Wolfspeed, Inc.

Good evening and thank you for standing by and welcome to the Wolfspeed Inc third quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. 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 would like to ask a question during this time simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star followed by the number two. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Thank you. Please note, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Tyler Grombach, Vice President of External Affairs. So please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Wolfspeed's third quarter fiscal 2023 conference call. Today, Wolfspeed CEO Greg Lowe and Wolfspeed CFO Neil Reynolds will report on the results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2023. Please note that we will be presenting non-GAAP financial results during today's call, which is consistent with how management measures Wolfspeed's results internally. Non-GAAP results are not in accordance with GAAP and may not be comparable to non-GAAP information provided by other companies. Non-GAAP information should be considered a supplement to and not a substitute for financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is in our press release and posted in the investor relations section of our website along with a historical summary of other key metrics. Today's discussion includes forward-looking statements about our business outlook, and we may make other forward-looking statements during the call. Such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties. Our press release today and the SEC filings noted in the release mentioned important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. During the Q&A session, we would ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up so that we can accommodate as many questions as possible during today's call. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact us after the call. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Greg.

Thanks, Tyler, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our latest financial results. Now, before we dive into the details, I want to take a moment to express our gratitude to President Biden, Secretary Raimondo, Governor Cooper, and all of those who joined us at our Durham headquarters last month. As an American company, we share the administration's goal of driving US innovation and manufacturing. At Wolfspeed, we are a testament to the power of long range investments in complex technology. With silicon carbide being rapidly adopted across various industries, our company's mission aligns with the energy efficiency goals of governments across the world, and we are proud to be making a significant impact. In the last several years, we've gone from being a global leader in silicon carbide materials production to building a vertically integrated semiconductor powerhouse. That started with the expansion of our power devices capacity in the Durham Fab and then turning a field of mud in upstate New York into the world's first 200 millimeter silicon carbide device factory. I'm proud to share that we shipped our first product from the Mohawk Valley Fab in the third quarter. while it's a relatively small number of devices shipped to an industrial off-board charging customer. It's an important proof point that we are now producing product on 200-millimeter substrates. We have a meaningful head start in executing our strategy, and the learnings from ramping the new fab will be important as we continue to expand capacity to better support the industry transition from silicon to silicon carbide. Our focus on vertical integration positions Wolfspeed for a multi-decade growth opportunity. Customer demand is robust, as we secured $1.7 billion of design-ins in Q3. This total reflects a new quarterly record for non-automotive design-ins, which included a heat pump application and an EV off-board charger. Our cumulative total for design-ins secured since fiscal 2020 now totals approximately $18 billion. Demand is there, and we are continuing to lead the expansion of the silicon carbide market. My primary focus is on expanding our capacity, especially ramping materials production as it relates to wafer supply to feed Mohawk Valley. For most of our history, our growth was driven by supplying the market with silicon carbide wafers. Now we have a best in class fab and we need more materials to feed it. Producing more silicon carbide epiwafers out of our Durham facility will be the governor on our Mohawk Valley ramp in the short term. And our longer term outlook is supported by the ramp of the JP. Neil and I are leaning in directly to support capacity expansion efforts. We've realigned the team. with operations leaders now reporting directly to myself and Neil. Missy Stegall is overseeing devices and our wafer fabs, while Adam Milton will lead the materials production for the company. We believe this will provide greater visibility into the ramp of substrate, as well as our device footprint expansion. Our strategic vision and expectations for silicon carbide expansion have not changed. Wolfspeed has a deep moat in the industry with a decades-long runway. But the journey requires focus, persistence, and patience. We'll continue to make long-range investments in this complex technology, expanding our capacity footprint with purpose-built facilities for both materials and devices. We believe this is validated by customer demand and increasing investments in silicon carbide across the industry. The world needs more silicon carbide, and Willspeed will continue to lead the pack. Now I'll turn it over to Neil, who will provide an overview of our financial results and an outlook for the four quarter fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024. Neil? Thank you, Greg, and good afternoon, everyone.

