already released on the market, that puts us at something like 250 plus GAN chargers released to production, many of them ready to launch as that market comes back. And we still got another 250 in development behind that. So there's a lot of positive things there that will drive that growth, but we're still cautiously optimistic and planning that growth, as I said, good growth year on year, but even stronger growth in the other markets.
spk05: Okay. That's really helpful. I guess as a follow-up, I wanted to ask on the data center market, you talked before about, I think last quarter, a $5 million purchase order that you thought would ship in the back half of this year. Is that still on track? And then more broadly, I know you have, I think you said you got 10 programs right now. I think you had nine last quarter. You know, what are you seeing in terms of design activity and just in that market? I know there's certain areas that, you know, spending is slowing in in the data center. But I mean, you guys obviously being at the leading edge may not be seeing that, but I'm just curious how you're seeing the data center market.
spk09: Yeah. That particular program we highlighted last time has delayed into 24. But with that said, as you pointed out, we've actually increased the customer pipeline, including that one from nine to 10. So trending up a little bit there. We don't see any signs of slowdown. I think that one program that pushed to 24 is kind of unique and not a reflection of any macroeconomic trends that we can see. So I think it looks positive, but as you say, we're early in that market. We're not the best indicator of it. We see all upside coming from zero, and we see a lot of strong tailwinds between Titanium Plus and the earlier comments about the AI data centers demanding more power from these power supplies.
spk19: Okay, great. Thanks, guys.
spk15: Thanks, Sam. John Tenwenting with CJS Securities. Your line is open.
spk30: Hi, this is Ross Kesselman in for John. A quick question. Could you maybe specify on the traction you're seeing from policy changes such as the IRA and different funds for renewables and the titanium standards for Europe? I know you touched upon it, but do you think you could add a little bit more color?
spk09: Yeah, I think that titanium standard is a unique one. That's already in place, started January 1st. It's specific to EU, but most of these power supplies are designed to meet global standards, so they have to meet the minimum required standard out there, or the toughest standard, I should say, which is the titanium one in Europe. So that one is clearly driving strong trends for us. We have actually four different customer platforms, server platforms, four data centers in development, all of them meeting that titanium standard, working closely with those 10 customers that I mentioned. Talked about I think inflation reduction act is a little different It's huge amounts of money as we highlighted over 50 60 billion in our target markets. It is just rolling out this year So I think it's early to talk exactly what the impact is going to be. Those are big numbers They're bound to have an impact in each of these areas Sustainability or I should say renewability and solar in particular upgrading home appliance energy efficiency and also the EV roadside charger infrastructure. But I think time will tell exactly what that impact will be as we see those dollars flow to consumers, to our customers, and then ultimately to our business.
spk30: Got it. I know you've mentioned previously that there's been a kind of a constraint on the silicon carbide products. Have you seen any indications of improvement in that area?
spk09: Yeah, and I'd go back to the long-term agreement we signed last quarter that now starts this quarter, and it translates into increased revenue capacity to support that revenue starting next quarter. And that's a 5X increase. It's not a step function, but it's 5X from middle of last year when we acquired Genesic and ramping throughout this year and into next year. So that gives us a lot of headroom to do more if we can do it.
spk31: Got it. Thank you so much for the additional color.
spk02: You bet. Thank you.
spk15: Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Natalia Winkler with Jefferies, your line is open.
spk23: Yeah, hi. Thank you guys for taking my question. So the one I had was for Eugene. I just wanted to understand this joint venture acquisition a little bit better. Is it fair to assume that it's moving you guys to the parity with silicon on terms of pricing faster for gas solutions, or is that kind of accelerating that parity for the higher voltage applications? Thank you.
spk09: Yeah, thanks, Natalia. No, it's a great question and a good observation. You're exactly right. What we're doing there is not only developing leading-edge analog controllers that are optimized for higher frequency GaN and sodium carbide, we're actually co-packaging them with our optimized GaN. When you combine that with the cost reduction and performance improvement of Gen 4, that's also rolling out simultaneously, you get a really nice improvement in performance, reduced size, footprint, improved power density, but also helping us on that BOM cost. And it is a factor driving us to that system cost parity compared to silicon, specifically around mobile chargers, consumer adapters, and I also mentioned the home appliance auxiliary power supplies.
spk23: Awesome. Thank you. That's really helpful. And then the other one I had was about the TSMC. Gene, if I understood correctly, you mentioned that you guys saw a 6% increase this January, January 2023. Is that fair? And then I guess I think historically we've heard of maybe some potential kind of annual increases in November. How should we think about that dynamic? Do you have some kind of already expected price increases or contractual ones?
