Monolithic Power Systems - Q4 2025
February 5, 2026
Transcript
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Welcome, everyone, to the MPS fourth quarter 2025 earnings webinar. My name is Arthur Lee, and I'll be the moderator for this webinar. Joining me today are Michael Hsing, CEO and founder of MPS, Bernie Blegen, EVP and CFO, Rob Dean, Corporate Controller, and Tony Balow, Vice President of Finance. Earlier today, along with our earnings announcement, MPS released a written commentary on the results of our operations. Both documents can be found on our website. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that in the course of today's presentation, we may make forward-looking statements and projections within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risk and uncertainties.
The risk, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements are identified in the safe harbor statements contained in the Q4 2025 earnings release, our Q4 2025 earnings commentary, and in our SEC filings, including our Form 10-K and Forms 10-Q, which can be found on our website. Our statements are made as of today, and we assume no obligation to update this information. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Tony.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
Thanks, Arthur. Good afternoon, and welcome to our Q4 2025 earnings call. Today, we made an announcement that after 15 years at MPS and 10 as the CFO, Bernie will be retiring. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I'd like to turn the webinar over to him for his thoughts on his time at MPS and the transition ahead. Bernie?
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Thanks, Tony. As I was preparing for today, I realized that this is my fortieth earnings call as MPS's CFO. That's a nice round number to finish up with. It's been my pleasure and honor to work closely with Michael for so long and to have been a part of MPS's leadership team. I want to thank our investors and analysts for the trust you placed in me. It is natural for all businesses to go through cycles, but your support has been consistent regardless of the circumstances, and I have greatly appreciated it. As I look ahead, MPS's prospects remain bright. With our unique culture, our dedicated employees, and a fantastic portfolio of products, MPS is well-positioned to sustain the broad-based growth you've come to expect from us during the last 10 years.
I have a lot of confidence in the team I am transitioning my responsibilities to, starting with Rob Dean, who will be our Interim CFO. While many of you may not know Rob, we have been partners in this enterprise for the last nine years. Like my predecessor and for myself, Rob continues the MPS tradition of transitioning from MPS's controllership to CFO. This ensures a lot of continuity in the role. Likewise, I will remain with the company to support a successful transition. Rob, would you like to say a few words?
Rob Dean (Corporate Controller)
Yes. Thanks, Bernie, and I'm grateful to you and Michael for this opportunity to continue the tradition and to have been part of the MPS finance team while you have been CFO. I know I speak for the entire finance team when I thank you, Bernie, for everything you've done over the last 15 years. He's not only helped guide the business to consistent growth and execution, but he's grown a great team around him. I've worked closely with Michael and the executive team for close to a decade. We've developed a strong relationship, which I expect to continue as we grow the company and take on the opportunities ahead. I appreciate the confidence they have placed in me in this new role. I look forward to meeting all of you in the coming days and weeks. With that, I'll pass it over to Tony.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
Thanks, Rob. I'll now move to our prepared remarks before going to Q&A. In 2025, MPS posted its fourteenth consecutive year of growth with a full year revenue of $2.8 billion, up 26.4% from 2024. For Q4 2025, we had a record quarterly revenue of $751.2 million, 1.9% above Q3 2025, and 20.8% higher than the fourth quarter of 2024. This performance reflected our consistent execution, continued innovation, and our customer focus. Let me call out a few highlights from 2025. Our non-enterprise data end markets grew by over 40% year-over-year, showcasing the strength of our diversified business model. We achieved our milestone of securing more than $4 billion of geographically balanced capacity and continued to add additional supply chain partners to support future growth.
We had record module revenue and positioned ourselves for a further shift to solutions by sampling our 800-volt power solution for data center. In automotive, we launched solutions for 48-volt and zonal architectures, including the first fully integrated 48-volt eFuse and a kilowatt-level zonal controller that will support growth in 2026 and beyond. We expanded our customer base and data center for power solutions across AI, server, memory, optical modules, and switch applications with leading-edge current density, power efficiency, and packaging. I am also pleased to announce that our quarterly dividend will increase 28% to $2 per share. For the three years ending with December 2025, MPS has returned over 72% of free cash flow to stockholders through share repurchases and dividends. Our proven long-term growth strategy remains intact as MPS focuses on innovation and solving our customers' most challenging problems.