During the fiscal third quarter of 2023, we generated revenue of about $229 million at the high end of our guidance range, which represents a 6% sequential increase when compared to the $216 million in the fiscal second quarter of 2023 and growth of approximately 22% year-over-year, with power device products growing more than 50% year-over-year. We recognized our initial revenue from our Mohawk Valley FAB in the third quarter and continue to expect low single digit millions of revenue in the fourth quarter with a greater ramp in fiscal 2024. I'll go into more specifics in a few moments, but going forward, we will continue to explore ways to show the underlying economics coming out of Mohawk Valley and its relative margin impacts. As a reminder, Mohawk Valley will dramatically change the dynamics of the business as its scale, automation, and wafer size advantages will lower our overall die cost by greater than 50%. We also saw strong revenue growth from our merchant 150-millimeter silicon carbide substrates, as we solved many of the production challenges we had on the taller pools, albeit at higher than expected costs. This resulted in a one-time inventory drain, and we expect revenue levels to return to more steady state run rate levels in fiscal Q4 and beyond. Additionally, from a power device perspective, as I mentioned last quarter, We now believe that we have achieved full capacity in our Durham wafer fab and almost all future top line growth and power devices will come directly from the Mohawk Valley fab. Looking at RF products, we continue to see weaker demand, but within range of our prior estimates. Moving down the income statement, non-GAAP gross margin in the third quarter was 32.3% compared to 33.6% last quarter and 36.3% in the prior year period, representing a 400 basis point decline year over year. Consistent with our outlook, gross margin was impacted by lower yields and higher costs on our taller 150 millimeter bulls. In addition, gross margin was impacted by a heavier mix of high volume automotive customers running on the smaller 150 millimeter wafers in our Durham fab. As a result of these items, we generated adjusted loss per share of 13 cents in the fiscal third quarter compared to a loss of 11 cents a quarter ago and a loss of 12 cents in the same period last year. as revenue growth was offset by lower gross margins and higher investments in OpEx. Before I discuss our guidance, I will provide a quick overview of our balance sheet position. We ended the quarter with approximately $2.25 billion of cash and liquidity on our balance sheet to support our growth plan. DSO was 53 days, while inventory days on hand was 162 days. Free cash flow during the quarter was negative $245 million, comprised of negative $11 million of operating cash flow and $234 million of net capital expenditures. We now anticipate net CapEx for fiscal 2023 to be approximately $775 million, down from our previously announced $1 billion, primarily due to the timing of facility spend related to the 200-millimeter substrate expansion. During the quarter, we incurred startup costs primarily related to the Mohawk Valley Fab ramp, totaling approximately $45 million. Moving forward, we expect overall startup and underutilization costs for Mohawk Valley to start winding down as we ramp the fab. We have included a non-GAAP adjustment for these startup costs in the reconciliation table and our earnings release. In terms of our capital needs, we continue to evaluate multiple avenues of additional funding, including upfront customer payments or investments, debt instruments, and government funding in the United States and Europe. While we cannot comment on the timing or certainty of any government funding, we believe we have made great progress in this regard. In addition, we believe we need to secure approximately $1 billion of additional non-government financing between now and the end of the calendar year to support an approximate $2 billion of CapEx in fiscal 2024. The majority of this investment will be for 200-millimeter substrate facility construction and tool capacity at both the JP and Siler City and our Durham campus in North Carolina, with the intention of leveraging this investment to ramp the Mohawk Valley FAB as fast as possible. While we are currently investing a modest amount of design work for the German Saarland FAB, we don't expect to see significant facility construction-related capex until calendar year 2024, while we await final incentive notification from European authorities. However, we have made good progress on this front, and as of now, expect final notification later this calendar year. We also remind you that our CapEx investments can be highly variable, depending on the timing of facility construction, tool lead times, supply chain challenges, and other items. As we look forward to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 and beyond, we recognize that, especially recently, there has been variability in our financial performance compared to our forecasted growth trajectory. While predominantly related to the challenges of the timing of the ramp of Mohawk Valley and our 200-millimeter materials production, we recognize the need to help you all assess near-term expectations. As a result, in addition to giving our fourth quarter outlook, I will take a moment to help frame how we're thinking about fiscal year 2024. Starting with the fourth quarter of 2023, we are targeting revenue in the range of $212 million to $232 million. Our revenue guidance reflects low single-digit revenue from Mohawk Valley as previously communicated. As I mentioned before, we are essentially capped in Durham from a power device capacity perspective. And going forward, much of the incremental revenue we will generate will be from Mohawk Valley. In addition, as previously mentioned, we will see lower materials revenue related to the one-time inventory drain in 3Q as we improved output on our taller 150-millimeter pools that will not repeat in 4Q. Our Q4 non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be in the range of 29% to 31% as we continue to work through the cost recovery on the taller 150 millimeter bulls. And we shift our Durham fab mix to higher volume automotive customers that were initially slated to be produced in Mohawk Valley. We expect non-GAAP operating expenses to be between 105 million and 106 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. We expect Q4 non-GAAP operating loss to be between 34 million and 43 million and non-operating net gain to be approximately $5 million. We believe we will realize approximately $8 million to $10 million of non-GAAP tax benefits as a result and expect Q4 non-GAAP net loss to be between $21 million and $29 million, or a loss of $0.17 per diluted share to $0.23 per diluted share. Our non-GAAP EPS target excludes acquired intangible amortization, non-cash stock-based compensation, project transformation and transaction costs, factory startup and underutilization costs, and other items as outlined in our press release today. As always, our Q4 targets are based on several factors that could vary greatly, including supply chain dynamics, overall demand, product mix, factory productivity, and the competitive environment. Turning to fiscal 2024, given that our growth will be governed by how quickly we ramp 200-millimeter substrate capacity, and in turn, the Mohawk Valley FAS, we will target fiscal 2024 revenue between $1 billion to $1.1 billion. This outlook assumes we achieve 20% capacity utilization at Mohawk Valley by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, while RF and materials product line revenues remain closer to current levels as we focus our efforts and resources on ramping 200-millimeter substrates in Mohawk Valley. Additionally, as a result of the ramp timeline and continued focus on customer timelines, As I mentioned earlier, we plan to run more auto-related products at the smaller 150-millimeter diameter in the Durham Fab for the foreseeable future to support our customers, which will flatten the gross margin trajectory for the next several quarters until Mohawk Valley reaches critical mass. As we are in the early stages of these critical EV ramps, it is important to support our customer ramp schedules, but it will likely keep gross margin in your current levels until Mohawk Valley ramps to higher output levels. That said, as we reach 20% utilization at Mohawk Valley, we would expect the trajectory for gross margin to improve because the unit economics are significantly more favorable than Durham.