spk09: Yeah, that's right, 6% in January. I think you heard that from probably many suppliers. Certainly not unique to us in any way. We had alluded or anticipated it in earlier quarters. There was a prior 20%, as the whole industry discussed and felt. But we do see these as one-time events that are unique in the supply and demand unique situation for the industry. Obviously, the whole industry is shifting. I think it's shifting to a more balanced place, and we look forward to a more healthy cost reduction environment, and that's certainly what we expect going forward. We certainly don't anticipate any further cost increases and don't have any contractual agreements that would suggest any cost increases.
spk17: Thank you very much. Thanks, Natalia.
spk15: Ross Seymour with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
spk06: Hi, guys. Thanks for letting me speak in a follow-on here. The in-market color, again, is very helpful. I just wanted to walk through just a little bit of your view on the mobile market. I know you said it'll start growing again in the second quarter. Can you just talk about where the channel inventory is? And if I'm doing my math at all correct, it seems like you didn't ship very much at all in the fourth quarter itself into the mobile market. Was that generally correct in order to get the channel inventory down before it starts popping back?
spk09: Yeah, Q4 and Q1 were both pretty soft, certainly not zero, but certainly soft compared to expectations and even prior quarters. We don't report channel inventory, but we certainly see that significantly reduced and hopefully bottomed out. And that only adds to our confidence, coupled with actual increased order intake. We have a very strong backward, fully booked out on Q1, strong bookings into Q2. and increased forecasts from the customers. So all of that taken together leads to our anticipation of that Q2 recovery.
spk06: And is there a seasonality to that business, or is the channel dynamics and China reopening and the prevalence of a huge number of design wins much more important to think about than any sort of seasonal pattern?
spk09: No, I think seasonality is always a factor in mobile and consumer. Q1 is typically soft anyway, independent of this unique situation. You've also got Chinese New Year, which always has an impact both on consumption and production. So I think all of that rolls together to add to sort of a softer or modest Q1 and probably then adds to the recoveries that we're seeing in Q2.
spk16: Perfect. Thanks, guys.
spk17: Thanks, Ross.
spk15: This concludes the Q&A portion of the call and concludes the Navitas Semiconductor fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. Thank you.
spk15: Thank you for holding, and welcome everyone to the Navitas Semiconductor 4th Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, again, press the star 1. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Stephen Oliver, VP Corporate Marketing and Investor Relations. Mr. Oliver, please go ahead.
spk32: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Stephen Oliver, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Investor Relations. Thank you for joining Navitas Semiconductor's fourth quarter and full year 2022 results conference call. I'm joined today by Jean Sheridan, our Chairman, President, CEO, and Co-Founder and Ron Shelton, our CFO and Treasurer. A replay of this webcast will be available on our website approximately one hour following this conference call, and the recorded webcast will be available for approximately 30 days following the call. Additional information related to our business is also posted on the investor relations section of our website. Our earnings release includes non-GAAP financial measures, Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures with the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our fourth quarter earnings release and also posted on our website in the investor relations section. In this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements about future events or about the future financial performance of Navitas, including acquisitions. You can identify these statements by words like we expect or we believe or similar terms. We wish to caution you that such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from expectations expressed in our forward-looking statements. Important factors that can affect Navitas business, including factors that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements, are described in our earnings release. Please also refer to the risk factors sections in our most recent 10-K and 10-Qs. Our estimates or other forward-looking statements may change, and Navitas assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changed assumptions, or other events that may occur, except as required by law. And now, over to Gene Sheridan, CEO.