We continue to invest in new technology, expand into new markets, and to diversify both our end-market applications and global supply chain. This will allow us to capture future growth opportunities, maintain supply chain stability, and quickly adapt to market changes as they occur. I will now open the webinar for questions.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Thank you, Tony. Analysts, I would now like to begin our Q&A session. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please click on the participant's icon on the menu bar and then click the Raise Hand button. Our first question is from Chris Caso of Wolfe Research. Chris, your line is now open.
Chris Caso (Managing Director)
Yes, thank you. And, Bernie, I'm lucky to be the first to congratulate you on your retirement and wish you all the best. It's been a pleasure all these years.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Thank you very much, Chris.
Chris Caso (Managing Director)
So, for my first question, I guess as we look into the March quarter, could you give some color on what you're seeing, you know, with respect to the different segments? You know, what do you see within the various market segments?
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Sure. Let me start to color this by talking a little bit about Q4 2025. We saw a good step up in the ordering patterns in the quarter. Our book-to-bill ratio was well in excess of one, and that's really reflected in our backlog, which is starting to extend out into Q2 and Q3 of 2026. We also finished with fairly routine rather... Our channel inventory stayed at the low end of our range. So we feel that we're servicing real demand, and that we're seeing a lot of strong ordering trend.
So as we look at the fourth quarter, you can see that we saw some, you know, pretty good strength, particularly as it relates to enterprise data and also to the communications. We expect that those trends, along with automotive, should continue to extend into Q1 and into the remainder of the year.
Chris Caso (Managing Director)
Thank you. As a follow-up, and you mentioned enterprise data, and obviously, you know, that's been a focus of attention to not just for you, but the whole market. You know, you had made some comments on enterprise data for 2026 on the last earnings call, and, you know, if I just annualize the Q4 numbers, you pretty much get to where that guidance was. So, you know, what are your thoughts on that in the year, and perhaps is there a seasonal element to enterprise data as we go through the year?
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
Sure. I'll, I'll start off on this one. As I said, in Q4, we saw some fairly pronounced changes in ordering patterns, which has given us a fair amount more of confidence as far as what the outlook for enterprise data could be in 2026. Now, I think for those that you've worked with me for the last 10 years, you know that I like to stay pretty conservatively profiled when I make an estimate. So I'd probably say that, whereas last quarter I talked about a range of between 30% and 40%, maybe I can increase that to a floor of 50% growth for 2025.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Wow, 50%! I thought that we can do a lot more than that.
Conservatively.
Well, I see... No, this, this is what I see here. So, okay, we won the many design wins, and, across the boards, not from one company, one large company, it's okay, we have multiple customers. They're all very big. They call, what, Magnificent Seven or eight or whatever. It's okay. We want all the designs, okay? And we are proven, we're one of the viable AI power supply. And, also, I see the other end, okay, we have, we have all the capacities we can deliver this year to our customers' needs. And, I don't see why not. So not only 50%, okay? We'll be a lot more than that. Okay.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
Maybe just one last thing to add, and Chris, you heard us talk about the drivers for growth, which was really around growing existing customers, adding new customers, seeing new platforms coming to market, and then, of course, just server tailwinds. I think we always knew those were in place, and now we're just seeing some of the backlog to go, to go along with it. The only other thing I'd add, right, is we focus a lot on enterprise data, but I think we've seen strong data center demand, which has really also pulled through storage growth, optical modules, switches, and other areas we've talked about. So I think overall, we've seen strong data center demand through the end of the year.
Chris Caso (Managing Director)
Got it. Okay. Thank you. All the best, Bernie.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our next question is from Joe Quatrochi of Wells Fargo. Joe, your line is now open.
