Wolfspeed - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Wolfspeed's Q1 Fiscal 2024 Conference Call. My name is Nadia, and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host, Tyler Gronbach, Vice President, External Affairs, to begin. Tyler, please go ahead.

Tyler Gronbach (VP of External Affairs)

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Wolfspeed's Q1 Fiscal 2024 Conference Call. Today, Wolfspeed CEO, Gregg Lowe, and Wolfspeed CFO, Neill Reynolds, will report on the results for the Q1 of fiscal year 2024. Please note that we will be presenting non-GAAP financial results during today's call, which we believe provides useful information to our investors. 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 mention important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. Lastly, I would also like to note that during the quarter, we announced our intent to sell our RF business to MACOM. The results of our RF business will now be classified as discontinuing operations, and all discussions today will be on a continuing operations basis. During the Q&A, we would ask that you limit yourself to one question 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. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Gregg.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Thanks, Tyler, and good afternoon, everyone. It is an exciting time at Wolfspeed. With the pending sale of the RF business, we are now the world's only pure-play, vertically integrated silicon carbide company. We are uniquely positioned to drive the industry transition from silicon to silicon carbide from both a materials and a device perspective. As we continue to scale our operations, we have overcome our fair share of challenges along the way, and I remain very confident around our long-term trajectory for three reasons. First, we've demonstrated the capability to consistently produce enough high-quality, high-yielding 200 millimeter wafers in Building 10 ahead of the needs of the Mohawk Valley Fab.

Second, we've assembled a team comprised of internal silicon carbide experts, including one of our cofounders, and external advisors from our tool manufacturers to ensure that we will achieve 20% utilization at Mohawk Valley in the June quarter of 2024, and we've seen notable progress this quarter. And finally, customers continued to partner with Wolfspeed as we secured our third highest quarterly total of device design wins at $2.2 billion, and we converted more than $1 billion of device design wins this past quarter as well. In addition, we've also posted record revenue for our 150 millimeter substrates in the Q1, which is an indication that demand remains robust for our high-quality substrates. Our Q1 results demonstrate the initial returns on our capacity expansion investments that will pave the way for the rest of the fiscal year and beyond.

Revenue, non-GAAP gross margin, and non-GAAP EPS all came in at the high end of our guidance range. Turning to Mohawk Valley, where we continued to ramp production. This quarter, we generated $4 million in revenue from the fab, which compares to $1 million that was delivered in the previous quarter. In the coming quarter, we expect to more than double the output from the fab as we continue to ramp device production. Because of the complex nature of silicon carbide technology, as we ramp the fab further, we are collaborating even more closely with our tool vendors to ensure maximum uptime, the best yields, and the most efficient use of all of our tools. We've worked closely with them to develop optimal operating protocols, and as a result, we're seeing good improvement in the fab.

I was just up in the fab last week, meeting with the leadership team, walking the floor to talk with our technicians, and seeing the progress firsthand that we're making in some of our bottleneck areas. We've now doubled the number of products qualified in the last 90 days, and all of those MOSFETs achieved qualification on the first pass through the fab, which is a strong indication of the underlying capability of the fab. Finally, those products we have already qualified have sufficient demand to more than satisfy our short-term 20% utilization target. I am especially proud of this incredible effort by our team.

It speaks to the advanced silicon carbide technical device capability we have assembled and the focused and detailed execution of our engineering and quality teams to ensure that we are more than ready to produce high-quality automotive devices at 200 millimeters, something nobody else in the world is currently doing. As I mentioned, we are ahead of plan in our ramp of Building 10 crystal growth for 200 millimeter substrates. By the end of this quarter, we will be producing enough material to support 15% utilization at Mohawk Valley, putting us nicely on track for our goal of 20% utilization by June 2024. Turning to the JP, construction continues and is on schedule.

We expect to be producing material in the first half of fiscal 2025, and we've already hired and began training more than 100 people that will work at that facility. On the demand side, as I said, we recorded $2.2 billion of design wins, the third largest amount of any quarter in our history, and had a record design wins of $1.4 billion, illustrating our customers' willingness to move into volume production on projects that we've won over the past few years. Our design win record for the Q1 represents more than 230 projects, many of which are converting sooner than our original expectations. Most of these projects serve the automotive end market, and we are steadily ramping our design-ins to design wins with major OEMs and Tier 1s.

We remain confident that the demand from automotive customers will remain strong, while we are seeing some softness in the industrial and energy space, primarily in China and Asia. Additionally, we had a record quarter for 150 millimeter wafer revenue, a strong signal that the demand for materials remains solid. Wolfspeed is the first mover to 200 millimeter wafer volume production, which will be the silicon carbide industry's most advanced technology. As a result, we are well positioned to be the only company producing 200 millimeter at scale for the next few years, and believe this competitive advantage will further extend our leadership position well into the future. Wolfspeed, as the undisputed leader in silicon carbide, will continue to play an industry-critical role in the coming years as a supplier of merchant materials to leading power device makers.