spk09: Thank you, Steve, and welcome to everyone on the call today. I am very pleased with our Q4 results, which came in above our midpoint guidance across all key metrics. For 2022 in total, I'm especially happy with the dramatic expansion and diversification we achieved both organically and through acquisitions. Navitas entered this year with a solid position in five major growth markets with leading-edge GAN and silicon carbide, along with complementary silicon drivers and controllers. Such a position gives us confidence to reiterate our expectations to double our revenues in 2023 as compared to 2022. This month, we completed the buyout of our silicon controller joint venture, constituting our third transaction in just nine months. All major steps in building a portfolio of leading-edge GaN, silicon carbide, with silicon-based digital isolators and analog controllers optimized for wide band-gap materials, which we believe is unequaled in our industry. This pure-play focus on next-generation power semiconductors without any distraction or dilution by traditional silicon power devices uniquely positions Navitas for growth and leadership in next-generation electrified systems from EV and renewables to industrial and appliance markets to mobile, consumer, and data center segments. In total, these transactions have expanded our market opportunity by 75% from $13 billion to over $23 billion per year by 2026. 2022 was an extraordinary year for our company. We rapidly expanded into these new market segments, transitioning from a company in 2021 that was 100% mobile consumer-focused to a more diversified set of markets resulting in 2022 revenues with approximately 30% in appliance and industrial, 12% in solar and storage, 5% in EV, and 40% in mobile and consumer segments. With these diversified markets, also comes a diversified regional footprint with 24% of our 22 sales in North America, 32% in Europe, and 44% in Asia. Let me explain further about our joint venture controller transaction. Elevation Semiconductor was a JV created in 2021 with Halo Microelectronics. The JV was started to create application-specific silicon analog controllers optimized for high-frequency GaN and silicon carbide to enable even higher efficiency, density, and integration at a lower cost. As you know, Navitas has a unique capability with our GaN integrated circuits. Much of what we're integrating in GaN has traditionally been designed into these silicon analog controllers. With this new capability and controllers, we can accelerate our pace of development and innovation with the optimal partitioning and integration between the silicon controllers and the GaN power devices to deliver more value and a more complete solution to our customers. The initial products from this venture target mobile chargers, consumer adapters, and appliance auxiliary power supplies. Over time, we expect this technology will be introduced in all of our target markets, including EV, solar and storage, data center, and more industrial applications. We closed the elevation transaction last week with 20 new employees joining our company, composed mainly of design, applications, product, and test engineers. The first-generation products were introduced last year and already have generated dozens of customer wins and appreciable ramping revenues. These products will be rebranded as Novitas, plus we will launch a new generation family in March at the APEC Paralectronics Show.
spk17: Let's turn our progress to each of our target markets.
spk09: In EV, we have established a strong position with our silicon carbide technology and ultra-fast roadside chargers. Our level 3 DC fast chargers deliver up to 350 kilowatts of power, or up to 20 miles per minute of charging, and a 10 to 80% charge in only 18 minutes, dramatically reducing range anxiety concerns for consumers. Our silicon carbide differentiation resides in the technology itself, in which we deliver industry-leading in-circuit efficiencies and cooler temperatures. Furthermore, level 3 charger architectures are moving to a higher bus voltage from 1,000 volts to 1,500 volts, which helps to increase power density, simplify designs, and further improve efficiency, reliability, and cost. A 1,500-volt bus requires up to 3,300-volt silicon carbide device capability, a voltage range where now that's off, silicon carbide brings unequal performance with limited competition. Our silicon carbide technology has already been adopted by over a dozen roadside charger customers and is being integrated in over 50% of the U.S. roadside chargers, including Electrify America and EVgo. Just one of these customers, we expect shipments to approach a million units by the end of Q2. The total roadside charger potential for silicon carbide is estimated to be over $1 billion by 2030, growing at a 30% annual growth rate. We believe this year's rollout of the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $7.5 billion for EV charging infrastructure, will accelerate this roadside charger growth rate and add significant upside to this market. This month, the Biden administration announced a goal to install a half a million EV chargers in the U.S. by 2030, with all EV chargers funded through the bipartisan infrastructure law built in the United States. Also, by July 2024, at least 55% of the cost of all components will need to be manufactured domestically, which matches well with our Texas-based silicon carbide wafer manufacturing with our supply chain partner, XFAT. In addition to the roadside chargers, our silicon carbide technology is in development or production for EV onboard chargers with major customers that include General Motors, BYD, and Mercedes-AMG. As previously announced, we have created a joint EV design center with GE, a rising China-based EV player with almost 10% of worldwide EV sales in 2022. This center will initially co-develop next-generation onboard chargers for GE, utilizing a combination of argand, sodium carbide, and digital isolators to address both 400-volt and 800-volt battery systems. With the GEZE Center and our existing EV system design center, we are developing five onboard system platforms supporting 10 customer projects to utilize our GaN or carbon carbide, and we are still on track for our first GaN-based EVs in production in 2025. Let's turn to renewable energy, where installed solar