With that, let me pass it back to Greg for his closing remarks. Thanks, Neil. We recognize there is work to be done against executing on our strategic vision and capacity expansion plans. That said, we are confident that we are on the right path. As Neil discussed, we are adjusting our fiscal 2024 revenue forecast to better reflect the current trajectory for the ramp of the Mohawk Valley Fab. We continue to win business at a solid rate, and a large part of that is due to our investments in capacity and our device quality. As we further our capabilities in vertical integration and continue to innovate, we expect to continue to capture share in our power device product line for automotive as well as industrial and energy applications as the supply of silicon carbide devices continues to expand. At Wolfspeed, we have an extremely wide moat in an unbelievably attractive industry with decades-long opportunity. We believe we have the best talent, the technology advantage based on our 30-plus years of silicon carbide expertise, and cost advantages as we ramp our 200-millimeter production and design in with premier automotive OEMs, Tier 1s, and industrial customers. We are the leader in silicon carbide technology and are hyper-focused on expanding our footprint to maintain that lead and are focused on executing our strategy as I know we can. And now I'd like to turn it over to the operator for any questions you might have.

Thank you. We will now begin the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by the number two. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow up. Thank you. We have our first question from Jed Dorshma from William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Hey, thanks. And thanks for taking my question, guys. So first question, Greg and or Neil, I was wondering, you know, a couple of quarters ago, you sort of flagged the yield issue, you know, within six inch in terms of the taller bulls. And now you're kind of calling out the 200 millimeter capacity. I was wondering if you could help us better understand some of the limitations. Can you, you know, clarify if this is a furnace issue, if this is a, you know, sort of a bull height or a wafer thickness or sort of maybe give a little bit more color of what's going on. And, and then, you know, as part of this question, when you were Cree, I think of memory serves, you went through a similar type of transition with four inch to six inch. And, And I'm wondering if you could maybe update on the timelines that you saw sort of thickness, bull height, et cetera, because that would seem like that's an important lever here as a function of until you get Siler City up and running, and then I have a follow-up.

Okay, Jay, thanks a lot for the question, Jed. Let me frame it this way. First off, we're running wafers right now, 200-millimeter wafers, in the Mohawk Valley. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we shipped our first product to an industrial customer and we're going to ship a couple million dollars worth of product this quarter. Our cycle times, our yield, our throughput, initial reliability, all of that out of Mohawk Valley is looking really good. The quality of our crystals and the quality of our substrates as well as the yield in producing those substrates in our materials factory in Durham is also at or above where we have targeted at this point. What we're really talking about here is a challenge of scaling and scaling the materials operation to feed Mohawk Valley. And basically, there are two things that are basically slowing that down, so to speak. One is some infrastructure delays that we had, things like switchgear and things like that, as we expanded in our Building 10 facility in Durham. So basically, supply chain issues with electrical infrastructure gear. That's been resolved, and we're now expanding inside of Building 10. And the second is a more methodical approach to growing the capacity. I think that's a prudent point for us to take at this point. So basically, quality of bulls, quality of crystals, crystal height, number of wafers per bull, all of that kind of stuff in line, material flowing through the factory, doing really well, just simply a delay from an infrastructure perspective and a more methodical ramp.

Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. And then on my second question, you know, it begs the question, I know that When you looked at Mohawk Valley, you made a strategic decision to kind of go to eight versus six for all the benefits that you cited in terms of moving to eight. But there were certain customers targeted for Mohawk Valley, and now I know you're talking about moving those to Durham. Could you maybe elaborate on what that means in terms of customer qualification? timelines and what this means for that business? Or any of those, do those customers now think differently in terms of, you know, obviously it's a different capacity, or are you able to port that over? I would doubt that you can qualify in Durham and then that becomes qualified in Mohawk Valley. Thanks.

