Vicor - Q4 2025
February 19, 2026
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Vicor fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Jim Schmidt, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Jim Schmidt (CFO)
Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Vicor Corporation's earnings call for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2025. I'm Jim Schmidt, Chief Financial Officer, and I'm in Andover with Patrizio Vinciarelli, Chief Executive Officer, and Phil Davies, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing. After the markets closed today, we issued a press release summarizing the financial results for the three-month and year ending December 31st. This press release has been posted on the Investor Relations page of our website, www.vicorpower.com. We also filed a Form 8-K today relating to the issuance of this press release. I remind listeners, this conference call is being recorded and is the copyrighted property of Vicor Corporation.
I also remind you very affirmatively that we may make forward-looking statements during this call for purposes of the Safe Harbor provision under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Except for historical information contained in this call, the matters discussed on this call, including any statements regarding current and planned products, market potential customers, potential market opportunities, expected events and announcements, and our capacity expansion, as well as management's expectations for sales growth, spending, and profitability, are forward-looking statements involving risk and uncertainties. In light of these risks and uncertainties, we can offer no assurance that any forward-looking statements will in fact prove to be correct. Actual results may differ materially from those explicitly set forth in or implied by any of our remarks today.
The risks and uncertainties we face are discussed in Item 1A of our 2024 Form 10-K, which we filed with the SEC on March 3, 2024. This document is available via the EDGAR system on the SEC website. Please note the information provided during this conference call is accurate only as of today, Thursday, February 19, 2026. Vicor undertakes no obligation to update any statements, including forward-looking statements, made during this call, and you should not rely upon such statements after the conclusion of this call. A webcast replay of today's call will be available shortly on the Investor Relations page of our website. I'll now turn to a review of our Q4 and full-year financial performance. After which, Phil will review recent market developments with Patrizio. Phil, Patrizio, and I will take your questions.
In my remarks, I will focus mostly on the sequential quarterly change to P&L and balance sheet items, as well as full year-on-year changes, and refer you to our press release or our upcoming Form 10-K for additional information. As stated in today's press release, Vicor recorded product revenue for the fourth quarter of $92.7 million, up 4.5% from the third quarter total of $88.7 million, and up 15.3% from the fourth quarter 2024 total of $80.4 million. Royalty revenue for the fourth quarter totaled $14.5 million, a 33.1% decrease from $21.7 million in the third quarter and a 7.8% decrease from $15.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.
The sequential decrease in royalty revenue was the result of a catch-up amount that was included in the Q3 result. Product revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025, increased 12.1% to $350.3 million from $312.5 million for the prior year. Royalty revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025, totaled $57.4 million, a 23.2% increase from $46.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2024. Total product revenue and royalty revenue, including a $45 million patent litigation settlement received for the year ended December 31, 2025, increased 26.1% to $452.7 million from $359.1 million the prior year.
Advanced products revenue, which includes royalty revenue, decreased 4.4% sequentially, which was the result of the catch-up amount of royalty revenue in Q3. Brick products revenues declined 0.6% from the third quarter. Revenues for advanced products for the year ending 2025 increased 26% to $248.6 million from $197.3 million the year before. Revenues for Brick products for the year ending 2025 decreased 1.6% to $159.1 million, $161.7 million the year before. Shipments to stocking distributors decreased 11.1% sequentially, but increased 5.3% year-over-year.
Exports for the fourth quarter increased sequentially as a percentage of total revenue to approximately 49.3% from the prior quarter, 42.8%. On a year-over-year basis, exports increased as a percentage of total revenue to approximately 50.8% from the prior year's 48.2%. For Q4, advanced product share of total revenue, including royalty revenue, decreased to 58.1% compared to 59.2% for the third quarter, with each product share correspondingly increasing to 48.6% of total revenue. Turning to Q4 gross margin, we recorded a consolidated gross profit margin of 55.4%, approximately 2.1% less than the prior quarter as a result of the royalty catch-up amount in Q3.