Joe Quatrochi (Director)
Yeah, thanks for taking the questions, and my congrats to Bernie as well. Thanks for all the help. Maybe just to follow up on that, in the enterprise data and the increase in outlook, how much of that is related to, like, traditional server CPU demand that it seems like is accelerating as well?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Well, as I said, we have a lot of new design wins, and again, in the particularly last year and a half. And, we see continuously changing, adapt our modules and,
... we see the trend, and with our power densities, and okay, I mean, we're winning the market.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Yeah. Yeah, I think to go back to part of your question, which had to do with the traditional maybe CPU data center, the lines between AI, GPUs, and CPU are getting pretty blurry because they're so integral to one another these days.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
They're using the same kind of power supply now. Okay.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Exactly. But I would say that we've been trending very well in both categories. So I can talk to a trend line, but I can't really give you an absolute figure.
Joe Quatrochi (Director)
Okay, that's helpful. And then as a follow-up, as I think about just kind of, like, storage and compute and, and maybe the exposure to, like, PCs, are you seeing anything related to just kind of, you know, memory prices increasing, you know, and just kind of maybe some pressure on some demand destruction around that part of the market?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Oh, you're talking about PC. The PC is a different animal than the data centers. Okay? I mean.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
New, new question. He's asking about memory and the constraints there, whether we're seeing that affect us.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Oh, memory constraints?
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Right.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Okay, as I said earlier, we don't have any constraints on the capacity side.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Yeah, and I think where you're going, Joe, as well as also is there did any demand destruction in PCs? I think as you looked at Q4 into Q1, remember, we're coming off a very strong first half of 2025, so we expected that to be down a bit, as well as we are participating more selectively in the emerging parts of that business. I don't think we know how it's gonna play out through the rest of this year at this point, so I don't think it's possible to say how that market might trend. We hear a lot of the same, but I think it's too early for us to tell.
Joe Quatrochi (Director)
Thank you.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Oh, the-
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our next-
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
... memory, memory constraint on the PC.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
On the PC, yes.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Oh. Oh, okay. I don't know. So okay, we don't know those in market, okay? We don't know our, what our customer do.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Yeah.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
We deliver what our customer ask. I care less.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Yeah.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Okay.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our next question is from Josh Buchalter of Cowen. Josh, your line is now open.
Josh Buchalter (Managing Director)
Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my question, and definitely want to echo the congrats and best wishes to Bernie after, you know, an incredible run and a long, sometimes strange trip. I very much appreciate the support over the year, and congrats and best of luck to Rob. Maybe just to start, you know, the incremental confidence in enterprise data is great to see, and it seems like you guys are suggesting you feel better about visibility there than you have in the past. Is that a fair read? And if so, you know, is part of this, it's just the market is maturing and scaling, and also just the capacity needs are so great? Could you... I'm just hoping you could maybe speak to how visibility compared to maybe a year ago or something.
Thank you.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Yeah, I think in prior quarters I've said that we've been experiencing a turnaround, much of which has been around the enterprise data or more broadly, AI markets, but that the anomaly had been that we'd been seeing very short lead times, and that they were not putting a lot of backlog in our books. And I'd say that the fundamental change that also making us more confident right now is that we are seeing longer ordering patterns because some of our customers are concerned about capacity constraints, not necessarily with us, but just in general.
Josh Buchalter (Managing Director)
Oh, okay, that's helpful, caller. Thank you, Bernie. And then the 40% non-enterprise data growth number for 2025 is obviously huge and above your historical algorithm of, I think it was 10%-15% above the analog industry. Is that still the right way we should be thinking about, you know, the non-compute exposed verticals into 2026 as well? Thank you, and congrats again.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah, I will try to manage your expectation. We're not gonna say 2026, we'll have a 40% growth. Okay, and these growths, okay, we are still a small players in the overall markets, compare all the market size, okay? And some growth, so some years, and, okay, we see the opportunities, and okay, we can grow better than the other years, and okay, but the long-term trend or even short-term trend, in even 2026, we will grow.