You know, Jed, what I would say is there is a very leaning forward slash aggressive approach from our customers in terms of trying to hurry up the qualification of product out of the Mohawk Valley. They see it very, very clearly. The substantial amount of increased capacity out of Mohawk Valley is very much worth leaning forward in terms of taking material from Mohawk Valley. We have customers that have signed up for risk starts in Mohawk Valley ahead of qualification and so forth. And I think typically when a customer, you're right when you go through a wafer fab transition, there's typically a, you're sort of dragging a customer along, if you will, as you bring them to the new facility. That is not the case here because the demand for the product is so substantially high that they're really, look, everyone is kind of lining up and raising their hand to try to get into Mohawk Valley faster. So no change on that at all, Jed.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Brian Lee of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open, Brian.

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess the first one just on all this additional granularity and the updates on Mohawk Valley. I appreciate that. But, you know, with the target to kind of get to 20% utilization by end of fiscal 24, can you kind of talk about, you know, where you'd be, you know, targeting or happy with gross margin performance across the business by that point in time? Are we talking about, you know, forehandle when you're at 20% utilization in Mohawk or back to the high 30s? And then, just the broader implications of this push out in Mohawk, the more methodical ramp on, you know, you do have fiscal 26 and 27 outstanding financial targets in the model, wondering what the implications are for those, and then I had a follow-up.

Okay, Brian, it's Neil. So yeah, so appreciate the question. So just looking at the kind of the staging of gross margin as we move forward. So for 3Q, kind of landed within the range, but as you look forward, With some of the delays we're seeing in Mohawk Valley, and as I mentioned earlier, we're just going to run some more of the higher volume automotive customers through Durham to try and support those ramps. You know, we always kind of thought that kind of this 23, 24 timeframe, we would see some of these automotive ramps start to come online. And that's exactly kind of what we're seeing. So we've really got to support our customers through this period as we start to get the FAB ramped up. But what that's going to do is that's going to flatten out margin for the next couple of quarters until we start to see Mohawk Valley start to ramp up. So you can kind of think of margin as kind of flattish for the next couple of quarters, and then as Mohawk Valley starts to see utilization improvement, we'll start to reap the benefits of the margin and the cost structure that you get out of Mohawk Valley as you start to get closer to that 20% utilization mark. So I've said it before, kind of all roads point to Mohawk Valley, both for revenue and margin, but I think that's exactly the case here.

Okay, I guess and then just any thoughts on your bigger picture fiscal 26 and 27 given the change to the viewpoint for 24 and and I guess when do you maybe just to the chase? What's when do you think you can get back to some of your prior gross margin targets? I think you had been talking about like 45 in 24 and Is there a chance we see the 40% margin level at all in fiscal 24 at the end of the year, exiting the year?

So as you look at, as it gets to the back half of 24, you can think of some of those targets pushing out. Think about 25, as you start to turn the corner on some of those things, you get north of 20% utilization in Mohawk Valley. What we're not going to do is give a full guidance update as you think about the long-term model. And the reason for that is, as you get through 24, we start seeing Mohawk Valley start to get to a trajectory where we get supply coming from Siler City for 200 millimeter to feed Mohawk Valley, you know, there's a pretty good likelihood we will be able to accelerate out beyond that timeframe. So I wouldn't necessarily take the 24 kind of numbers, you know, being somewhat lower than we talked about previously as a reflection on the total plan. I think just a different trajectory, particularly as you get outside of 24, you start seeing some of the Siler City materials come on. you start seeing Mohawk Valley out in that 25, 26 timeframe really be fed and start to see some of the utilization rates pick up. So I think we'll start to see an acceleration outside of 24, but I don't see that inside of 24. Okay. Thanks a lot.

I'll take the rest offline.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Gary Mobley of Wells Fargo. You may proceed.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to revisit something Greg addressed earlier, and that is, you know, the revision of fiscal year 24 revenue. So, back in October on Halloween, your Annals Day, I think the projection was $1.6 billion in revenue in fiscal year 24. And we've walked that down, I think, for the past few quarters. You know, at that October Annals Day, I don't think there was really anticipation of having much contribution from Siler City, you know, to support that fiscal year 24 revenue. So I'm just, you know, curious where we've seen that, you know, 35% reduction in revenue forecast. Is it all just because you're having a hard time ramping specifically in Durham, 200 millimeter, and now it's purely contingent on Siler City?

Thanks, Gary. And I think it's not so much about Siler City. It's about the timing of the ramp of what we call Building 10. This is where we're on our Durham campus. So bringing up 200 millimeter on the Durham campus, you know, back in October was, you know, supporting the plan we talked about then. So this is really about, you know, timing of bringing that facility up. So I think it's really two things. One is the kind of delay some of the items Greg talked about earlier around facilities bring up. But the second piece is, I think, really about bringing up at a more methodical pace. So you've got You know, I think you got a little bit of a delay, then I think the curve will take on bringing that up will be very methodical with. Obviously, we've seen the challenges and bringing up silicon carbide capacity. As we've talked about many times, it's difficult material to work with. And we'll bring it on in a way that we think is, you know, in a thoughtful methodical way to ensure that we bring up that capacity in a reasonable manner.