For the full year 2025, gross margin rose by 6.1% to 57.3% from 51.2% in the prior year. I'll now turn to Q4 operating expense. Total operating expense increased 2.7% from the third quarter. For the full year 2025, total operating expenses as a percent of revenue and patent litigation settlement increased to 39.2% from 51.6% in the prior year. The amounts of total equity-based compensation expense for Q4, included in cost of goods, SG&A, and R&D, was $1,808,000, $2,206,000, and $1,153,000, respectively, totaling approximately $4.4 million. For Q4, we recorded operating income of $15.7 million, representing an operating margin of 14.6%.
For the full year 2025, operating income totaled $81.8 million, or 18.1% of revenue and patent litigation settlement, compared to operating loss of $1.3 million or -0.4% of revenue in the prior year. Turning to income taxes, we recorded a tax benefit in Q4 of approximately $27.3 million, representing an effective tax rate for the quarter of -142%. As a result of the tax benefit, there's a partial recognition of certain deferred tax assets in the period. The tax benefit for the full year 2025 was approximately $41 million, representing an effective tax rate for the year of -25.4%. Net income for Q4 totaled $46.5 million.
Net diluted earnings per share was $1.01, based on a fully diluted share count of 46,297,000. For the full year 2025, net income increased to $118.6 million from $6.1 million in the prior year. In 2025, fully diluted earnings per share increased to $2.61 from $0.14 in the prior year. Turning to our cash flow and balance sheet. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $402.8 million in Q4. Accounts receivable, net of reserve, totaled $60.7 million in Q4, with DSOs for trade receivable was 84 days. Inventories, net of reserves, increased 1% sequentially to $91.3 million. Annualized inventory turns were approximately flat sequentially at 1.96x.
Operating cash flow totaled approximately $15.7 million for the quarter. Capital expenditures for Q4 totaled $5.5 million. We ended the quarter with a construction-in-progress balance, primarily for manufacturing equipment, of approximately $7.8 million, with approximately $6.9 million remaining to be spent. I'll now address bookings and backlog. Q4 book-to-bill, improving sequentially, came in well above 1x, and with one-year backlog increasing 15.8% from the prior quarter, closing at $176.9 million. 2026 is a year of great opportunity for Vicor. We are working to deliver on the opportunities. However, given that we cannot predict with certainty the timing or amounts of outcomes relating to our licensing practice, we will not provide quarterly guidance.
With that, Phil will provide an overview of recent market developments, and then Patrizio, Phil, and I will take your questions. I ask that you limit yourself to one question and a related follow-up, so that we can respond to as many of you as we can in the limited time available. If you have more than one topic to address, please get back in the queue. Phil?
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
Thank you, Jim. At the beginning of 2025, we talked about the year ahead being one of challenges and opportunities. As we look back, 2025 met those expectations with improvements in product bookings and revenues in Q4, and our IP licensing practice becoming a major contributor to our top and bottom lines. As we exited 2025, book-to-bill ratio increased to over 1.2x in Q4 and has continued to increase in Q1. At the start of 2026, we can say that this will be a year of different challenges and greater opportunities. They should result in record bookings, revenues, and profitability, significantly higher utilization of our first ChiP fab. As Patrizio commented in today's press release, U.S. International Trade Commission has instituted a second investigation into the illegal importation of power modules and computing systems infringing Vicor's IP, the non-isolated bus converter.
By now, it should be clear that Vicor will methodically and relentlessly enforce its intellectual property to the many inventions it pioneered and that suppliers of infringing systems are putting themselves and their customers at risk, including unlicensed OEMs and hyperscalers. Following the example set by licensed OEMs and hyperscalers, companies with an ethical backbone should do the right thing, avoiding infringement by taking a license to secure their supply chain. Our lead customer for VPD solutions is ramping a Gen 4 factorized power system before transitioning to a Gen 5-based solution with higher current density and performance. This transition is expected to start in the second half of this year, while production of the Gen 4 system will continue to ramp at a steep rate through the end of 2026. Engagement with other Gen 5 VPD customers will be selected.