Josh Buchalter (Managing Director)
Okay, thank you.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our next question is from Quinn Bolton of Needham. Quinn, your line is now open.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director)
Hey, thanks for taking my question, and Bernie, it's been a great run, a great decade, so thank you for all your help along the way. Welcome, Rob. Wanted to ask, some of your competitors in the AI power space are talking about their businesses doubling in 2026, and I know your business and their businesses don't, you know, overlap 100%. There's different, you know, compositions. My question is, do you guys think that you're gaining share as you look into 2026 broadly in the AI power segment?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah, I refuse to get into a pissing contest, okay? And the whole we are less on the stage, okay? We let the numbers speak some, speak itself. As always, as our CEO, so what, 20-21 years history, we never do that, okay?
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
I do think that we clearly have great products, broad engagement across the customers. We have design wins in a broad swath. So how the market then plays out, you know, remains to be seen, I think. But I think we're very confident in our product portfolio and the engagements we have right now.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director)
Got it. And then, Michael, some of the-
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
That's a, that's a much better small talk. That's a much better-
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director)
Well, as you said, we'll see where the numbers shake out at the end of the year. Michael, I wanted to ask, too, you talked about sampling the 800-volt-
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
You'll probably see earlier. You'll probably see much earlier. Okay.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director)
Oh, good. Well, we'll stay tuned.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director)
Wanted to ask you about the 800-volt solutions for 800-volt racks. Some of the participants in the market are suggesting NVIDIA and others are looking for GaN-based solutions. I think you guys are offering a silicon carbide-based solution. And so just wondering if you could talk about what you're seeing in the market. Is there a preference for GaN or silicon carbide? Do you think there'll be a mix of compound semiconductor solutions for that 800-volt to 12- or 6-volt stage in those 800-volt racks?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, again, okay. And this is not a good venue to talk about technical terms, and okay. Actually, I'm happy, I'm happy to be a person who really knows the semiconductor device, and we are developing silicon carbide, okay? And, 10 years ago, I was wrong about the GaNs, okay, but in the last few years, we developed our own GaN devices, okay? And, 800 volts, since Tony is mentioning about it, and we're entering a pissing contest, and okay. That revenue is not for this year, not even for next year. So, okay, maybe end of the next year. However, we're the first company to sample it. Now, that's a part of a pissing contest. Okay.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
Again, we've done a good job and shown ourselves to be very adept at changes to the market. So whether it turns out to be, you know, GaN or silicon carbide, that is what's demanded, I'm sure that we'll be well-positioned to take advantage of it.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director)
Got it. Thank you.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our next question is from Rick Schafer of Oppenheimer. Rick, your line is now open.
Rick Schafer (Managing Director)
Oh, thanks, and I'll just say, Bernie, it's been a genuine pleasure. You're gonna be missed. And Michael, I just want to confirm for everybody that you're never retiring, right?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Well, it happened to be today is my 86th earnings call. I'm looking for... I'm looking for double it. Okay. Well, be serious, okay? And, I enjoyed this, MPS, okay, and immensely. Okay, we actually created this, a platform. Everybody can maximize their capability, and we, and, the more interesting things to me is, we company evolve, and, we form a semi we sell semiconductor, power management. Now, in the semiconductor, we get into MCU, we get into data converters, we get into even high speed, okay? These are a few gigahertz of stuff, and, you will see the revenue zooms in it.
And on the overall marketing segment address, we migrate from silicon to systems, to a module to systems, and you will see a lot more. I enjoy this process a lot, and every year I'm a part of it, and okay, and I have own product lines. Okay.
Rick Schafer (Managing Director)
Thanks, Michael. It's reassuring. Hey, I also just had a quick clarification, and then I've got a couple follow-ups. But the clarification, Michael, you said earlier, that the CPU and GPU and server are using the same power supplies now. So does that mean that server CPU is already migrating to 48-volt?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
It's still. They use mostly. If they have some advanced and high-price server or special servers and a special need. They still use 12V. But I'm aware of some models use 48V. My guess is they're still small. I'm not very clear on that, but there's a. The majority is still 12V, and then now it's clear the modules are the way to go, and if you want to improve efficiency.