power capacity is expected to exceed that of natural gas in 2026 and of coal by 2027, becoming the largest in the world. reflecting a 3x increase in installed capacity from 2022 to 2027. In commercial string inverters, we have over 20 customers in production or development today, including AP Systems, Power Electronics, Chint, GrowWatt, SunGrow, BYD, and Exide. As with EV DC fast chargers, bus voltages and solar and energy storage are also rising to 1,500 volts, driving more of this market to our strength with 3,300 volt silicon carbide capability. As recently announced, Germany's Spontech has achieved 25 degrees C cooler temperatures and 3x longer expected lifetime in their 4.6 kilowatt solar string inverters, thanks to our unique trench-assisted planar silicon carbide technology. For residential solar, microinverters convert low-voltage DC to high-voltage AC power at 350 to 450 watts per individual panel. Here, GAN is still on track for a significant 2024 revenue ramp with multiple solar residential customers. We also anticipate accelerated growth in this segment as the Inflation Reduction Act dedicates over $50 billion to solar, storage, and wind starting this year. Turning to home appliance and industrial applications, we continue to make excellent progress across GaN and silicon carbide, and we now have over 45 customer projects, either in production or development. In gallium nitride, our GaNsense half-bridge ICs are shipping in high volume in the appliance market, while silicon carbide is shipping in volume today with high-power industrial motor control applications. In total, we anticipate 2023 appliance and industrial revenues will increase nicely as a percentage of novice house revenues. Here again, the Inflation Reduction Act dedicates $9 billion to upgrade U.S. home appliance efficiencies, which we anticipate will create additional tailwinds in this segment. In data center news, the European Union's high efficiency requirement for power supplies, known as Titanium Plus, came into effect on January 1st. Novatov's dedicated data center team continues to develop four high-performance system platforms to deliver titanium-plus efficiencies, higher power density, and lower system costs compared to legacy silicon systems. These system platforms have enabled 10 customer development projects, all of which target production later this year or early 2024. In mobile, fast, and ultra-fast charging for smartphones and laptops, Design wins continue at a strong pace despite the market slowdown in 2022. Last year, Navitas and our customers developed nearly 100 new GanFast charger designs from Samsung, Oppo, Lenovo, Dell, Anker, and more, plus the recent 210-watt GanFast charger for Xiaomi's Redmi Note 12, which enables 100% charge in a lightning-fast nine minutes. In addition, our GaN technology is utilized in the new OnePlus 210-watt fast charger, and Navitas was just featured in the global OnePlus 11 5G launch alongside Google, Qualcomm, and other major technology partners. And this week, we announced the real me, GT3, with a 240-watt GaN fast charger. Given our market expansion and diversification, we anticipate our mobile and consumer business to be appreciably less as a percentage of revenue in 2023 as compared to 2022. In summary, 2022 was a year of significant expansion and diversification of technology, markets, and regions. Now, with Needing Edge and silicon carbide, digital isolators, and analog controllers, we are uniquely positioned to displace legacy silicon power devices in multi-billion-dollar established markets, while also enabling the electrification of major new growth markets like solar, energy storage, and electric vehicles. Now, over to Ron Shelton, our CFO.
spk26: Thank you, Gene, and thanks, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. In my comments today, I'll first take you through our fourth quarter and annual 2022 financial results. Then I'll walk you through our outlook for the first quarter and the full year of 2023. Revenue for the fourth quarter grew to $12.3 million. That represents 68% growth from the fourth quarter of 2021. For the full year of 2022, we grew revenue to $37.9 million, representing year-over-year growth of 60%. This was in line with our guidance. Looking back, 2022 was truly a pivotal year for Navitas. As we entered the year, we had most of our revenue coming from GAN-based products focused on the China mobile market. We exited the year with our end markets diversifying beyond that smartphone market into home appliances, solar, data center, industrial, and EV. Not only have we maintained our leadership position in the GAN market, our acquisition of Genesys immediately gave us entry into the silicon carbide market with industry-leading products for which we are seeing significant demand. Together with GAN, we exit the year as a pure play, next-generation power semiconductor company with a complete set of products, industry-leading technology, organizational scale, and our most important asset, a group of incredibly talented and committed employees to successfully address a market opportunity totaling over $23 billion by 2026. Before addressing expenses, I'd like to refer you to the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations in our press release earlier today. In the rest of my commentary, all costs and operating expense commentary will refer to non-GAAP costs and operating expenses. Non-GAAP gross margin in the fourth quarter was 40.6%, an increase from 38.4% in the third quarter, as we benefited from a shift in the mix of our product revenues. For fiscal year 2022, non-GAAP gross margin was 40.8% compared to 45.4% in the prior year, as we were adversely impacted during the year by higher wafer prices from TSMC and a strategic decision early in 2022 to absorb lower margins in a targeted new market. Margins in this new home appliance industrial market will significantly expand through 2023 as we transition to cost-optimized Gen4GAN products. Total non-GAAP operating expenses were $16.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2022. Our non-GAAP SG&A expense was $7.1 million, and non-GAAP R&D was $9.