As capacity in our existing first ChiP fab is getting earmarked for strategic customers, and additional capacity from our second ChiP fab may not be available until 2028. Our industrial and aerospace and defense business outlook for 2026 is strong, particularly in the automatic test equipment market, which is seeing substantial growth and projecting high growth to last for the next several years. Given our power density advantage, which is of paramount importance to our customers, I am confident that we can double the revenues in these markets over the next four to six years, respectively. As we approach high utilization of our first ChiP fab, we are beginning to engage customers in capacity reservation agreements to secure their supply needs.
While in the planning stages of a second ChiP fab to expand the market opportunity, we are having discussions with candidates for an alternate source of high current density Gen 5 VPD solutions. An alternate source will give licensed OEMs and hyperscalers broader access to best-in-class power system technology. In view of these developments, we remain confident in our business strategy of innovation, customer focus, and market focus. With that, we'll now take your questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Quinn Bolton of Needham & Company. Your line is now open.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, guys, congratulations on 2025 and the record outlook for 2026. Patrizio or Phil, I wanted to start with your lead customer. It sounds like you're seeing a pretty strong ramp from that customer, and you've mentioned that Andover is getting filled. Can you talk, is Andover being filled largely from your lead customer, or do you have other significant, you know, Gen 4, Gen 5 customers that are contributing to that growing utilization in the Andover facility?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
It's a combination of demand, increasing demand on a number of fronts. Not just high-end computing, where there's a multiplicity of factors at play with respect to increasing demand on capacity, but also in test equipment, as Phil mentioned in his prepared remarks and some of the other end markets.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Okay. Thank you. And then, I guess maybe, follow up on the IP licensing. In the press release, you talked about, seeing record revenue from the IP licensing business this year. Just wanted to clarify, does that include or exclude the $45 million patent litigation settlement that was part of the 2025 revenue stream, as we think about 2026?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
We see our licensing business expanding. As Jim suggested earlier, the timing of elements contributing to the expansion is, some of them, predictable. But as we look at, you know, the predicament that OEMs and hyperscalers face in terms of, you know, potential exclusion orders, we see a major opportunity for us to grow our licensing business considerably. As we had discussed, in our last quarterly call, we see that business expanding greatly in the last couple of years. I think what has transpired since then suggests that those are conservative estimates.
Jim Schmidt (CFO)
Quinn, just to clarify the number for you, the royalty revenue I quoted in my prepared remarks of $57.4 million in 2025 does not include that litigation settlement. That royalty revenue was up 43.2% from $46.6 million in 2020.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Just to clarify, Jim, when the comment in the press release about the business, the licensing business will expand. Are you looking at the $57.4 million as the 2025 base, or should we be thinking about that base being $102 million, which would include that $45 million patent settlement as part of the base?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
So for one thing, there's going to be more patent settlements. And for another, the one patent settlement from last year, in terms of the outlook for licensing business, it doesn't really make a substantial difference with respect to the upside, with respect to this part of our business. We expect hundreds of millions of dollars worth of revenues from licensing, and the $47 million event last year is, in hindsight, going to be added up in the back, to be sure, but not overall significant.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Understood. Okay. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Jon Tanwanteng of CJS Securities. Your line is now open.
Jon Tanwanteng (Managing Director)
Hi, thank you for taking my questions, and also congratulations on a good year. I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more detail on the launch customer for VPD. You mentioned that they were going with the Gen 4 product. Could you talk about the decision that went into that and why they aren't starting with Gen 5 and kind of how that happened?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Well, so the Gen 4 system is mature. It's one that's got a track record of success that is expanding in terms of its opportunity. In order to get to the next generation system, a mature design, a mature system, it's not just the power system, it's the system as a whole, needs to come to fruition. It isn't quite there yet. It will be there soon, and that will lead to the next set of opportunities. But to be clear, with our lead customer, we're seeing a significant share of our capacity being utilized as we get towards the end of this year on the earlier generation system. And the next generation system will provide an additional layer of user capacity as we get into next year.