Rick Schafer (Managing Director)
Thanks for clearing that up. So my first question really is on optical transceiver, 'cause that, you know, that's basically a brand-new product line, you know, a little over a year old, I believe. And by our count, in our model, it's close to roughly 5% of sales exiting last year, I think now, which is a pretty remarkable ramp. So I guess I'm thinking, you know, we're asking, what are your expectations for that business this year, and what does that imply for comms segment? You know, what are sort of the puts and takes within the comms segment?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
I can comment on, again, this because we entered the module journey since 2016 or 2017, and these happen to be the highest power density product on the market. Then, optical modules, they wanted that because they have limited rooms, and okay. In terms of our business, I don't know the details, and maybe Bernie as Tony, Tony can answer it, and okay.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
Yeah, I'll just follow up. I think, Rick, we have obviously seen great growth in optical modules over the past year and a half. I think the way we look at the market, very typical for MPS, is sort of interconnect. So it's not just optical modules, but engagements for CPO, active copper, other things as well, 'cause the market will then figure out what interconnect technology is actually gonna succeed over the long term. We obviously don't guide by, you know, sub-end market, let alone sub-end market, but we would expect optical module to continue to grow as you start to see the 1.6 ramp. As we go through and for communications, it should be an area of growth for us in 2026, both on optical modules and in switches, 'cause that's where our data center switches are as well.
Rick Schafer (Managing Director)
Oh, thanks for that. Then if I could sneak in one on automotive. I mean, obviously, great year in 2025, and I'm just curious, what are the—what you see as the top driver—top drivers, excuse me, of a segment growth this year? I know you highlighted 48-volt zonal, and I didn't hear you say much about ADAS, but I assume ADAS. I don't know if you can update us on how big ADAS is within that segment now, or, and if there's any way to quantify sort of a shift this year that you expect in potential content per vehicle.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Sure. I wanna take a victory lap on 2025, where automotive grew 43% year-over-year.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
But that's only the beginning.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
That's exactly the point here-
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
... is that what we saw in 2025 and is going to continue is that while ADAS certainly was a strong initial ramp, particularly in 2023, 2024, and 2025, I think we saw a lot more diversification into other content opportunities on the automotive platform. And so, as we look ahead here, keep in mind, we're not necessarily driven by the SAR of the business, but we are, our growth is dependent upon how fast our customers implement these new technologies, particularly as it relates to zonal and 48-volt.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Or even ADAS.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Or ADAS.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
The majority cars on the market, there's nowhere near anything close to what Tesla does, okay? That's the car I drive, okay. You have a full... I don't drive anymore, okay? I think a majority of people still drive, okay? That adoption rates that came in a large automotive company, they do things very slowly, other than, and much slower than a Tesla does, okay? For futures, we are up to this point, and actually the next couple of years, I see our products provides the complete power supply chipsets. Also we have all these firmware, software, we're very much engaged with all the car makers.
I don't see why not, and okay, and, that business is gonna continue to grow.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Yeah.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
You actually, guys, okay, you know how many cars shipped with the ADAS, okay, which levels, and okay, and, you can count MPS in it.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
And Rick, we're a little hesitant to probably call any numbers for the full year just 'cause there is a lot of macro uncertainty still. Great design wins, great engagement with Tier 1s and OEMs, but whether it's tariffs, whether it's the end of EV subsidies, or whether you even talk about what the impact on the auto market is from the memory shortage, I don't think we know. So I think we're a little hesitant to actually put a growth rate on it for the year.
Rick Schafer (Managing Director)
Appreciate it. Thanks, guys.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our next question is from Gary Mobley of Loop Capital. Gary, your line is now open.
Gary Mobley (Managing Director)
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. And, Bernie, your retirement's well-deserved, and look forward to working with you, Rob. I think everybody on the call would share the same sentiment that I have, that you're definitely one of my favorite CFOs. And for my retirement gift to you, I wanted to throw you a big softball question, but I think it's an important topic. You know, looking back over the past decade when you've been CFO, you've outperformed the overall analog chip market, the overall voltage regulator market, consistently every year, and seemingly for different reasons each year. But, you know, thinking about the outperformance of the market in 2025, you know, maybe if you can give us a sense of what drove that.