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Fourth quarter expenses reflect a full quarter of Genesic operations and continued investment in that business, a full quarter of consolidating results from our joint venture, which we subsequently acquired and closed last week, and, as we mentioned in our remarks last quarter, increased compensation, including a bonus paid to China employees, which was effectively an additional month of salary. For fiscal year 2022, non-GAAP operating expenses were $56.2 million, compared to $35.3 million in the prior year. This increase reflects continued significant investments in new products, technologies, and markets, and includes expenses rising from the completion of our Genesic and VDD acquisitions and consolidation of our joint venture beginning in Q3. All of these investments are laying the stage for significant growth in the future. Putting all this together, the non-GAAP loss from operations was $11.9 million compared to a loss from operations of $6.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2021, as we continue to invest simultaneously across new markets in this phase of our company's growth. Our weighted average basic share count for the fourth quarter was 152.4 million shares. Turning to the balance sheet, it continues to remain strong with high levels of liquidity. After paying off debt of $4.5 million, cash and cash equivalents at quarter end were $110.3 million. Components of working capital would continue to remain a focus, and we are seeing progress on that front. Accounts receivable was $9.3 million compared to $10.9 million in the prior quarter, reflecting improved day sales outstanding. Inventory rose to $19.1 million compared to $17 million in the prior quarter, and that was largely due to the transition from one generation of products to the next. We carefully managed that transition, and days in inventory were relatively flat sequentially. Over time, we're confident that our inventory levels will trend towards our long-term target for inventory turns of better than three times. Moving on to guidance, for the first quarter, we currently see revenues as relatively flat on a sequential basis. This represents substantial year-over-year growth of approximately 85% over the $6.7 million we recorded in the first quarter of 2022, and it reflects expansion of our product lines and new market opportunities. Our guidance assumes continued strength in demand for silicon carbide products, with some limitations in supply and a shortened quarter due to Chinese New Year. As we look further out into 2023, we believe with our expansion of supply availability for silicon carbide products, recovery in the mobile market beginning in Q2, and anticipated expansion into new markets, that we can double revenue over 2022. Gross margin for the first quarter is also expected to be relatively flat on a sequential basis due to an increase in GAN wafer pricing from our foundry partner. However, we continue to expect that gross margins will expand over the next few quarters as we transition to Gen 4 GAN products and gain share in new higher margin market segments. For these reasons, we expect that our gross margins will continue to grow through the year and trend to the mid-40s as we exit 2023. In total, our non-GAAP operating expenses in Q1 are expected to be approximately $18 million. And this excludes stock-based comp, transaction expenses, and amortization of intangible assets. The sequential increase is due primarily to compensation increases and incremental audit fees. We will continue to invest in growth, but expenses will decline as a percentage of revenue as we scale throughout the year. With that in mind, we expect that expenses will increase at a rate of mid to high single digits on a quarterly sequential basis. For the first quarter of 2023, we expect our weighted average basic share count to be approximately 156 million shares. So, in closing, we are pleased with the results for the quarter, and we are excited about the significant opportunities in front of us. As the only pure play next generation power semiconductor company in the industry, we intend to invest resources in our targeted end markets, products, and technologies with the intent of becoming one of the fastest growing power semiconductor companies in the world. Operator, let's begin the Q&A session.
spk15: Certainly. At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, again, Press star one. Our first question comes from the line of Ross Seymour with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
spk06: Hi, guys.
spk15: Hi, guys.
spk06: Thanks for the question. Thanks for the end market color. The diversification is very impressive to see. Just wondered if you thought by those end markets within the doubling of revenue growth and even the first quarter guidance, any sort of directional color by those end markets?
spk09: Yeah. Hi, Ross. Nice to hear from you. Yeah, I think each of them are growing. We commented that the mobile recovery we see starting in Q2, but given that recovery is starting Q2 and flowing into the second half of the year, we see that growing less than the others overall. But each market shows strong growth year on year.
spk06: And then, Gene, for my follow-up, you talked about the gross margin increasing and exiting the year at about 45% or the mid-40s. Can you just talk about the puts and takes? I know mix is going to be a tailwind, Gen 4 traction, but any sort of color on those metrics?
spk09: Really, as Ron said, it's primarily the Gen 4 transition. Silicon carbide prices are stable. Those margins are north of 50%, as we've commented before. We'll also benefit from increasing margins as the GAN enters higher margin, higher power markets. So those are the primary factors driving that incremental improvement.
spk17: Great, thank you. Thanks, Ross.
spk15: Blake Friedman with Bank of America, your line is open.
spk03: Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up on the gross margin side of the business. Is there any way you can quantify the headwind that's coming from the higher wafer costs that you mentioned in the opening remarks?
spk09: Yeah, we had actually mentioned it. It's been commented on by many in the industry. There was a 6% additional increase one time that kicked in in January of this year. That's causing some of the muted margin or flat margin Q4 to Q1. But to put that in perspective, for the full year, that's no more than 1% gross margin impact and is quickly offset by our margin expansion and cost reduction coming from Gen 4.