Okay, this is my follow-up. I wanted to ask about your design and conversion rate, Greg. I think you mentioned $18 billion in cumulative design-ins, $1.7 billion for the quarter. Does, you know, this slower-than-expected ramp in, you know, 200-millimeter substrates related to that Moloch Valley, does that reduce the outlook for the conversion rate on these design-ins? And maybe if you can just give us a general sense of how that conversion rate has been trending.

Well, the conversion rate has actually been very, very positive. So over the first three quarters of this year, we've actually converted $1.7 billion of design ends to design wins. So that conversion rate is actually quite good. And so I don't think it slows that down at all. In fact, the conversion rate that we've seen over the last couple of years has been substantially stronger than we anticipated or I've seen before. And I think it's a reflection of the demand for the product from a customer's perspective. The demand is pulling in and steepening. From an electric vehicle perspective, there was an article out a couple weeks ago that suggested that by 2032, greater than 60% and I think they actually said 62% of vehicles in the United States would be electric. And that's substantially faster than anyone anticipated. You know, you heard us getting designed into heat pumps and to other applications. We actually had a record quarter this year on design ends for non-automotive with nearly $700 million of design ends Just for automotive. So I think the design in rate continues to be very, very strong. In fact, our design ends for the first three quarters of this year are greater than all of last year and all of last year, all of last fiscal year was a record. And the design and conversion is happening faster. That obviously puts a lot of stress on customers looking for more, you know, product. And, you know, universally they point to Mohawk Valley. They see a light at the end of the tunnel. They see us, you know, running wafers in there right now. They saw that we shipped product out of that facility to a customer. We're going to have a couple million dollars worth of revenue out of that facility right now. So while they'd like more product sooner, they also note that we've invested several billion dollars in the world's largest silicon carbide fab. So there's sort of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks, guys. Thank you.

We now have Mark Fanzi of TD Callen.

Thank you very much, guys. Greg, I wanted to kind of, I don't know, backtrack the clock six months or so. You guys had the analyst day back at Halloween and REVISED SOME OF THE FISCAL 24 TARGETS AND ADDED THE FISCAL 27 MODEL AT THAT POINT. AND I GUESS I'M TRYING TO UNDERSTAND SOME OF THE VARIABLES AROUND 200-MILLIMETER OUTPUT TO FEED MOHAWK VALLEY THAT WERE CONSIDERED THEN AND I THINK THE BULL HEIGHTENING ISSUE ON 150 WAS ALREADY SORT OF KNOWN PUBLICLY AT THAT POINT AND I WOULD IMAGINE YOU GUYS HAD RISK ADJUSTED THE 200-MILLIMETER RAMP FOR THAT. Maybe you could just walk us through, I guess, the chain of events since then that's now allowing Durham on 200 millimeter to ramp more slowly on materials, and just what those variables were over the last six months since the model was adjusted the last time. Thanks.

Thank you. It's very straightforward. Number one is some supply chain issues that we had with infrastructure type Mike SanClements, Things for the expansion of building 10 and again this is switchgear elect basic electrical infrastructure, where lead times on the product and capability to get it all in and and get it all turned on was just longer than we had anticipated, and in fact. Mike SanClements, You know it lengthened during the time that we were we were actually in between that October timeframe and and the beginning part of the year, so it was just. You know, that's pretty straightforward. The amount of time it took us to actually get those infrastructure pieces of equipment in and turned on and get certificate of occupancy was longer than we anticipated. And then the second thing is that we've made a decision to be more methodical and ramp the product in a more methodical way, you know, as opposed to just going from, you know, sort of zero to 60, you know, real, real quick, taking it a step at a time. This is a very, very tricky technology. We have great output in terms of quality from the crystal growers right now. We have quite a few crystal growers now turned on in that Building 10 facility. The quality of the crystals is really good. The yield that we're getting is really good. The taller bull challenge that you had referenced on 150 millimeter, it was actually in some respects good to have that problem on 150 because we've already kind of designed around that for 200 and the team's already working and has already essentially solved that problem at 200 and so uh you know it's just we've just made a decision to that you know things are going really good and to try to go you know to to just amp it up too quickly is probably just not prudent so it's a combination of those two things uh that are driving that.

Got it. Thanks for that. I guess this is my follow-up question. It sounds like with the 200 millimeter limitations on how quickly Mohawk Valley will ramp, and you guys have been very clear for a while that their own device fab was sort of tapped out in terms of capacity. But it sounds like now prioritizing some of the automotive customers that were going to be served out of Mohawk Valley and pulling some of those devices back to 115 and serving them out of Durham. I guess my question is, if that facility was going to be full before on devices, what happens to the customers that were depending on that capacity that's now going to sort of be backfilled on the automotive side? If it was going to be full the whole time, presumably you had customers for all those devices. what's happening there and what sort of the ramifications of the non-auto business over the next couple of years from those decisions. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks a lot. So essentially what's happening, we're not sort of pulling back to Durham. We currently are, we are shipping product in automotive out of our Durham facility. And the idea would be that we were transitioning it to the new york or mohawk valley fab and that transition is just happening slower is what that is so it isn't a pulling back to or what have you and then essentially on the non-automotive customers we've already shipped our first product out of mohawk valley to a non-automotive customer we have several of them that are ramping and excuse me and that's out of mohawk valley and we have several of them that are ramping out of that so you know basically it's a you know it's going to create a situation where we've got a supply in the van situation that's going to be tight. We're working with customers. Neil and I had personally a meeting with a customer last night talking about this. So, you know, we're working with customers, but again, they see a light at the end of the tunnel. They see that we've got this giant fab, you know, coming online and they're working with us to prioritize getting their products, you know, out of that fab in New York.