Was that just share gains and voltage regulator die, or was it something more substantial, like moving into data converters? Was it, you know, tied to the higher content associated with modules? And related, can you give us some KPIs as it relates to sort of your module mix right now? Anything you can help us get a better understanding of that consistent market share growth?
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Sure, Gary, and thank you for the kind words. They're appreciated. When you look at the overall performance for the company in 2025, we had what had been our largest revenue end market in enterprise data had actually declined 2%, and yet overall, the company grew 26%. And strategically, you know, how we're differentiated from our competition is that we are represented with the best technology, the best services across all of the end markets that we service. And this is really just a reflection of, you know, our execution against that strategy over all of these years. It wasn't that, pardon my saying, we pulled a rabbit out of a hat.
We actually are able to adapt very quickly to changes in the market, so that's what this is really a reflection of in our performance of 2025.
Gary Mobley (Managing Director)
Thanks. As my follow-up, I wanted to ask about maybe some nuances in your increased visibility and comments regarding that. If I talked to you guys, you know, three months ago, I think you were thinking maybe the 2026 year was gonna be a little more second half weighted. Just given the stronger bookings that you've seen, the stronger order backlog, you know, as you sit here today, would you say the shape of the year is a little more linear, less dependent on the second half?
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
I'd say that the first half for enterprise data in particular, but for the company, is more secure. I think there's still a lot of variables that need to be shaped before we really understand what the second half trajectory's gonna look like. But obviously, the initial signs that we saw from the ordering pattern in Q4 and continuing into this new year have been exceptionally positive. So now we have more of the high-level issue of trying to figure out what's real demand and what may be, you know, some double ordering on the part of our customers as they try to secure capacity.
As I said, that's a high-level issue, and we've shown that we can adapt to that as well as anybody by the performance we gave in late 2020 and early 2021.
Gary Mobley (Managing Director)
Thank you.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
We work with the customers very, especially all these large data center customers, very closely. And, they will give us a very good lead times and forecast. And, so we have the capacities ready, and okay, and, we just meet that demand.
Gary Mobley (Managing Director)
Thanks, Michael.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our next question is from Tore Svanberg of Stifel. Tore, your line's now open.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director)
Yes, thank you, and congratulations, Bernie. You're a, you're a class act, and, I'm gonna miss you tremendously. My first question, Michael, I'm gonna zoom in on a, in a market where there's perhaps less contest, which is, storage and especially SSD power. It seems to be an area that could see quite a bit of upside and growth in data centers this year. So I was hoping you could talk a little bit about the profile of that business. I mean, I think historically it's been more tied to, you know, client and edge devices, but, again, what's the company's position, SSD for data center going into 2026?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah, these are the power management and then also the signal processes, okay? These are all, all in the consortium driven by JEDEC, okay? And, maybe, Tony, you're a lot more familiar than I do.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Yeah.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
We are part of it, and, DDR4, we don't have a much business, okay, very little. DDR5 is okay, we're in DDR4, we're in on the dining tables now. Before, DDR4 wasn't, okay? So now the, this, business is ramping, so, okay, and, memories and, okay, and all shifted to DDR5, and, okay, and, we clearly see the volumes now, this, and, last year and this year, and we're not stopping there. We're migrate down to where we expanded our product lines to the single site, and, these are all in the, in the memory, okay, modules.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
So I think there was a portion of your question as well about the non-DDR5 part of that business, sort of SSD and HDD, and we have seen an uptick in that part of the business as well. I think you're right, it's being pulled through much more by the enterprise than, than consumer these days, and that's why we generally talk about storage being data center driven, inside of the storage and compute segment.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director)
Yeah, that's what I was trying to get to. And as my follow-up, Michael, congratulations on getting to $4 billion in capacity, but it looks like you're gonna need quite a bit more than that. So, perhaps you could give us a little bit sense of what you're doing on the capacity front, especially the next few years, because you're clearly gonna need much more than $4 billion.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yes, we are, we are very aware about that, okay? And, as speaking, of course, and, we're continuously expanding our capacity, and, you know, you know, MPS history, and okay, the worst thing is, shutting customers down, okay? And, fortunately, we haven't happened in the, in the MPS, okay? And, now the- gets a little more complicated, okay? We established from the beginning of the last year, we established our supply management chain, and this is not only for silicon, and we, not for semiconductors, like including, okay, silicon carbides, and then, gallium nitrides and the materials, and like, we do all modules and all the module components.