Demands for our materials remain strong, and we have extended some of our agreements with existing wafer customers and added new agreements like the one with Renesas. That being said, we're not content with being the leading material supplier to the market. We also expect to be one of the top silicon carbide device suppliers in the years to come. In 2018, the silicon carbide device market was estimated to be about $400 million. Five years later, the market size is pegged at $6 billion, and the projected TAM for the end of the decade is north of $20 billion and continues to grow. Now, this is part of the reason we announced and are now in the process of completing the sale of our RF business to MACOM, which we expect to close by the end of the calendar year.

We've always said that the growth of Wolfspeed will come from our leadership in silicon carbide and power devices, and this marks a definitive milestone in allocating all of our investments, research and development, and technology into these business areas. There is a long road ahead of us here, which is why we invested the time and capital to develop the world's only purpose-built silicon carbide device fab. We're keenly focused on execution and firmly believe we're doing this right. Doing this at scale, at 200 millimeter from the outset, will result in gaining and sustaining significant market share in the coming decades. It is rewarding to see the pieces of our long-term strategy become a reality, albeit on a longer timeline than we originally anticipated.

The remainder of this fiscal year, and particularly the second half, will prove the conviction that we've always had in our strategy, in our products, and in our team. It is extremely exciting to see what's on the horizon. I'll now turn it over to Neill, who will provide an overview of our financial results and outlook. Neill?

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Thanks, Greg, and good afternoon, everyone. During the Q1, we achieved revenue, gross margin, and EPS results, all at the high end of our guidance range. In addition, we expect continued revenue growth and gross margin expansion as we transition into Q2 2024. The outperformance in our financial results was underpinned by $4 million of revenue from Mohawk Valley during the quarter, up from $1 million in the prior quarter, and we expect to grow that to between $10 million-$15 million of revenue as we transition into Q2 2024. While we expect some variability in the production ramp at Mohawk Valley, we remain on pace for a larger step-up in revenue as we transition into Q3 2024. With that, let me review the financial results in more detail. I'll start by providing an overview of the Q1.

Revenue from continuing operations for the quarter was $197 million, compared to our updated guidance range of $185 million-$205 million, and growth of 4.2% year-over-year. Power device revenue was impacted by slower industrial and energy demand, primarily in China and the broader Asia market, partially offset by the revenue ramp in Mohawk Valley. Materials 150 millimeter substrate revenue achieved a record quarter above our expectations, driven by continued strong demand and record manufacturing performance by our Durham Materials operations team. As Greg mentioned earlier, our historical design and portfolio supported the Q1 revenue growth, and we secured $2.2 billion of new design wins for power devices.

Our design-in to design win conversion rate is ahead of our original expectations, and based on the design wins we've already secured, we have the next few years of expected revenue covered by our existing book of business. Non-GAAP gross margin from continuing operations in the Q1 was 15.6%. Underutilization costs for the quarter were $34.4 million, representing 17.4%, or 1,740 basis points of gross margin. Outperformance was driven largely by improved materials manufacturing performance, resulting in better than expected 150 millimeter materials costs and yields. In addition, we saw lower than expected underutilization costs as we ramped Mohawk Valley.

We generated adjusted loss per share of $0.53 from continuing operations in the fiscal Q1, compared to a loss of $0.36 last quarter and a loss of $0.24 in the same period last year. Adjusted loss per share was a significantly lower loss than the high end of our guidance range, as higher revenue, higher gross margin, and lower operating expenses all fell through to the bottom line.

Before moving to the outlook, I'll touch on our balance sheet. We ended the quarter with over $3.3 billion of cash and liquidity on hand to support our ramp and growth plans. DSO was 55 days, while inventory days on hand was 162 days. Free cash flow during the quarter was -$517 million, comprised of $113 million of operating cash flow and $404 million of capital expenditures. Regarding our financing initiatives, we are pursuing funding from the CHIPS Act and should have more clarity on this by early next calendar year. We are constantly evaluating ways to optimize our balance sheet and capital structure, and will continue to be opportunistic and flexible in our capital strategy.

In the last year, we have raised approximately $5 billion of low dilution capital across a number of vectors, including customers, governments, private financing, and capital markets. In conjunction with federal funding, we are in good position to execute our capacity expansion plans, but we will remain nimble to optimize our capital structure for the long term. Turning to the Q2 outlook, we are targeting revenue from continuing operations in the range of $192 million-$222 million, driven largely by the incremental revenue contribution we expect from Mohawk Valley in this quarter. We now anticipate roughly $10 million-$15 million of revenue to come from Mohawk Valley in Q2. This increase in Mohawk Valley revenue will be partially offset by continued softer demand for the industrial and energy products, primarily in the China and broader Asia markets.