Jon Tanwanteng (Managing Director)
Understood. Thank you. And then, when you start, sorry, you're considering a new facility. I was just wondering if you're planning to build that yourself, or are you still planning to work with partners to do that perhaps in a capital-like fashion? And, you know, just wondering what kind of capacity a new facility would have.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
So we've made two offers on, you know, an area where we could build a facility. The lead time associated with that, though, is one and a half to two years when everything is said and done. We are also looking at existing buildings within a 30-mi radius of Andover, to the north and the west. We haven't decided yet to which of these alternatives we're going to close on. But again, we've had two offers, no deal done yet, but I would expect that we're likely to do something on this very soon.
Jon Tanwanteng (Managing Director)
Okay, great. Thank you. I'll jump back in queue.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Rich Shannon of Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is now open.
Rich Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Well, thanks, Patrizio, Phil, and Jim, for taking my questions. I'll also add my congratulations on a really good last year. My first question is on royalties and licensing here. You're, as you mentioned, that there's some questions here in the Q&A about growth in this business. I guess I wanted to triangulate it differently from how you've talked about in the past, where you're hoping to get a roughly $300 million revenue stream. I know that's not entirely royalties, maybe some product in there, but talking about $300 million bogey between 2024 and 2026. And by my numbers, at least, that require a fair amount of growth, like doubling or so of your royalty revenues from 2025 to 2026. But you didn't talk about it that way this quarter.
Can you maybe talk about it in those terms here? Is that a number that we should continue to expect, better or worse, just to help us triangulate those things?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Yeah. So we have two major licensees. We expect to have a lot more, and future contribution from those two should become quite a bit larger. So, I think in one way of looking at it, in, again, computing AI systems require, from the power system perspective, are IP. And to the extent that in order to be able to deploy those systems, a license would become necessary, that defines the opportunity. As you can see, the opportunity far exceeds what we've harnessed thus far. There's a lot more to be captured in years to come. So the $300 million number, we see a point involves contributions from royalties and our business licensees... is not a long-term goal.
It is a relatively near-term goal, not for this year, to be clear, but, as we have said last year, in a couple of years' time frame. But we can see going beyond that.
Rich Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
My follow-on question is, on 2nd Gen VPD engagements. You already talked about your lead customer today and in past quarters, but at last quarter, you also mentioned engagements that didn't seem to be early-stage ones with a hyperscaler and an OEM. I didn't hear any comments on the prepared remarks, although I was a little bit late. So wondering if you can comment on the progress of those and any other ones you've added to the pipeline? Thank you.
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
Yeah. So, Richard, this is Phil. So maybe I can get a little bit more granular on that. So the next step for us is over the next couple of weeks, we're bringing in our global, you know, FAE team that is dedicated to supporting customers in different locations. We have target hyperscalers and OEM chip companies located. So they will be going through, if you like, a boot camp on Gen 5 VPD, using the demo boards and tools that Central Applications Group here in Andover have developed for the market. And so that's happening in the next couple of weeks. After we get that in place, as we talked about, we're going to be fairly selective in who we're going to be engaging with. It's very important we do that.
So that's the next step after that. We'll know that FAEs are here next couple of weeks, and we're on the way.
Rich Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Thanks for that detail. I'll jump on the line. Thank you, guys.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Justin Clare of ROTH Capital Partners. Your line is now open.
Justin Clare (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hi, thanks for the time here. So first, I just wanted to follow up on the potential for capacity expansion here. So given the plan to add a second fab, I was just wondering, you know, how we should think about the ramp in utilization for your existing facility, how we think about that over the next couple of years, and kind of, you know, what utilization threshold you anticipate reaching that is necessitating the additional fab here? And then just if you could talk about, you know, when do you anticipate kind of approaching that optimal utilization for the first fab?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Based on ramps with our customers in different markets with a strong contribution from AI and computing, we see the existing fab being well utilized within a year. And that's obviously prompting the initiative to secure additional capacity both by bringing up a second fab and by having discussions with potential alternate sources that could provide customers with equivalent solutions using their own capabilities and our technology. In terms of the fabs, as I mentioned earlier, we started exploring the opportunity of bringing a fab with a large piece of real estate, flexibility to increment capacity in steps.
