Onsemi Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 29, 2024

There are 15 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Onsemi First Quarter 20 24 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Parag Agarwal.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning and thank you for joining on semi's Q1 20 21st quarterly results conference call. I'm joined today by Hassan Akhouri, our President and CEO and Tyk Tran, our CFO. This call is being webcast on the Investor Relations section of our website at www.aonsemi.com. A replay of this webcast along with our 2024 Q1 earnings release will be available on our website approximately 1 hour following this conference call, and the recorded webcast will be available for approximately 30 days following this conference call.

Speaker 1

Additional information is posted on the Investor Relations section of our website. Our earnings release and this presentation include certain non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of these non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures and a discussion of certain limitations when using non GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release, which is posted separately on our website in the Investor Relations section. During the course of this conference call, we will make projections or other forward looking statements regarding the future events or future financial performance of the company. We wish to caution that such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or results to differ materially from projections.

Speaker 1

Important factors that can affect our business, including factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our forward looking statements are described in our most recent Form 10 ks, Form 10 Qs and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and in our earnings release for the Q1 of 2024. Our estimates or other forward looking statements might change and the company assumes no obligation to update forward looking statements to reflect actual results, changed assumptions or other events that may occur except as required by law. Now let me hand it over to Hassan. Hassan?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Parag. Good morning and thank you all for joining us on the call. In the Q1, our worldwide team delivered revenue of $1,860,000,000 non GAAP gross margin of 45.9 percent and non GAAP earnings per share of $1.08 all above the midpoint of our guidance. We have remained laser focused on our execution, driving new design win growth of 30% quarter over quarter and gaining share in silicon and silicon carbide based on the strength of our technology. Customers value the breadth of our portfolio and the superior performance of our intelligent power and sensing technologies, which continue to fuel platform wins.

Speaker 2

Leading indicators of future revenue support our plan to outgrow the market in automotive and industrial with new product revenue in Q1 increasing 9% year over year and we expect it to continue to outpace total company growth with favorable gross margins at scale. Specifically, we believe our silicon carbide business to have the best financial performance in the industry on a fully loaded with more than 50% of substrates coming from internal production in the Q1. The performance of our silicon carbide solutions, combined with our vertically integrated supply chain, are enabling us to rapidly diversify our customer base. Having just returned from the China Auto Show in Beijing, I remain confident that we are continuing to gain share and expanding into the top 10 leading Chinese OEMs where we are already designed into the newly announced 800 volt EV platforms and set to start ramping in the second half of twenty twenty four. As for the global silicon carbide market, we still expect an increase in the TAM, although at a lower rate than previously anticipated.

Speaker 2

The increase is primarily driven by incremental volumes of EVs produced globally over 2023, even as total SAAR is projected to be flat to slightly down. We continue to gain share in silicon carbide and diversify across all markets and still expect our revenue to increase 2x the market growth in 2024. Outside of silicon carbide, there was incremental softness in the market in the Q1. Inventory digestion persisted across the automotive and industrial markets with stabilization in the traditional part of our industrial business. We remain cautious about the second half outlook, but we expect customer inventory levels to normalize and the market to stabilize.

Speaker 2

We will maintain our disciplined approach to navigating the current environment and expect to deliver predictable results as we have demonstrated. Through this environment, we're also investing to further our leadership in the high growth megatrends of automotive, industrial and cloud, including data centers. During our Analyst Day last May, we highlighted a $19,000,000,000 high margin TAM opportunity that we could service by expanding our portfolio of power management and sensor interface technologies. To best align with the strategic intent, we have formed the analog and mixed signal group, which will deliver industry leading full system solutions for these markets. Electrification remains the large growth opportunity for On Semi across XEVs from BEV to HEV.

Speaker 2

We provide a unique value proposition for our customers with our wide range of silicon carbide and IGBT solutions along with our high power packaging technology. Our revenue from XEV grew by approximately 60% year over year, significantly outpacing unit production and we continue to gain share with our silicon carbide and silicon products, primarily in BUV. In automotive sensing, the shift towards higher resolution image sensor for ADAS systems continues with customers moving to better performance options. Our revenue for 8 megapixel image sensors increased more than 30% quarter over quarter and more than 60% year over year, demonstrating the market trend towards higher resolution for ADAS systems. In medical, we are leveraging AI technology in our processors for hearing aids to adapt to the user's unique hearing environment for an improved listening experience.

Speaker 2

And we are designed in more than 50% of over the counter hearing aids currently available in the market. With a relentless focus on innovation, we are actively investing in new products and technologies to extend our competitive advantage and drive above market revenue growth at feasible margins, consistent with our Analyst Day commitment. We remain on track and continue to make progress towards 200 millimeter in silicon carbide. We are already sampling new mixed signal products and we are gaining share across the portfolio based on the differentiation of our technology. Our investment in cloud and data centers over the last 3 years has enabled us to benefit from the incremental opportunity we are seeing from the rapid rise of AI.

Speaker 2

Next generation AI server racks will require 200 to 300 kilowatts of power as much as the power needed in a BEV. Our full suite of high efficiency Power Tree solutions from the power supply unit or PSU to the CPU or GPU consuming the power continues to present the content expansion opportunity as customers look to us to solve their power density problems in data centers. As we look forward, with disciplined, consistent execution, while maintaining the customer centric mindset, we will navigate the current environment and continue to deliver value for our stakeholders. Let me now turn it over to Thad to give you more details on our results. Thad?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Hassane.