So we established the supply chain management. So I think it's and also quality. Don't. Okay, it's not everybody can play that game, so every supplier can play the game. We go through heavy auditing, and so their standards, okay, they meet our standard. Ultimately, it reflects into our margins. So the short answer is yes. Yes, we're expanding very fast.
Tore Svanberg (Managing Director)
Great, thank you. Congrats again, Bernie.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Thank you.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our next question is from Kelsey Chia of Citi Research. Kelsey, your line is now open.
Kelsey Chia (VP)
Hi. Hi, Bernie. Congratulations on your retirement. Really appreciate the opportunity to work with you over the past year. So, I think, my first question is with regards to the updated guidance for enterprise data. Is there any market share gains assumption there, or is it just primarily due to this industry growth? And also, you know, MPS has demonstrated strong execution and historically gain share during periods of supply constraints. So, is it fair to assume that MPS could navigate any potential supply constraints and to take share in this environment?
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Sure. And I think that I'd be doing a disservice to this conversation if I tried to break it down into a formula that says what share gains or what's new business. And I'd rather sort of respond a little differently, that this is a large market. We talk about the large, you know, the top six, seven customers, and we're fully engaged with them in a strategic manner, where we're developing not just the release of the next generation, but the one beyond that. But this also is an end market with a long tail, and we're participating in the mid-market and the small size as well.
So we're still very, very early in, you know, how this market's gonna roll out and what our positioning is gonna be, and I think that, we're as well positioned as anybody to take advantage of the market opportunity, but this is a, a long, long and very big, story.
Kelsey Chia (VP)
Got it.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah. Well, the company is, I'm thinking about beyond AI, beyond, beyond enterprise, data centers. I'm not retiring, so I'm thinking 10, 15 years ahead.
Kelsey Chia (VP)
That's great. Can continue the outperformance. And MPS, you know, outlined a gross margin target of 55%-60%. Could you provide an update with regards to which end markets are currently above or below that corporate average, or outline some of the specific gross margin drivers in this-
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're in the range, but on the low side. I noticed that. Okay.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Let me add a little bit of color there. So, Michael said this earlier. When we look at all of the opportunities, we keep in mind, you know, what is the corporate model for gross margin, which is between 55% and 60%. And I've been fairly consistent over the course of the last 4-6 quarters, when we've been trending at between 55.5% and 55.8%, which, Michael said, is the low end of our model, that in order for us to show improvement, we really need to have a little longer time horizon as far as backlog to be able to manage in it.
So we are starting to see a backlog developing, which, I don't want to make too much out of what just one quarter's of experience, but we should be able to resume at some time during the year, the cadence that we've historically shown of incremental sequential improvements of maybe 10-20 basis points, quarter-over-quarter.
Kelsey Chia (VP)
Sounds good. Thank you. Thanks, Bernie.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our next question is from Jack Egan of Charter Equity Research. Jack, your line is now open.
Jack Egan (Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Thanks for taking the question, and I'll echo the congratulations for Bernie and Rob. I had a bit of a technical one. So during last year's Investor Day, you mentioned a packaging innovation that would allow you to basically double the current density of your modules to about 3 amps per millimeter squared. And I was just curious, are there any updates on that? Like, is that still a work in progress, or, you know, is there kind of a timeline for that milestone?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
We start to sampling those products, and again, we expect to have a shipping in, this, this quarter or next quarter? This quarter. Yeah. Those already-
Jack Egan (Equity Research Analyst)
Right. Okay, great.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
... implemented, they're already, already qualified, and our customers went through a qualification on it.