However, we will look to repurpose this supply to where end demand remains strong. We are also expecting non-GAAP gross margin in the range of 12%-20%, with a midpoint of 16%. At the midpoint, this includes approximately $35 million or -1,700 basis points of underutilization costs as we ramp up revenue at the Mohawk Valley Fab. We are also targeting non-GAAP operating expenses of approximately $109 million for the Q2 of fiscal year 2024, which is inclusive of $11 million of startup costs, primarily related to the JP Materials facility in Siler City, North Carolina. We expect Q2 net non-operating expense of approximately $27 million.

As I have mentioned previously, we expect non-operating expense to increase as the year progresses, as we earn less interest income on our short-term investments in connection with our continued investment in our facilities expansions. We expect Q2 non-GAAP net loss to be between $88 million and $71 million. Our Q2 targets are based on several factors that could affect them significantly, including supply chain dynamics, overall demand, product mix, factory productivity, and the competitive environment. As Greg mentioned earlier, we are moving ever closer to the significant uptick in our ramp of the Mohawk Valley Fab, and we expect a larger ramp in the back half of the fiscal year. We are still extremely confident in our ability to achieve 20% utilization in the fab by June.

As we indicated on our last call, there will be a lag between 20% utilization and $100 million of quarterly revenue due to the time between fab starts and shipments to our customers. Lastly, during the quarter, we announced the intent to sell our RF business to MACOM, a path we had been pursuing for quite some time. When the sale is finalized, we will have completed the path towards portfolio optimization that we have been on since 2018, when we were predominantly a lighting company. We are happy to say that Wolfspeed is now the only pure play silicon carbide business in the marketplace, and we can focus all our collective efforts on the silicon carbide materials and power device businesses. With that, I'll pass it back to Greg.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

As we close out the Q1, I want to reiterate that fiscal 2024 is a pivotal year for Wolfspeed. We remain confident in our long-term vision and are seeing promising results. While I gave some color earlier on design-ins, I think it's worth repeating that we had a record design wins for this past quarter as customers ramp their programs. Demand has certainly attracted new entrants, and from our viewpoint and checks in the market, there is not a single player who can match our quality and our scale at 150 millimeter. And as I said earlier, no one is close to our position at 200 millimeter. This gap will only widen as we bring the JP online in the first half of fiscal 2025.

Secondly, while there have been several new entrants to the materials market, Chinese and others, the significant ramp required to create high-quality materials is still in front of them. It's taken us 35 years to master this technology, which we know firsthand can be incredibly difficult to work with, let alone scale and produce at the highest quality possible. While I've always said we are taking our competitors at their word regarding their stated capability to produce silicon carbide materials internally, it is highly unlikely that every competitor will be successful. And this will create an opportunity for those with additional materials capacity to secure long-term agreements with device producers or capture an even larger share of the device market, and we are well positioned to do both. Demand remains strong across the business, outside of the industrial and energy markets, particularly in China and Asia.

Overall, what we have said time and time again about the transition to the use of silicon carbide rings true. The EV transition remains the largest change in the history of the automobile, and with that comes winners and losers and potentially a bumpy path. However, there's no reverting to the internal combustion engine. That is the way of the past. Silicon carbide has shown that EVs can be pushed further with extended range, faster charge times, and competitive prices. Despite the current softness in China and Asia, demand remains high for our products, and customers' needs are higher than our current output levels. And this is why we are keenly focused on ramping Mohawk Valley to 20% utilization. To close, we're excited about this year.

Fiscal 2023 was not without its challenges, but those challenges come with being the first to pursue next generation 200 millimeter technology in silicon carbide. However, the opportunity to be the leader of this transformative technology keeps us moving forward as quickly and as purposely as possible to execute and generate value for our stakeholders. Thank you, operator, and we're now ready for Q&A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you choose to retract your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. We ask you, please limit yourself to one question per person. Our first question goes to Samik Chatterjee of J.P. Morgan. Samik, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Joe Cardoso (VP of Equity Research)

Hey, thanks, guys. This is actually Joe Cardoso on for Samik. Yeah, so for my one question, you know, it sounds like qualifications in the Building 10 ramp are tracking well. So as we think about what is keeping you on the sidelines relative to Mohawk reaching 20% utilization earlier than the June quarter itself, can you just walk us through what the key drivers are at this point in the ramp? Just curious to hear your thoughts on that front. Thanks for the question, guys.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, first off, you're right, Building 10 is in great shape right now. We'll be producing material in this quarter that will be able to support 15% utilization, and obviously, we have two quarters after that to get to 20% utilization in Mohawk Valley. So that's in really great shape. We've qualified a bunch of different MOSFETs already in that fab. All of those MOSFETs are qualified on first pass success, and we've actually qualified two modules as well that have come through on 200 millimeter, which I think is a really good sign for the quality of our back-end operation.