spk03: Got it. Helpful. And then just quickly following up, I believe you previously said that SICK-related sales were on track to grow at a 60% CAGR. into this year, I just want to confirm that you remain on track with that target for this year.
spk09: Yeah, we haven't given a breakdown or a specific growth target for Gann and Sick, but it's fair to say both are growing very strongly year on year, contributing to that doubling.
spk17: Thank you.
spk09: Thanks, Blake.
spk15: Tristan Guerra with Baird, your line is open.
spk10: Hi, this is Tyler. I'm for Tristan. Thanks for taking the questions. Could you provide an update on the adoption rate in smartphones for GAN that you currently see and then maybe provide a year-end target of where you think adoption rates could go?
spk09: Yeah. Hi, Tyler. Thanks for your question. Yeah, I think as we've described before, a few factors. Number one, the adoption rate is – we don't have a specific percentage, but it's certainly very strong in what we call the ultra-fast chargers, 100-watt and higher. You saw us highlight a number of them. we see that trend now moving and strong adoption moving into more mainstream in the 60 to 100 watt range and we see some adoption picking up even below that but certainly the strongest adoption is in that 100 watt and above and we think that will continue the other comment I would make is we're also on track for system cost parity with silicon chargers that will contribute heavily to to accelerating the adoption of that mainstream category of sort of 30 to 100 watt range.
spk10: Great. And then for my follow-up, what are the implications of the ramp of AI and data centers on power supplies and the potential benefits for the adoption of your GAN technology in the data center?
spk09: Yeah, great question. In fact, we didn't really give that color, but you have two fundamental challenges. You've got these new standards for higher efficiency, titanium, plus demanding higher efficiency At the same time, the AI intensive data centers are demanding more power. That's putting a lot of pressure on the power supplies that have to deliver on both of those requirements. That pressure, of course, is great for GAN because silicon struggles to deliver the higher power density, but also struggles to have the higher efficiencies of titanium plus. So we think all of that is contributing to the acceleration in that market. And, of course, we'll be launching our first GAN-based data centers, as we talked about, or shipping into those markets. later this year and ramping significantly into 24.
spk11: Great. Thanks again.
spk17: Thanks, Tyler.
spk16: Kevin Cassidy with Rosenblatt Securities.
spk15: Your line is open.
spk10: Hi, guys. This is McClain on for Kevin Cassidy. Thanks for taking my question. In your prepared remarks, you spoke briefly on this, but could you give just some detailed commentary on the current silicon carbide supply dynamic? Thanks.
spk09: Yeah, very good question. We didn't talk much about it, but last quarter we announced that we signed a multi-year long-term agreement with XFAB and the material suppliers for the silicon carbide substrate and EPI that enables a 5x increase in supply from middle of last year when we acquired the company throughout this year and ramping into next year. So that's a major Supply agreement, as you know, we're shipping all we can build, as much of the industry is. And that supply agreement starts in Q1, but it's for wafer starts and the material to feed those starts. So we actually feel the significant capacity expansion and therefore the commensurate revenue growth in Q2 when all that increased supply goes through the supply chain. So that's on track. It's a great deal for us and will fuel a lot of the silicon carbide growth from Q2 and beyond.
spk10: Okay, thank you. And then kind of as a related follow-up, could you just give us the provider qualifications for your new substrate provider?
spk09: Yeah, we haven't revealed the name or disclosed the name of the suppliers, so there's not much more color to add about the substrate and epi suppliers at this point.
spk17: Okay. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Quinn Bolton with Needham.
spk15: Your line is open.
spk09: Yeah, hey, guys. This is Trevor Janowski on for Quinn. Thanks for letting me hop on and ask a question. So on the EV silicon carbide announcements, and sorry if I missed this, but when do you expect the roadside charger and onboard charger opportunities to begin ramping and become a material part of revenue? Yeah, that ramp's already occurred. We were shipping... Even last year when we acquired the company, in fact, we commented that EV last year, and that's only with a quarter and a half benefit of the Genesic acquisition, was at 5% of last year's revenue. So that's almost all OBC onboard charger as well as roadside charger. And we highlighted that both of those are growing nicely and really will be accelerated by our EV design center, both the general one supporting customers globally as well as the new Geely collaborative one that we've created. And we gave a number of comments about significant position in roadside chargers and why that's moving up into the right.
spk33: And can you comment on the ASPs for these solutions?
spk09: Yes, silicon carbide. It depends on the power level and the application, but in general, the silicon carbide devices tend to have ASPs that will range from anywhere from $2 to $20. It can extend beyond that range. It depends on the power level, and oftentimes we're paralleling many of them. In some systems, depending upon, again, the application and power level, it can be dozens of devices and dozens of dollars, if not $100 of content per system, but it really does vary depending on the power level and application.