Thank you. We now have from JP Morgan. Your line is open, Sonic.

Hi. Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess just to start on the delay here in ramp of Mohawk, I think what you're talking about is more of a six-month delay relative to earlier set of your own expectations. And I just am wondering with the more methodical approach you're taking to ramping the materials capacity, As we think about sort of the flow through of this into the future years, does this sort of mean there's a six-month delay to all the sort of ramp projections that you had? Or does the more methodical approach really drive a greater delay? Or do you sort of pass an S curve at some point where you say, okay, this is the inflection point. We can catch up to some of our earlier targets because we are now more confident about not having to go slow in terms of this ramp. Thank you. And I have a follow-up.

Thank you. Yes, I think it's very much a second one. I think we're seeing a delay now in terms of bringing this on. We want to do it methodically for the exact purpose you just mentioned. So when we get to a certain level of volumes, both in materials and through the fab from a utilization perspective, we'll have the right level of confidence to ramp it faster as time goes on. So I wouldn't say this is a one-time push out of everything, but I think this is a methodical approach to making sure we can underpin the capability of our factories Remember, we're doing something for the first time in many places, our first 200-millimeter silicon carbide fab, and we're ramping 200-millimeter volume all at the same time. So now what we want to do is just make sure we get that right. And once we get that to certain levels of volume, as Greg said, we feel good about the fab and where it's at from a capability perspective. We feel good about the crystals and the yields and everything else we're seeing from that perspective. So once we have enough volume under our belt, I think we'll be able to accelerate that faster kind of later in the timeframe of that kind of outlook.

And just as a follow-up, I think the cash burn in the quarter itself was higher than the last couple of quarters with now sort of forecast for next year being similar gross margin and probably OPEX does go up into that time frame. How should we think about cash burn next year? Any sort of guidance on that?

Yeah. So overall, like, look right now we have two and a quarter billion dollars on the balance sheet. Um, as I talked about in the prepared remarks, you know, we're looking to fund another billion dollars this year and we've got a $2 billion, uh, you know, CapEx plan next year. So I think we'll be in pretty good shape. It probably pushes out the operating cashflow capability, uh, out by maybe that same type of timeframe until we can accelerate. But I don't see that as moving the needle substantially versus what I just talked about. So I think about it as two and a quarter on the balance sheet with a $2 billion CapEx plan, uh, next year. And we've raised some money between now and the end of the year, and I think we're right on schedule from a funding perspective. And then I think the operating cash flow will get pushed out a bit, but I don't see that being a significant factor in terms of building out what we're trying to do. I think that just keeps us on schedule. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks for taking the questions. Yep.

Thank you. We now have Edward Snyder of Charter Equity Research. You may proceed with your question.

Thank you very much. Neil, you kind of warned about the delicate process of getting new material fab up and running last quarter, I think, even if it's just across the street from the existing fab. So I guess you shouldn't be surprised by this. But if you're having that kind of a problem with the 200-millimeter expansion and building 10, why won't we see a similar, if not greater, issues with the massive expansion? You're playing for Siler City, which is not across the street from the existing fab. But I know Proximity doesn't have that much to do with it, but... From all that you said and all that JP had told us, et cetera, this is obviously very slight changes, and a number of different metrics can cause big deviations in what you're actually putting out in terms of wafers. So why shouldn't we expect Siler City to see some more delays in that fall?

Thanks, Ed. And let's just back up a little bit. So what we're seeing here is that the major delay we're seeing is not really related to the crystal growth technology or the 200-millimeter technology really at all. Um, that was really related to electrical, you know, infrastructure and, you know, building out the facility. That's really what's causing, you know, the first stage of the delay. Um, after that, it's really about, you know, bringing on this thing, like we said, methodically, but again, the crystals, the quality, the, um, you know, the yield and everything else all look very, very solid from the first, uh, first production out of that facility. And we anticipate that going forward. So I think once we, once we prove out kind of building, building 10, I think we'll be in good shape to, uh, transport that over to, uh, over to Siler City over in time. But I think what we're talking about here is taking that same type of methodical approach. We'll ramp this up and we'll do the same thing as we move over to Siler City. We'll bring that also up in the same fashion for the exact reason you mentioned. It is a tricky technology and you want to make sure we're watching it very, very closely with the right team overseeing it. And I think that's what the plan we're laying out is designed to do.