The fab itself is the world's first 200 millimeter fab, and as such, a lot of the machines that are in the fab are seeing volume ramp at 200 millimeter silicon carbide for the first time. And so we're working very closely with our tool vendor to ensure we have better uptime with their machine. One particular machine is seeing downtime more than we would than it should. We have a team that is completely focused on resolving that. As I mentioned, I was in the fab last week. I met with the engineers from our team, as well as the engineer from the vendors team. They are all supremely confident that this is a normal process that's going through as you ramp, and we will resolve this and be on track to 20% utilization in the June quarter.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question goes to Harsh Kumar of Piper Sandler. Harsh, please, your line is open.

Harsh Kumar (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hey, guys, had a quick timing question. So Mohawk Valley did $4 million of revenues in the March quarter. That implies that given the timing, the lead time difference, conversion, packaging, et cetera, that means that Mohawk Valley wafer runs in the March/April time frame were about that $4 million. So my, my question really is, could you give us a glimpse into what Mohawk Valley wafer runs are looking like on a dollar basis today? And, and that would be, that would be the color that I'm looking for. Thanks.

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Hey, Harsh. Thanks for the question. This is Neill. So first of all, let me just tell, when you start thinking about utilization in a fab and how that relates to wafer starts, that's really what we're talking about here. So utilization in the fab is really a function more of, you know, wafer starts. So when we talked about getting to, you know, 15%, out of Building 10, that's four. That means we're running wafers out of North Carolina, about 200 millimeter substrates out of North Carolina. That could potentially support the fab at 15% utilization, even by the end of this year. As you look out to the end of the year, we're still on target to get to 20% utilization.

So what that means is we're seeing, you know, solid performance from a substrate perspective to meet that goal. After that, what that means is, it's again, it starts utilization. So what that means is you have to put the wafers in the fab. You've got to run those through the fab. You've got that cycle time. You got to send it to the back end to be either sold as devices or as package parts, that may have to go out the packages. So there are various cycle times on that as well. So once we get to the 20% utilization, there'll be a bit of lag as you work through those cycle times until you see, you know, the revenue that corresponds to that.

In this case, once we get to 20%, in that June timeframe, we'd anticipate that being from a revenue perspective translating to about $100 million in revenue at the end of December quarter next year.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

I would just maybe add one comment to it. You know, as material goes through these tools in the factory, we're seeing great results as they go through the tool. What we're seeing, though, is that the downtime or the maintenance required is higher than it should be right now. And again, I was in the fab last week. I met with the engineers on both the tool side as well as our side, and there's a very good line of sight for what we need to do to get the tool uptime where it needs to be. And as soon as that happens, our ability to transition from relatively low utilization to towards this 20% should be a very good snap as we fix that.

As I mentioned, I was in the fab last week. I will be in the fab two more times in November, including on Thanksgiving Day, to continue the focus of Mohawk Valley ramp to 20% utilization.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, and our next question goes to George Gianarikas of Canaccord Genuity. George, please go ahead. Your line is open.

George Gianarikas (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to get your thoughts on some of the turbulence, to say the least, in recent discussions around EV plans at some of the big three European OEMs. What are your thoughts there? And, you know, I know you talked about your backlog being so robust that it didn't kind of matter for the next couple few quarters, but what are you seeing in your own business that may or may not reflect what we're hearing in the marketplace? Thank you.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Well, you know, obviously, we would like our Mohawk Valley Fab to be ramped faster, and so would our customers. And as such, I've been on pretty much weekly calls with CEOs and executives from major OEMs and Tier 1s, and basically, their consistent message back to me is: We need more, and we need it soon. So, you know, the demand that we're seeing, both near term and long term, is very, very solid. I'll remind folks that many of the cars that are being sold today were designed—the electric cars that are being sold today were designed 5, 6, 7 years ago and are with silicon-based MOSFETs or IGBTs. And what silicon carbide does is three important things. One, is it extends the range of the car.

Two, it allows the car to be charged faster. Three, at the vehicle level, using silicon carbide allows the vehicle to be less expensive because there are lots of you know, you use less battery, there's less cooling and different things. In fact, there was a report a few years ago that said, for every incremental dollar of silicon that you spend on silicon carbide over silicon, you get $3.5-$7 back. So basically, silicon carbide is enabling longer range, it's enabling faster charging, and it's enabling lower systems cost. And that's kind of a trifecta for EVs. So any of the noise that you see today, it certainly has no impact on our demand, both near term and long term.