spk33: Okay, thank you. And a quick clarification.
spk09: You stated that the mobile charging should be less of a percentage of revenue in 23 relative to 22. Did you mean total revenue or gain revenue?
spk17: Total. That's total. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Trevor.
spk16: Gould with Gould Tactical Growth. Your line is open.
spk14: Hi, yeah, this is Dick Gould. As a follow-up to Kevin's question on the silicon carbide supply, can you give a sense of how much the insufficient supply in silicon carbide held back your revenue? It sounded like you could have shipped more had you had the substrate available.
spk09: Yes, are you referring, Dick, to Q3, Q4 last year? Yes, yeah. Yeah, I don't think we gave specific numbers. It's always hard to judge because there's quite a bit of demand there that could have been shipped, but certainly a million or two per quarter is sort of a conservative estimate.
spk14: Okay. And then just to follow up on the GAN side, can you also describe your supply situation? I understand you are adding to supply over the course of this year. I guess, I mean, I'm assuming similarly to silicon carbide ramping gradually from first quarter on.
spk09: Yeah. Actually, last year we had announced this, that TSMC had tripled the capacity last year. Most of that capacity was added, I think, by the end of last year. When you couple that tripling, and we took a big share of that capacity as their leading customer, with the softening in the China mobile market that we saw middle of last year and the second half of last year, that opened up a lot of capacity. So it's a pretty different situation. We enter the year with a pretty strong capacity situation. We are not supply limited in the case of Gann, and we expect that will continue throughout the year.
spk16: Terrific. Thanks.
spk02: Thank you, Dick.
spk16: I'm Peterman with Craig Hellam.
spk15: Your line is open.
spk05: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I think I heard Eugene say in response to a question earlier that mobile as an end market was going to show growth in 23 over 22. I guess that was a little surprising to me just given kind of the run rate that you're exiting the year at. Can you talk about – I guess did I hear that right? And then can you talk about kind of the assumptions that are baked into your mobile outlook for the year?
spk09: Yeah. Yeah. No, you heard it right. It will grow strongly, not as fast as the other markets since it gets sort of a slow start with that Q2 recovery just starting next quarter. But it does benefit not only from that market coming back. We see inventory levels on the channel quite low. We see forecasts and even backlog coming back and indicating that Q2 recovery in a stronger second half of the year. We also highlighted nearly 100 new GAN chargers developed with our customers last year. Adding to the ones already released on the market, that puts us at something like 250 plus GAN chargers released to production, many of them ready to launch as that market comes back. And we still got another 250 in development behind that. So there's a lot of positive things there that will drive that growth, but we're still cautiously optimistic and planning that growth, as I said, good growth year on year, but even stronger growth in the other markets.
spk05: Okay. That's really helpful. I guess as a follow-up, I wanted to ask on the data center market, you talked before about, I think last quarter, a $5 million purchase order that you thought would ship in the back half of this year. Is that still on track? And then more broadly, I know you have, I think you said you got 10 programs right now. I think you had nine last quarter. You know, what are you seeing in terms of design activity and just in that market? I know there's certain areas that, you know, Spending is slowing in the data center, but you guys obviously being at the leading edge may not be seeing that, but I'm just curious how you're seeing the data center market.
spk09: Yeah, that particular program we highlighted last time has delayed into 24, but with that said, as you pointed out, we've actually increased the customer pipeline, including that one from 9 to 10, so trending up a little bit there. We don't see any signs of slowdown. I think that one program that pushed to 24 is kind of unique and not a reflection of any macroeconomic trends that we can see. So I think it looks positive, but as you say, we're early in that market. We're not the best indicator of it. We see all upside coming from zero, and we see a lot of strong tailwinds between Titanium Plus and the earlier comments about the AI data centers demanding more power from these power supplies.
spk19: Okay, great. Thanks, guys.
spk15: Thanks, Sam. John Tanuanting with CJS Securities. Your line is open.
spk30: Hi, this is Ross Kesselman in for John. A quick question. Could you maybe specify on the traction you're seeing from policy changes such as the IRA and different funds for renewables and the titanium standards for Europe? I know you touched upon it, but do you think you could add a little bit more color?