And then we talked to Link last quarter about the capacity issues at both RTP and Durham, and it sounds like none of that has changed. So I kind of want to revisit the previous question. I mean, is it fair to assume that the $100 million a quarter is about the limit for Durham, plus or minus a bit? I'm assuming that's still a valid estimate. And if it is, and you're now ramping more automotive there, it's necessarily the case that you're shipping less to Durham non-automotive customers, or am I reading that wrong? And if that's the case, is that going to lead to share loss? Because a lot of industrial customers have a much shorter design cycle time, so they would be able to maybe go someplace else and redesign the product versus automotive, which is a much longer tail. So I'm just trying to get my head around the dynamics of occurring at Durham in power devices because you just don't have the capacity anymore to even address the customers you were last quarter. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks. So, you know, one of the key things we're obviously doing is staying very, very close to all of our customers. In fact, we just had 60, I think, industrial customers up the Mohawk Valley last quarter, I believe, you know, taking a look at where we're at in terms of that perspective. And what I would say is, of course, they want more now. But when they look out at the landscape of what's coming down the pipe in terms of capacity, uh all the eyes keep coming back to the world's largest 200 millimeter sodium carbide fab that is turning on as we speak we shipped initial product out of it last quarter we'll do a couple million dollars this quarter we're going to get the 20 utilization out of that fab in the end of fiscal 24 which will have pretty significant output so if we didn't have anything uh as you know, close to turning on as Mohawk Valley, I think it would be a much bigger issue. But quite frankly, I think when they look around the world and scout for alternatives, I don't think they see anything quite like what we're doing in Mohawk Valley. So the customers are sticking with us. And, you know, the best testament of that is we just delivered $1.7 billion worth of design-ins in the quarter. know over the year over the first three quarters of this year you know 700 700 million of that has uh has transitioned to um uh has transitioned to actually 1.7 billion dollars has transitioned to uh design win and finally i would say um ed this quarter was a record quarter for non-automotive design so We're not happy that we're not shipping everything that they're looking for, but I think at the same time, we're also very proud that four years ago, we made a decision to build a factory, and it's coming online now because had we not done that, we'd have nothing to show them.

It sounds like really basically it's growing planes in an industry that's very tight on capacity all the way around.

That's right. That's right.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. We now have Colin Rutsch of Optima. Please go ahead.

Thanks so much. Thanks so much, guys. You know, just given the dynamics that you're just talking about here around technical supply and scale, can you talk about how mature the conversations are with incremental customers that may help support some of the CapEx here? Obviously, you guys have had some success with that. Um, but, but how robust are those conversations at this point?

You know, I would say quite robust. Um, we've had a lot of, um, uh, discussions. We've had a lot of wins where, you know, customers have, um, put upfront money, uh, as to help us, um, with our capital needs and the expansion needs, and they see a huge benefit from that. So, you know, those are, those are pretty good conversations. They continue to this day and, um, I think it's something that's probably going to continue for the foreseeable future.

Okay. And then just turning to OpEx, as you guys look to optimize cash here over the next six-day course, can you talk a little bit about what you're going to need to spend to support the work that you're doing both with customers and with multiple facilities ramping here and how we should think about that OpEx spend growing?

Yeah, good question. I'm glad you touched on that because I think if you think about the expansion activity that we have going on and bringing on, you know, this focus on, you know, especially on the 200-millimeter wave for Mohawk Valley, et cetera, we have expanded our R&D costs. You saw that reflected in the quarter. We're really investing more in both our products and in ramping Mohawk Valley as fast as we can. So what you're seeing right now are a lot of charge-outs from the fabs on kind of new products. We're going to expect this to pick up again as we move into next quarter and even the next couple of quarters. As you get into Q1, we'll see kind of our kind of annual merit, you know, increases and those types of things. We'll see kind of a larger step up as you get into the Q1 quarter and then start to, you know, accrete again kind of as we have been as you got to the end of 24. So that's the way I think about the OPEX as you're thinking about both Q4 and as you start to work into 24.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. We now have Vivek Ara of Bank of America.

Hi, yeah, this is Blake on for Vivek. Thank you for taking my question. Just wanted to drill down more into the fiscal 24 guidance because I believe in the past you guys have given a rough breakout between device and material sales in your long-term target and with the new FY24 target. Curious if you can break that out again between devices and materials.

Yeah, so I think what we said is power devices, you know, are supplied today out of the Durham fab. And that's going to run about 100 a quarter. That's what it's been. It's capped at that. You know, we saw the RF numbers kind of come down. They've been more or less in line with those expectations. And we'll see, you know, the materials business be somewhat muted as we focus on, you know, the 200 millimeter wafer. So you can kind of look at this kind of, you know, starting point here. You know, we got it last quarter at 220 million. You add a couple of million from Mohawk Valley, 222 million in Q4, and all growth after that will come from Mohawk Valley. So you can kind of get an idea of what the trajectory is, and really it's power device growth from here out through the end of 24 is what's represented in those numbers.