And by the way, that's OEMs and Tier 1s in the U.S., in China, and in Europe.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question goes to Brian Lee of Goldman Sachs. Brian, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Brian Lee (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I guess you mentioned, I think, Neill, during your prepared remarks that you know, kind of implying a stronger step up in Mohawk in Q3. Does that imply that the tool downtime issue that you guys have been referencing here is sort of done by that point? And then, you know, if I just look at the numbers, 2Q midpoint for Mohawk is up like 3x sequentially in revenue terms. So is Q3 expected to be up at that level or above, or are you talking more in absolute dollars when you're talking about this bigger step up? Thanks, guys.

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Well, I think, thanks, Brian, for the question. So I think as Greg mentioned, there's obviously a lot of attention now that we're seeing the four-inch diameter substrates, you know, supporting the fab, you know, the fab ramp in a very good way at this point. So a lot of the attention is on the fab itself. We're working very closely with the fab team, the external vendor teams and whatnot, to try and solve what we think are very solvable challenges in the fab right now to try to get more throughput through the system, you know, through the up times and cycle times and start getting material out the fab.

So our anticipation is that we see an uptick in revenues as you kind of get to the back, you know, back half of the year. If you take a step back and look at the pieces, maybe to unpack those a bit, you know, normally, when we think about revenue guidance, about $100 million a quarter out of Durham, $90 million-$95 million. Sorry, $100 million a quarter out of Durham for power devices, $90 million or $95 million material capacity that we've got. So, the step up in the back half would be from, you know, from revenue from Mohawk Valley. We have $10 million-$15 million this quarter. You could see us, you know, doubling that, you know, again, next quarter as well as in Q3.

So it really will just depend on, you know, how things play out from a uptime perspective and throughput perspective in the fab, but we feel like we've got good confidence right now, based on the way, you know, the teams are working through the fab, you know, throughput ramp.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question goes to Joshua Buchalter of Cowen. Joshua, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Joshua Buchalter (Director and Senior Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the progress. I wanted to ask about the timeline of the JP, actually. So you mentioned it's on schedule, ramping in the fiscal first half of 2025. What should we—how should we expect the cadence of that ramp to look compared to Building 10? And the reason I ask is it sounds like there's roughly a 2-quarter lag between when you get utilizations in Building 10 to when you generate revenue. And is that sort of indicative of what we should expect at the JP when that starts up, and any initial indications of how much that could contribute in fiscal 2025? Thank you.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Well, I would say, let me maybe kick it off, and, Neill, if you want to add a little bit of color to it. The JP is a substantially larger facility than Building 10, and, you know, as such, as we turn it on, it'll turn on pretty decent capability kind of right from the start. It's on schedule at this point, and, you know, obviously, we want to keep it on schedule, so that's all looking pretty good. But basically, I would anticipate that, as we ramp up the JP, I think the amount of capability that will be coming online will actually be quite substantial. And, Neill, if you want to talk about the timing.

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Yeah. So the timing, as I said, kind of, back half the calendar next year, 2024, in terms of crystal growth out of the JP, which I think we're in good shape for. Right now, the timeline on our expansions are, you know, all on track from a timeline and budget perspective, so we feel good about where we're at there. However, I'd also add to that, you know, we're looking for ways to, you know, expand our current capacity out beyond the 20%, just to buffer that a bit over that timeframe. We've invested in some satellite sites to help with back-end, wafering operations and other back-end operations to help with that. In addition, there's gonna be opportunity, I think, in time. We've seen really good performance out of our operations manufacturing team.

So if we yield opportunity, operations, productivity improvements, and throughput capabilities, that could, you know, bring us down to that that 20% or so capability out of Durham. So we're working through all of those things now, you know, putting in extra capacity where we can, looking for, you know, yield optimization and other other opportunities from a productivity perspective to bring more capacity online next year. And so we're trying to take it on, you know, from a number of angles, and we'll give you an update on that as we make more progress as we get into the next year.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

So just to reiterate, JP is currently on schedule. We're working with our existing facilities in Durham to increase productivity to give us more than 20% utilization of the Mohawk Valley Fab, and we're also utilizing satellite sites for back-end operations to support the JP as well. So we're trying to create a little bit of belt and suspenders on JP.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question goes to Jed Dorsheimer of William Blair. Jed, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Jed Dorsheimer (Head of Energy Research)

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I guess two-parter, really two questions. I'll break the rules, I guess. I guess first is, you know, you're, it sounds like things are going better at Mohawk Valley, and your underutilization costs of $37 million are actually better than what you guided for, or $34 million, better than what you guided in terms of $37. So I was wondering if you could maybe just talk about the revenue implications in terms of, is it a direct one-for-one, or is there a lagging effect in terms of as Mohawk scales? And then I have a follow-up too.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Maybe I'm gonna kick it off, and then Neill can talk a little bit about that. You know, it's without a doubt, we wanted to be ramping Mohawk Valley faster than we currently are, and our customers wanted that as well. So we're not satisfied with the situation. We're intensely trying to work it and so forth. I think we've made a lot of really good progress on it. Obviously, Building 10 has been very, very successful. We are also extremely confident that we'll be able to get these tools operating the way that they are supposed to, and we'll be able to ramp that fab to 20% utilization in the June quarter.