You know, as I remind you, this would be a campus that could support up to 500,000 sq ft of manufacturing space. Just to set things in perspective, facilities are around 300,000 sq ft. So, there would be substantially more in terms of the real estate available for capacity, but also, we've given, you know, the learning that we've done, we think we can achieve more capacity per unit of area in the next facility. The thinking of late has evolved, though, more toward potentially acquiring a building. And, you know, there's been no decision one or the other yet. It could go either way.
But the benefit of doing it with an existing building is that, you know, the time to fruition would be a year and a half shorter. So we might go that way. It would be on the same scale, though, in terms of the increment of capacity we want to bring about with the second fab.
Justin Clare (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Got it. That's helpful. And then just when we think through this, if you're reaching, you know, close to kind of optimal utilization within a year, I think historically you've talked about, you know, your fab being able to support $1 billion in product revenue. So within a year, could you be, you know, close to that level where you're getting to a run rate of $1 billion in product revenue? And then just curious on the second fab, how much in CapEx spending you might anticipate in terms of what's required there?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Yes. So to be clear, the first ChiP fab has a capacity given the dollars per panel and the number of panels it can process unit of time to do slightly above $1 billion in revenues. But you wouldn't want to use 100% of that capacity because by definition there will leave no no room for error, right? So an 80% capacity utilization is the kind of number that you want to think of in terms of you know the test or fundamentally having achieved a very good capacity utilization.
Now, in terms of the next facility, whether it's buying land, putting up a building and then equipping it with what is necessary in order to build out that relative incremental capacity, this is, well, a proposition of the order of $20 million, $50 million, $90 million, you know, something that Vicor has the will to enhance on its own, you know, capitalization and a balance sheet.
Justin Clare (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, I appreciate it. Thanks for the detail.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. We'll move on for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of John Dillon of D&B Capital. Your line is now open.
Speaker 8
Hi, guys. Thanks a lot for taking my call, and again, congratulations on a good year. Phil, I wanted to go back to the customers you talked about before in Q3 and Q4. I kind of got the impression that you had design wins, and these customers couldn't find alternative ways to power their new AR processors. So I'm wondering, are those customers still working with you, or they- have they gone to other, other customers? Are you gonna be able to meet their time schedule for their, for their new products?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
They have a need for a VPD solution in particular that has all the right trays. And the competitive landscape, it doesn't have that. And that's constrained the market opportunity for VPD to, you know, a very limited set of companies that have actually done it while incurring a great deal of pain because of the shortcomings of the power system. So what we bring about with the 2nd Gen VPD and 3rd Generation modules is a solution that has in addition much higher current density and much higher greater level of manufacturing quality in terms of the assembly of the whole solution. It doesn't require SAC, as such an actual VPD does. It's much easier to cool. It's more efficient.
It has a number of benefits that they have to themselves in many ways. So as Phil suggested, we're going to be picking those customers that strategically we want to be aligned with. We have a great deal of interest. As an example, we were out in the valley just a few weeks ago, you know, met in the morning with, you know, another motive customer with a great deal of interest in, you know, our VPD capability. Haven't decided yet whether or not we're going to engage in that particular case. We will be in a situation, very interesting for now, before we get another fab in place, of deciding which applications make the most sense. And needless to say, a lead customer is one that we prioritize.
There's going to be more in that end market. It might be here with tremendous opportunity in terms of volume. That one alone fill two fabs. So, we're in a privileged position. We have the technology and the capability. We can leverage our opportunity both by selling product and by collecting licensing income. We can also do it by bringing about an alternate source. We're pursuing all of these opportunities involved.
Speaker 8
Got it. So, I just want to make sure I understand. The customers that you mentioned before, they're still on the hook, they're still talking to you, they're still engaged with you, they still can't find an alternative source to power their new AI processors, but it sounds like it just slipped a bit.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Well, I think if you were to ask them, you know, they would all say that they will find a solution, whether or not Vicor exists, right? Nobody will acknowledge that they're out of luck without us. And that's not the real world. That's not what we're suggesting. There's always some way of getting something done, but typically, that way of getting it done is problematic in terms of the technical trade-offs and technical challenges, whether it's cooling or manufacturability. And then it may also be very much challenged from the IP perspective, so-
Speaker 8
Got it.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Yeah, it's a complex landscape, but we believe that-
Speaker 8
It sounds like it's still a competitive situation then.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Well, it's always by definition, a competitive situation.