Great. Helpful. Thank you. And then just as a follow-up from a CapEx perspective, I know I believe you said it kind of came in under expectations for this year, but just moving forward, kind of at lower revenue levels at this point. I just want to confirm that the plans you laid out at your analyst day are still roughly in line with what you're thinking.

Yeah, I don't think there's any change to the total build out or cost of build out or anything like that versus what we talked about. I think we're seeing a little bit slower spend on some of the facilities and structures that we're seeing from a CapEx perspective, particularly on the Siler City project. But I think of that more as timing. We'll see about, like I said in the prepared remarks, about $2 billion of capex in 2024. It could be variable depending on a number of things, but the vast majority of that is focused on bringing on 200-millimeter materials substrate capacity to support Mohawk Valley. So that's really where our focus is, both from an execution perspective and from an investment perspective, to bring that type of capacity online, again, with the intention of ramping Mohawk Valley as fast as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our final question on the line comes from from New Street.

Hey, thanks a lot for taking my question.

It's going to be the last question. I'm sorry. I'm going to ask again about like the delay and things like that. But what I wanted to do is really to make sure I understand it at the high level. What I'm understanding is that roughly um at the end of this fiscal year so in a year from now in june 2024 you'll be about 20 behind schedule uh compared to what your previous guidance was meaning and it's just because it's taking you maybe about 20 percent um longer to to get started in ramping materials production And I think in the numerous questions we heard about that, you qualified that as being like maybe running three or six months behind plan. So I just wanted to make sure at a high level, that's the way we should understand it. Everything is doing fine. The yields are fine. Things are just like walking through all what you have to do to run this production capacity is just running three to six months behind schedule. Is that the right way to think about it?

yeah thanks for the question yeah i think that's the right way the goal is to get the utilization of the fab to 20 by the end of 2024 and that's what's baked into the model and i kind of consider that kind of a risk adjusted plan because you know it's got a lot of different moving pieces right now and um you know we'll have to work through any bumpiness but i think that accounts for that as we look at that and as it turns as it relates to the three to six months behind or whatever you want to call it i think that's true i think initially we had planned we kind of said back half of fiscal year 2023 we would ram the fab And we're all the way kind of out in, you know, in the June quarter with, you know, roughly 2 million of revenue. So it's probably a little bit further, you know, probably further than that. And the other piece of it is the slope of the ramp, right? We're going to be more methodical in terms of how we bring it up. So I think it's really about, you know, so if you think about the overall financial impact, that's why it becomes more dramatic than that and maybe pushes out a bit further. But again, it's really this timeframe, because once you get to that 20% utilization point, we bring up that level of capacity you know we believe as you get out beyond 24 into 25 and 26 it can accelerate again uh because we'll just have more um you know capability under our belt we won't be in those early days of you know building this type of capacity out for the first time okay excellent and i have a much broader question and i um i hope it's all right to um uh to ask that for you um uh to ask that today

You know that in March, Tesla talked about a new architecture for their low-cost models that would mix silicon carbide and silicon. And there has been an interesting debate in the industry and the investment community about that's a negative because it's not 100% silicon carbide, so it's not great for silicon carbide. And the other of you being, wow, if Tesla is innovating and creating a way to make silicon carbide even more affordable by mixing it with silicon, it probably expands the addressable market. So I'm sure you've been looking at that. You've had a lot of conversation on that. And so I'd like to hear your perspective on the matter. This innovation communicated by Tesla, do you see that expanding the opportunity and the addressable market or potentially has a risk of limiting the scope of silicon carbide?

Yeah, thanks for the question. Essentially, what we understand the situation is, is they're focusing on an entry-level car that has a pretty significantly lower power point. When we look at the market for silicon carbide, we take an assumption that There's going to be a certain penetration of electric vehicles in the market and a certain penetration of silicon carbide in the electric vehicle market. And obviously, as we look at entry-level cars, historically, we would say there would be no silicon carbide going into that. So we view this as incrementally expanding the TAM for silicon carbide because it takes silicon carbide down to a level where we weren't anticipating it being at this entry level. I think they mentioned $20,000 or $25,000 type vehicle. So this is a plus. It's more silicon carbide going into lower power applications. And we have obviously spent a ton of time talking to our customers that are building vehicles that are more mid-range in terms of cost perspective. And their view is it's silicon carbide all the way. So no change from our customers that have been in our designing silicon carbide for sort of the mid-range of vehicles. But we view this as a positive. This is silicon carbide now being used in an entry-level vehicle, which is incrementally positive to our assumption.

Excellent. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'd like to hand it back to Greg for any final remarks.

Well, thanks a lot, everybody, for participating in today's call, and we look forward to chatting with you next quarter.

Thank you.

Thank you all for joining us to conclude today's call. You may now disconnect your line and have a lovely day.