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Yeah, and then just from a numbers perspective, Jed, yes, we did see some benefit on the margin just because of the lower utilization levels. Although I did mention, you know, we're gonna be, you know, based on what we're seeing from the substrate performance on 200 millimeter, you know, we're gonna move as quickly as we can to put more capacity online, maybe even faster than we thought initially, both in the fab and then at the material satellite sites I mentioned earlier. So you could see that underutilization number tick up throughout the year, you start to see it come down, back in fiscal 2025.

That's just really related to, you know, adding, you know, more capacity, given the outlook what we're seeing, you know, from the substrate performance perspective, just to give us as many, you know, opportunities to, you know, supply our customers as we look out in time. As Greg said, you know, very heavy demand, particularly on the automotive side right now, very intense discussions with customers. So we're looking for all the ways we can to satisfy their demand with putting in, you know, more capacity, you know, as we adapt over time there.

Jed Dorsheimer (Head of Energy Research)

Great. And then just as my follow-up, if I look at the last quarter, you saw a bump up in inventory and raw materials. I think the greatest increase quarter-over-quarter. This quarter, you saw a slight increase, I think a $13 million in inventory. I don't know the composition because the 10-Q hasn't been filed. I'm assuming that most of that is work in process. Could you just give us some color on that? And where I'm going with this is just trying to back into the buildup of inventory from a wafer perspective. Thanks.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Well, let me, yeah, thanks, Jed, and let me give kind of a high level on that, then Neill can work through the details on this. You know, we began working with our raw material suppliers in May of 2019, getting ready for what is this big and transformative ramp in silicon carbide. We knew that we were gonna need to have them investing in their capacity to support this ramp, and obviously, I think we've done a really good job of doing that. So some of this is all just about getting material in place and capacity in place so that we're not bottleneck, you know, kind of upstream, if you will.

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Yeah, and then from a numbers standpoint, Jed, that's right. I don't think there's any big tick up in finished goods, primarily related to raw materials and WIP. So, about ensuring we have enough raw material capacity to support the substrate ramp, as Greg indicated. In addition, we're supplying a lot of wafers out of the Durham Building 10 from a 200 millimeter substrate capacity and sending those up to Mohawk Valley. That's the other kind of tick up in inventory as well. From a finished goods perspective, we're not seeing much growth there. We're still, you know, still continuing to ship to customers, filling that book side as quickly as we can.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question goes to Colin Rusch of Oppenheimer. Colin, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Colin Rusch (Head of Sustainable Growth & Resource Optimization Research)

Thanks so much. Guys, you mentioned the potential for folks to end up exiting the market. Can you talk a little bit about how discerning the customers are at this point around assessing that risk and how impactful that is in terms of your design wins and design-ins? Thank you very much.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Colin, can I ask you to repeat that? It was really hard to hear you.

Colin Rusch (Head of Sustainable Growth & Resource Optimization Research)

Okay, no problem. You know, you, you talked about some folks exiting the market, you know, or failing in the market. And then I'm curious about, your customers' ability to assess the risk of, of folks not being able to deliver on some of their commitments. You know, and I'm wondering how impactful that is around your design and design win, performance.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Yeah. Well, I would say that, you know, we are clearly the leader in silicon carbide technology, supply substrates to nearly all of the device folks out there, and obviously, feed those to ourselves. So having that is having that strength really underpins, you know, their belief in our ability to ramp this technology. Like I said, I'm on weekly calls with executives and CEOs from our Tier 1 partners, our OEM customers, et cetera, and their consistent message is they need more and they need it faster. And we're, you know, and then they see that, you know, we're ramping Mohawk Valley. They'd like us to ramp Mohawk Valley faster. But the one thing they see is that we have something called Mohawk Valley. We have the world's largest 200 millimeter wafer fab.

They've seen that we've been able to solve the crystal growth, you know, challenge for 200 millimeter and get Building 10 operating. That's probably-- That's not probably, that is the hardest thing to do in getting a silicon carbide MOSFET is getting the wafer and the substrate, you know, right. So I think it's a matter of time for us demonstrating, you know, the 20% utilization out of Mohawk Valley. I think we're pretty close on that. As Neill said, the Building 10 is feeding Mohawk Valley now, obviously at a higher rate than we're utilizing out of Mohawk Valley. We've got plenty of inventory staged up there, so as we knock out these last couple of bottlenecks, you know, I think we're gonna see a pretty nice tick up in Mohawk Valley.