Jack Egan (Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Okay. That's great to hear. And then kind of from a higher level then, you know, last quarter, you talked a bit about the growth margin implications of moving from a silicon supplier to a system provider over the long term. I was a bit curious about the impact on OpEx as well. I mean, is that going to require you to kind of bring on new teams with experience in systems, or is there enough overlap between, you know, the chip design and system design processes that you could accomplish it organically, I guess? So just any details on, you know, the impact to R&D dollars-
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah
Jack Egan (Equity Research Analyst)
... or SG&A leverage would be nice.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
... Well, we need to get first things, okay, first, okay? And, we only gain, not lose, okay? I never believe, like, big dollars and, like, investments and, okay, and that translates to the bigger gain, okay? That's bullshit to me. And, so look at MPS. We're creating a few thousand, 4-5 thousand products, and I lost track. We addressed the multiple segments of market. Why we can pull up all these 1 + 1 = 3s, and okay, not just 2 anymore. We can pull all these products, put in the systems, and we can provide higher values to end users, which doesn't mean we're building a refrigerator, we're building TVs, and, okay, we're building some things in order to alleviate our customers' design effort, manufacturing effort, and that's...
Give us a high ASP. I said earlier that we're sick and tired of selling silicons and, okay, but why, why we can just put all the silicon together and migrates to system levels, like modules, okay? Like system, you will see more and more. So at least I can say the net margins, net profit had to increase, and gonna be a company that's gonna be a lot more, lot more efficient.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
Good. So I want to touch on something that this transformation has been occurring now for well over 10 years. If you think about, we were pretty much completely an analog design house 10, 12 years ago, and then we've been able to migrate where we added both digital engineers and software engineers. And now we've had to take on new responsibilities and new skill sets related to packaging, and as Michael said, and testing. And each time we've done this, we've maintained the same level of R&D efficiency, of getting the most out of the dollars spent. So just changing to develop, you know, new skill sets around the new opportunities we've identified, does not necessarily mean that it's going to get more expensive or it's going to compress our operating margins.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
And I'll just have one last comment. Even we made the model during Investor Day, Jack, that was fully aware of this transition, and so we talked about growing OpEx slower than revenue and giving some leverage to the model. We knew this transition was happening when we put that guidance out there.
Jack Egan (Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah. Okay. Thank you all for all the color.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
Yeah.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
Our last question is from Sebastien Naji of William Blair. Sebastien, your line is now open.
Sebastien Naji (Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah. Good, good afternoon, and thanks for taking the questions. I'll just echo the best wishes for you, Bernie, in your retirement. My first question is really on the shift to vertical power solutions in the data center. As we move through 2026, what are your expectations for adoption of vertical power, and has that changed at all from your view in previous quarters?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Vertical power? That's everybody's going to a vertical power, so I guess, okay. I mean, or those one don't, and okay, sooner or later they will.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
This is just where the direction of the market. It's the only energy-efficient solution you can put in place if you're gonna operate in these high, high voltage.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
High current
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
... High current. So that's just a natural evolution of the marketplace.
Sebastien Naji (Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. So, do you think that starts to drive revenue in 2026 then? Is that fair to say?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sebastien Naji (Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah. Okay.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Oh, yeah.
Sebastien Naji (Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Great, that's helpful. And then maybe just as a follow-up on your optical module business, I think you, you talked about this a little bit in a previous question, but as we think about this shift to co-packaged optics, that's getting a lot more attention these days, how does that potentially change your revenue opportunity in optics? Is it more revenue per port? Are the ASP significantly higher? Any, any thoughts on that?
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Higher current, higher density is always good for us, and we're smiling. They increase power, and there's a lot more opportunity for us.
Bernie Blegen (EVP and CFO)
And a higher level of integration.
Michael Hsing (CEO and Founder)
Yeah, higher level integrations, and widen the competition gap.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
Yeah, I think the only thing I'd add there is, again, I think that's, again, for long term. I don't think that necessarily moves the needle on 2026, just to be sure, but it's certainly something we're engaged in over the longer term.
Sebastien Naji (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, got it. Makes sense. Thank you.
Arthur Lee (Finance Manager)
This concludes our Q&A session. I would now like to turn the webinar back over to Tony.
Tony Balow (VP of Finance)
I'd like to thank all of you for joining us today on this conference call. Our first quarter 2026 conference call will likely be held in late April. Thank you, and have a great day.