spk09: Yeah, I think that titanium standard is a unique one. That's already in place, started January 1st. It's specific to EU, but most of these power supplies are designed to meet global standards, so they have to meet the minimum required standard out there, or the toughest standard, I should say, which is the titanium one in Europe. So that one is clearly driving strong trends for us. We have actually four different customer platforms, server platforms, four data centers in development, all of them meeting that titanium standard, working closely with those 10 customers that I mentioned. Talked about I think inflation reduction act is a little different It's huge amounts of money as we highlighted over 50 60 billion in our target markets. It is just rolling out this year So I think it's early to talk exactly what the impact is going to be. Those are big numbers They're bound to have an impact in each of these areas sustainability or I should say renewability and solar in particular upgrading home appliance energy efficiency and also the EV roadside charger infrastructure. But I think time will tell exactly what that impact will be as we see those dollars flow to consumers, to our customers, and then ultimately to our business.
spk30: Got it. I know you've mentioned previously that there's been a constraint on the silicon carbide products. Have you seen any indications of improvement in that area?
spk09: Yeah, and I'd go back to the long-term agreement we signed last quarter that now starts this quarter, and it translates into increased revenue capacity to support that revenue starting next quarter. And that's a 5X increase. It's not a step function, but it's 5X from middle of last year when we acquired Genesic and ramping throughout this year and into next year. So that gives us a lot of headroom to do more if we can do it.
spk31: Got it. Thank you so much for the additional color.
spk02: You bet. Thank you.
spk15: Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Natalia Winkler with Jefferies, your line is open.
spk23: Yeah, hi. Thank you guys for taking my question. So the one I had was for Eugene. I just wanted to understand this joint venture acquisition a little bit better. Is it fair to assume that it's moving you guys to the parity with silicon on terms of pricing faster for GaN solutions, or is that kind of accelerating that parity for the higher voltage applications? Thank you.
spk09: Yeah, thanks, Natalia. No, it's a great question and a good observation. You're exactly right. Well, what we're doing there is not only developing leading-edge analog controllers that are optimized for higher frequency GaN and sodium carbide, we're actually co-packaging them with our optimized GaN. When you combine that with the cost reduction and performance improvement of Gen 4, that's also rolling out simultaneously, you get a really nice improvement in performance, reduced size, footprint, improved power density, but also helping us on that BOM cost. And it is a factor driving us to that system cost parity compared to silicon, specifically around mobile chargers, consumer adapters, and I also mentioned the home appliance auxiliary power supplies.
spk23: Awesome. Thank you. That's really helpful. And then the other one I had was about the TSMC. Gene, if I understood correctly, you mentioned that you guys saw a 6% increase this January, January 2023. Is that fair? And then I guess I think historically we've heard of maybe some potential kind of annual increases in November. How should we think about that dynamic? Do you have some kind of already expected price increases or contractual ones?
spk09: Yeah, that's right, 6% in January. I think you heard that from probably many suppliers. It's certainly not unique to us in any way. We had alluded or anticipated it in earlier quarters. There was a prior 20%, as the whole industry discussed and felt, but we do see these as one-time events that are unique in the supply and demand unique situation for the industry. Obviously, the whole industry is shifting. I think it's shifting to a more balanced place, and we look forward to a more healthy cost reduction environment, and that's certainly what we expect going forward. We certainly don't anticipate any further cost increases and don't have any contractual agreements that would suggest any cost increases.
spk17: Understood. Thank you very much. Thanks, Natalia.
spk15: Ross Seymour with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
spk06: Hi, guys. Thanks for letting me speak in a follow-on here. The in-market color, again, is very helpful. I just wanted to walk through just a little bit of your view on the mobile market. I know you said it'll start growing again in the second quarter. Can you just talk about where the channel inventory is? And if I'm doing my math at all correct, it seems like you didn't ship very much at all in the fourth quarter itself into the mobile market. Was that generally correct in order to get the channel inventory down before it starts popping back?
spk09: Yeah, Q4 and Q1 were both pretty soft, certainly not zero, but certainly soft compared to expectations and even prior quarters. We don't report channel inventory, but we certainly see that significantly reduced and hopefully bottomed out. And that only adds to our confidence, coupled with actual increased order intake. We have a very strong backward, fully booked out on Q1, strong bookings into Q2. and increased forecasts from the customers. So all of that taken together leads to our anticipation of that Q2 recovery.
spk06: And is there a seasonality to that business, or is the channel dynamics and China reopening and the prevalence of a huge number of design wins much more important to think about than any sort of seasonal pattern?
spk09: No, I think seasonality is always a factor in mobile and consumer. Q1 is typically soft anyway, independent of this unique situation. You've also got Chinese New Year, which always has an impact both on consumption and production. So I think all of that rolls together to add to sort of a softer or modest Q1 and probably then adds to the recoveries that we're seeing in Q2.
spk17: Perfect. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Ross.
spk15: This concludes the Q&A portion of the call and concludes the Navitas Semiconductor fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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