And then finally, I think it's worth mentioning, or again, mentioning again, the fact that we've had first-pass qualification on these MOSFETs coming in a new wafer fab, a new wafer diameter, you know, and so forth, really points to the fundamental capability of this fab. It is not normal that you would have a 100% first-pass success rate on, you know, all the MOSFETs which qualify, including a couple of modules. And I think that really, again, underpins the fundamental capability.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question goes to Vivek Arya of Bank of America. Vivek, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Vivek Arya (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks for taking my question. Greg, I just wanted to get your perspective on, you know, the next 1-2 years. There is just a lot of concern about more capacity coming online. I understand maybe it's not exactly the same, you know, quality as yours, and maybe it might not even have the same cost structure, but the fact of the matter is, there is a significant amount of whether it's 150 mm or 200 mm capacity. So how do you look at that? Are you assuming that the market stays undersupplied for the next 1 or 2 years? Is it just rightly supplied? What are your assumptions about industry capacity for the next 1-2 years?

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

I think from my viewpoint, you know, there is going to be a supply-demand mismatch. There will be more demand than there will be supply, certainly over the next couple of years, and probably a lot longer than that. I would repeat something that I said in my prepared remarks. This quarter, this past quarter, we recorded a record materials revenue. So there's a lot of noise about, you know, different folks coming online, but, you know, the demand for our materials is very, very strong. And we're in obviously constant communication with our materials customers. Many of them are looking for extensions and expansions and, you know, and things like that. And then obviously, we just recorded the largest capacity reservation positive in the history of semiconductors with our deal with Renesas.

The feedback we're getting from folks is that China is doing a lot of investing in silicon carbide. They're doing that in silicon as well. But the feedback we're also getting is that they're not automotive ready at 150, let alone 200. So I really don't anticipate, you know, a demand being below supply for any time in the future, really, next couple of years for sure, and probably the next half a decade.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question goes to Christopher Rolland of Susquehanna. Christopher, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Christopher Rolland (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks for the question. I guess today a competitor talked about a fairly large downtick in SiC for them. I guess my question for you is, and you may have just addressed it, Gregg, but is your backlog covering all through 2024 and into 2025? Do you have any problems with customers that are looking for pushouts, et cetera? And would those pushouts, if you experience them, would they be fungible or transferable to someone else?

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Yeah, let me start with an answer on that, and I'll kick it over to Neill for a little bit more detail. The only area of softness that we see is industrial and energy. Basically, primarily, that's China and Asia. Everything else is pretty strong. In fact, well, Neill, why don't you just kind of give some of the numbers?

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Yeah. So if we look at the revenue outlook as you go into the second half of the year, in fact, from an auto perspective, as Gregg said, you know, very, very heavy demand, and I think that's across U.S., that's in Europe, that's in Asia. So we're seeing, you know, heavy demand there, and that's really a function of how fast we can, you know, ramp Mohawk Valley, ramp capacity. We are seeing some softness in industrial and energy areas, particularly in China and Asia. Right now, China represents about 20% of our total revenue, again, primarily in industrial and energy space. But in conversations with customer, that's really just kind of a, I mean, inventory timing. We're still seeing growth there, and still very heavy demand from automotive customers from China as well.

So we're really just working through the revenue, sorry, the inventory timing as we look out into the industrial side. And the third piece to that is on material side, as Gregg mentioned, we're still seeing very strong demand for, you know, 150 millimeter wafers as well. So, you know, we're seeing, you know, I think demand heavy in automotive devices, demand heavy in 150 millimeter substrates, a little bit of softness in industrial energy perspective, but we're just looking to match up supply and demand there right now. So there are pockets where we can take that supply, match it up to where the demand still remains strong in industrial energy, and that's really what we're looking at right now in terms of the outlook.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question goes to Natalia Winkler of Jefferies. Natalia, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Natalia Winkler (VP of Equity Research)

Hi, thank you. I wanted to ask about the new design wins this quarter that you guys have seen. Could you possibly kind of help us figure out where, you know, where the most of them are? Is there a way to think about, you know, maybe kind of an increase in industrial activity or automotive and just broadly, any additional color would be really helpful?