Speaker 8
Yeah. Got it. All right, so my follow-on question is, are you seeing any AI processor designs with horizontal or horizontal-vertical besides your lead customer?
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
So I think if you look at, as Patrizio actually said, there's one very, very large company that's using Vertical Power Delivery today in very high volume, and that's increasing year-on-year. In terms of anybody else really in high volume production with Vertical Power Delivery, John, it's fairly limited right now. They're all trying to get Gen 1 VPD to work in some fashion, but to date, I'm not hearing anybody that's buying that in volume. They're trying, they're working on it, but I think when we come out with our Gen 5 and launch it, and selectively launch it, as we've talked about, we're gonna have some winners on our hands.
Speaker 8
Got it. I saw a picture of a new AI processor that's coming out that had it looked like a gold bar on the top, and that's why I asked about horizontal. I'm wondering if you have any upcoming horizontals or horizontal verticals besides your lead customer, 'cause I know they're different.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
So I don't think we're going to make comments specifically about that stuff. I think you know what do you all say about that?
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
We have, we do have Gen 4 customers using our gold bars as it were, laterally.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Laterally.
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
Yeah.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Yeah. But, I don't think that the visibility to a gold bar is really-
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
Yeah
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
... you know, what's fundamentally at issue at this point. I think the right way of looking at it is that we have tremendous opportunity, and we have the technology that matches the needs of the marketplace. Again, going back to the earlier question, it's not that if our solution didn't exist, there wouldn't be a solution. The alternative solution, which is really a common denominator to all the competitors that tend to do pretty much the same thing with slight differences, that they look over each other's shoulder to, you know, make incremental steps down an old road. It carries a lot of baggage in a number of respects, technical and when it comes to VPD, also IP challenges.
Speaker 8
Excellent. Okay, listen, thank you very much. I might get back in the queue. Thank you again.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes on the line of Jon Tanwanteng of CJS Securities. Your line is now open.
Jon Tanwanteng (Managing Director)
Hi, thank you for taking my follow-up. Earlier you mentioned that you were taking capacity reservations for your facility, and I was wondering what the financials of that look like. Is there an upfront payments? Are there contract terms for minimums or something like that? Just how are you approaching that, those reservations?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
So in terms of revenue recognition, that would happen, you know, as shipments take place. Obviously, there's a cash component that would show up in our margin. But there's no acceleration of revenue that comes from the capacity reservation. The revenues get recorded as product ship covered the volume delivery reservation.
Jon Tanwanteng (Managing Director)
Okay, got it. And then, can you talk a little bit more about the 800-V data center opportunity, and if you are seeing any traction there, or are you seeing any orders ahead of that? And I'm specifically talking about, you know, products that are outside, you know, the vertical or lateral power or, or the NBMs that you have today.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
So we have technology there. There to, you know, Vicor's pioneer, high density, bus conversion from 800 V, 1000 V for many, many years. We have relevant IP. We have, products, we have more products, in the pipeline that, will come out, later this year. Frankly, though, I, I would say that there is quite a bit of hype, about this, 800 V. I think that it's to some degree, missing the point with respect to what the real issues are. It's a diversion.... The reason why generations of GPUs have not, been able to meet expectations with respect to performance, having to do with the power supplies and gaining the GPU performance, it had nothing to do with 40 V or, 800 V.
They had to do with what goes on at the point of load, and the fact that multi-phase mainstream types of solutions are handicapped. That's where the problem should be. Obviously, we operate in an industry that goes through phases of focus and progress and potential for life. Without question, there is value to in 800-V bus, but that value, if you measure in terms of efficiency, it's measured in a few percent, but gets lost in inferior point of load solution is 15 or 20 points.
So I personally wonder why anybody would worry about capturing a 3% improvement in 800-V power distribution when they're missing 15% or 20% in the point of load, and they can't pull or deliver the power they need in order to achieve the level of performance they targeted. But irrespective of how these things evolve, we have the technology, we have the IP, and we're going to make the most of the opportunity. But frankly, I think there's going to be a lot of hype related to 800 V. And that could lead to problems, because if people are focused on the wrong problem, which is not really a mature problem, they need to be solved in the real problems.
Jon Tanwanteng (Managing Director)
Understood. Thank you for that insight.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Quinn Bolton of Needham & Company. Your line is now open.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, guys, thanks for taking my follow-up. Patrizio, I guess I just wanted to sort of make sure everybody on the line is sort of thinking about the revenue ramp the same way. You haven't obviously guided revenue for 2026, but you've given us sort of three, you know, kind of guideposts, which are: you expect Andover to become, you know, or to approach full utilization over the next year. You've sort of said full utilization, you know, would be around 80%, otherwise, you know, you don't leave a lot of room for error. And you've said at 100% utilization, the fab would be able to produce $1 billion in revenue.
And so when I put all that together, it sort of sounds like you're pointing revenue could approach an $800 million product revenue, could approach an $800 million dollar run rate over the next year, and that would be more than double what you did on a product revenue front in, in calendar 2025. I know you're not giving guidance, but, but some of those guideposts, you know, pointed to very significant revenue growth. And I just want to make sure to the extent that you think that interpretation of the, the comments you've made is too aggressive. I just wanted to see if, if you would correct any of those thoughts or if, if that's the right way to be thinking about sort of the data points you've, you've suggested.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
I think your analysis is on point. Obviously, key to that is run rate, right? Is this thing from revenues for this year, 2026. So we see the demand getting to a run rate that would utilize 80% or so of the capacity in the quarter. Another way of, in fact, tagging this is that we see this year as being one of major increase in product revenue double the rate of last year and at a level that we haven't enjoyed for quite some time. And that's pretty much baked in at this point, based on bookings that we've received and additional bookings we expect to come our way as the year progresses.
Quinn Bolton (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Thank you very much.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Again, as a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Richard Shannon of Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is now open.
Rich Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Well, hey, guys, thanks for letting me ask a couple of follow-on questions here. My first one is on licensing here. Patrizio, following up on an answer to one of the prior questions here, you mentioned about having a couple or specifically two licensees so far. As we think about growing the licensing revenue stream this year, and if you can comment beyond that, that'd be great, in terms of kind of your general expectations. But how do we think about adding to the customer list here versus number of licensees or licenses per licensee or other dynamics that help us think about this? And I guess specifically, if you could address, you know, if things went well for you... What's the kind of number of licenses, you know, major licensees would you have?
I don't know if this is three or five or eight, but if you can just characterize that in any way, that'd be helpful. Thanks.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
In the high-end computing AI market, I think in terms of base substantial licensees, it would be after that. So three times as many as we currently have in that market. It could be nine of us on top of that. And by the way, if the focus has been and the actions of the ITC thus far have been focused on high-end computing, but there's increase going on in other markets as well. So there is, there's a lot of opportunity not just for the NBM technology, but for other technologies that we've pioneered.
Rich Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. My follow-on question is, wondering if there's any way that you can help us think about, for specifically about your 2nd Gen VPD technology. How do we think about content per XPU? And I'm gonna offer a couple of ways maybe to think about this. I know you're not gonna quantify any specific way, but I think a lot of us who cover this name for a while have a decent idea of what that content looked like a few years ago when your last, you know, really high volume or potential high volume win that you had in point of load. But also since that time, the level of power and the level of current in leading XPUs, particularly getting to reticle limit, are you know, increasing a lot here.
So do we think about the kind of content opportunity now as kind of being proportional to power or current? And how would you have somebody think about what that might look like on a per unit basis? Thank you.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
So as I look back at, you know, a factorized power system for GPUs, a number of years ago, that was in one way of looking at it, about $100 million per year type of opportunity, and rising. We are locked into an opportunity that will double that. And to Phil, your point, there is a hyperscaler with an opportunity that could be another $100 million. I don't know if that answers your question.