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Okay. So just from a clarification perspective, we call out design-ins, and that's when a customer awards us the business, and then we say design win, and that's when a customer transitions into production. Specifically, they have to give us purchase orders for 20% of the first year's anticipated volume that they declared during the design-in phase. So we had $1 billion worth of design wins, which means customers were transitioning from they awarded us the program to they're beginning to ramp into production. That's an incredible number, by the way, and it's happening faster than we anticipated. I believe that was 230 different projects. Many of those were automotive projects, and, and the others sprinkled around, industrial, opportunities. But I would say the majority of those were automotive.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question goes to Matthew Prisco of Evercore. Matthew, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Matthew Prisco (Director)

Thanks for taking the question, guys. How should we be thinking about the gross margin path from here, particularly given the commentary on underutilization potentially ticking higher? Is low-to-mid 120% still the right range exiting the year, and sort of what would be the primary risk drivers that figure at this point, either upside or downside? Thanks.

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Thanks, Matt. Let me just. Maybe I should unpack the gross margin a little bit, as we look here. So obviously, in Q1, you know, we had a good quarter from a gross margin perspective, you know, at the high end of the guidance range. This is really driven by, you know, strong performance from the materials operations team and just some very, very good cost yield and output performance, both on the 150 millimeter and 200 millimeter substrates. So that was, you know, solid. And if you go back to Q4 2024, you know, we reported, you know, gross margin of approximately 29%. And when we divested of RF, we picked up about 200 basis points of improvement, excluding the RF business.

So the baseline back in Q4 was about 31%, and we just saw about, you know, 200 basis points of improvement in gross margin quarter-over-quarter when you exclude that underutilization. So I'd say overall, you know, good, good quarter from a gross margin perspective. And with that, a little bit of the lower impact from underutilization. Although, as I said earlier, you might see that tick up a bit more towards the end of the year as we bring on more capacity. So with that, as we look out beyond that, we will see an uptick in gross margin as you kind of get into Q2. We'll see continued solid performance, you know, offset a little bit by some of the auto mix that we'll see come into the business as we continue to support that demand.

We talked about underutilization being $35 million at the midpoint. Might tick up again as you get out to the end of the year. But as we get out towards the end of the year, you know, at 20% or so, you'll, you know, gross margin target for the end of the year still makes sense. I think you can put that in there. It's really going to be a function of volume we can drive through Mohawk Valley. As we said many times, all roads lead to, lead to Mohawk Valley, and I think from a market perspective, that's the case as well. So I still think that's a, you know, a good target to think about as you, as you move into the back half of the year.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question goes to Edward Snyder of Charter Equity Research. Edward, please, the line is open.

Edward Snyder (Managing Director)

Thanks a lot. Maybe first a housekeeping, just to check, Neill. The quarter, if you back out, obviously, you've gotten pro forma out the RF business and giving you underutilization charges. I'm getting around 30% gross margin if you get all that out of it. And then it looks like the RF business last quarter, give you pro forma. I'm sorry, last year, gives you pro forma, that was running around 24% gross margin. Just want to check on that. And then I had a question about the materials.

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Yeah, Ed, so in Q4 2024, we recorded 29% gross margin. The RF business was about a 200 basis point drag, so you can think about the ex RF number being about 31%. So it's about 200 basis points of pick up there. If you exclude the underutilization, you saw about 200 basis points pick up Q4 into Q1. So, you know, if you reported 15.6%, with that 17.4% of underutilization, you know, in the quarter. As you move into, you know, Q3 and beyond, we'll see a little bit of an uptick in underutilization just related to some of that capacity that we're working on.

Edward Snyder (Managing Director)

Great. And then in kind of the detailed survey we did of all the new competitors in China and talking to folks on the ground there, it seemed, and the feedback we got from the conference in Italy, the feedback seems to be pretty consistent that on a die basis, Wolfspeed is still the preferred vendor, even some of your competitors tell us that too. And module, you need. There's work that needs to be done because you're kind of early in modules to begin with. But the vast majority of everything you're going to be shipping, provided by Mohawk Valley, is going to be die anyway, right?

As that ramps up, some of these deals, Greg, I just want your opinion, some of these deals where some of your vendors are cutting deals to get any kind of die they can get now because the demand far exceeds supply, could revert back to higher demand once they see the Mohawk's up and has the capacity to supply it. Isn't that a fair assessment?

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

I think the ramp of Mohawk Valley will largely be a die story for the near term. We won some good, you know, module business as well, but many of our customers are basically building their own inverters and their own modules, so certainly it's going to be a ramp mostly on the die side of things, I would say, for the near term.

Edward Snyder (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks.

Neill Reynolds (CFO)

Thank you, Ed.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That's all the questions that we have time for today. I'll now hand the call back over to Gregg Lowe, CEO, for any closing comments.

Gregg Lowe (CEO)

Just two thoughts before we end the call. One, demand remains very strong for silicon carbide, and two, I am personally laser focused on the Mohawk Valley ramp to 20% utilization in the June quarter. Thanks a lot for joining us today, and look forward to updating you in our next quarter's results.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This now concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.