Rich Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Mine was really more on content per XPU, but the way you characterized it is also helpful. But, anyways you might think about it on a per XPU basis would be helpful, too. Thank you.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Yeah. So, Phil, do you want to take that?
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
Yeah, I think, Richard, to your point, it really depends on the current, that XPU, the number of rails, that type of thing. So I think that the opportunity for us would be somewhere between $200-$400 per XPU.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
But very much depends on the application, right? So-
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
Yeah.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Take that with a grain of salt.
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
Yeah.
Rich Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Understood. That, that's getting us a half order of magnitude, is very helpful, so thank you very much for that.
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
Yeah. So Richard, just to clarify, it's about like a 2000-A up to a 4000-A type of product.
Rich Shannon (Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of A. Hicks of Insit Capital Management. Your line is now open.
Speaker 9
Yeah, good afternoon. I just wanted to confirm, Lex, it's $1 billion capacity now. Hello?
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
I think we lost part of all your question.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
I think the question was he wanted confirmation of the billion-dollar capacity of Fab 1. Was that the question?
Speaker 9
Yeah, yeah, just for advanced products, nothing else.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Yes, we are very confident that we can generate upwards of $1 billion worth of revenue inside of capacity.
Speaker 9
Okay, because I'm looking at what your sales were for just for advanced products, not without royalties for the year, was around $200 million. Is that for this, for 2025?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Uh, yes.
Speaker 9
Okay, so you're saying within a year or so, you could be at $800 million in advanced products?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
It is, as suggested in an earlier question and confirmed by me, that would be a run rate.
Speaker 9
Okay, and then on the bricks, the original bricks fab, could that be converted in the future to advanced products?
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
So, no, the bricks are, you know, much older products. They've got a very stable, if you like, customer base. So some of those customers are moving to advanced products, and we've had quite a bit of success of that in recent years in some higher volume end markets. But Aerospace and Defense and some very broad-based industrial, they like the bricks. They're gonna stay with the bricks. So the brick piece will be fairly stable over the next few years, I believe.
Speaker 9
Okay.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
The bricks don't really play a role with respect to capacity reduction. They become, you know, well, they present this steady business, they become essentially roll out.
Speaker 9
Okay. But you're also adding capacity to this first fab, is that correct also?
Jim Schmidt (CFO)
... Yes, we are. Yeah, so that's right. We're adding capacity incrementally to the existing footprint.
Speaker 9
Okay. And then did you say you're in discussions with a partner to have them produce products themselves?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Yeah. So we are having discussions, so we, it may take some time, because it's, it's an important decision selection. But, we, we have customers that, want us to have an outsource. We see the benefit of an outsourcing in terms of expanding the market opportunity. If you just look at AI, there is so much of a market opportunity that frankly, there is no way that Vicor alone could do it alone, even with the second or third fab. So we need to, in effect, look at making the most out of the opportunity, you know, as opposed to limiting the scope of the opportunity by wanting to do it alone.
Speaker 9
Mm-hmm. Then I was just kind of curious, how many panels can you produce in a day out of the factory you have now?
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
I'm not going to quantify that for competitive reasons. I will just say that, in terms of the revenue opportunity of the fab, Fab 1 is slightly above $1 billion a year.
Speaker 9
Okay. Okay, thank you very much.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of John Dillon of DMB Capital. Your line is now open.
Speaker 8
Hi, guys. I'll make this quick because I know we're up against the timeline. First of all, Patrizio, thank you for answering Quinn's question. That was one of my follow-up questions also, and I appreciated that answer. Another one is just a quick one. Now, we're halfway through the quarter, and I'm just wondering how bookings are looking so far this quarter.
Phil Davies (VP of Global Sales and Marketing)
I mentioned in my prepared remarks, John, that the book-to-bill was 1.2x in Q3, and we're, we're above that already in Q1.
Speaker 8
Excellent. Thank you very much. Congratulations, guys.
Patrizio Vinciarelli (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.