Speaker 3

Our teams have been relentless in their pursuit of operational excellence. Their focus on execution to drive more predictable and sustainable results once again delivered 1st quarter results that exceeded expectations. Our ability to respond to the current market environment and deliver better results than ever in a downturn demonstrates the resiliency we have built into the business over the last 3 years. Amid continued inventory digestion in automotive and industrial, we reported Q1 revenue of 1.86 $1,000,000,000 down 8% quarter over quarter and down 5% year over year. Our automotive business of $1,000,000,000 grew 3% as compared to the quarter a year ago and declined 9% quarter over quarter in line with our expectations.

Speaker 3

Vehicle electrification and advanced safety applications remain the long term growth drivers for this business. Our revenue for industrial is $476,000,000 down 14% versus the Q1 of 2023 and down 4% sequentially. We are seeing early signs of stabilization in our traditional industrial business, which is slightly less than half of our total industrial. Long term, we expect upside opportunities in industrial to come from energy infrastructure, factory automation and medical applications. As a result of our strategy to shift to the high growth megatrends for the sustainable ecosystem, our automotive and industrial revenue accounted for 80% of our business in Q1.

Speaker 3

Looking at the split between the operating units, revenue for the Power Solutions Group or PSG was $874,000,000 an increase of 2% year over year coming from higher silicon carbide revenue in automotive industrial applications offset by a decline of silicon power products. Revenue for the analog and mixed signal crude or AMG was $697,000,000 a 6% decline year over year driven by declines in industrial and automotive. As previously announced, we have formed AMG to deliver industry leading full system analog mixed signal solutions. Prior period revenue has been reclassified and is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Revenue for the Intelligent Sensing Group or ISG was $292,000,000 an 18% decrease year over year due to a decline in Industrial and Automotive.

Speaker 3

Gross margin, GAAP gross margin was 45.8% in the Q1 and non GAAP gross margin was 45.9% compared to 46.7% in Q4 and 46.8% in the quarter a year ago. These results exceeded expectations even though utilization was at 65%, a slight decrease from 66% in Q4. In prior downturns at similar utilization levels, our gross margin was approximately 30%. Though muted by utilization, our gross margin expansions continue. Most notably, our FabRight strategy of optimizing our existing footprint is well underway and our teams continue to drive operational excellence with cost improvement opportunities.

Speaker 3

At East Fishkill, we have aggressively improved the operational efficiency of the fab, reducing the fixed and variable cost to reach parity and wafer costs with our other fabs. The dilutive impact in Q1 was 140 basis points as compared to 200 basis points in the Q4. We expect this to be roughly 100 basis points dilutive for the remainder of the year for the ongoing foundry business with GlobalFoundries. As a result of our cost reduction efforts at EFK and our Fabryte initiatives, we now expect one point of utilization improvement across our manufacturing network will result in approximately 15 to 20 basis points of gross margin improvement. Now let me give you some additional numbers for your models.

Speaker 3

GAAP operating expenses for the Q1 was $328,000,000 as compared to $353,000,000 in the Q1 of 2023. Non GAAP operating expenses were $314,000,000 as compared to $286,000,000 in the quarter a year ago. As Hassane mentioned, we continue to invest to further our leadership position in our focused markets. GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 28.2% and non GAAP operating margin was 29%. Our GAAP tax rate was 15.7% and non GAAP tax rate was 16%.

Speaker 3

GAAP earnings per share for the Q1 was 1 point $4 as compared to $1.03 in the quarter a year ago. Non GAAP earnings per share was near the high end of our guidance at 1 point 0 $8 dollars as compared to $1.19 in Q1 of 2023. GAAP diluted share count was 437,000,000 shares and our non GAAP diluted share count was 432,000,000 shares. In Q1, we deployed $100,000,000 or 36% of our free cash flow for share repurchases. In the last 12 months, we have repurchased $560,000,000 worth

Speaker 4

of shares

Speaker 3

and returned nearly 100 percent of our free cash flow back to our shareholders. Turning to the balance sheet. Cash and cash equivalents was $2,600,000,000 and we had $1,100,000,000 undrawn on our revolver. Cash from operations was $499,000,000 and free cash flow increased 3x year over year to $276,000,000 representing 15% of revenue. Capital expenditures during Q1 were $222,000,000 which equates to a capital intensity of 12%.

Speaker 3

As previously indicated, we expect 2024 capital intensity to be in the low teens for the full year. Inventory increased by $35,000,000 sequentially and days increased by 15 days to 194. This includes 86 days of bridge inventory to support fab transition in the silicon carbide ramp. Excluding these strategic builds, our base inventory decreased $31,000,000 sequentially to approximately 190ks. We continue to proactively manage distribution inventory.

Speaker 3

This de inventory was down $19,000,000 sequentially with weeks of inventory at 8 weeks as expected versus 7.2 weeks in Q4. As previously mentioned, we expect to replenish the channel in 2024 to service mass market customers and expect inventory to start to normalize with increasing inventory levels to approximately 9 weeks over the next few quarters.

Speaker 2

Now let me provide you the

Speaker 3

key elements of our non GAAP guidance for the Q2. Abel detailed in our GAAP and non GAAP guidance as provided in the press release related to our Q1 results. Given the current macro environment and our demand visibility, we anticipate Q2 revenue will be in the range of $1,680,000,000 to $1,780,000,000 with softness across all end markets. We expect non GAAP gross margin to be between 44.2% 46.2%. As we have shown, our structural changes are proving sustainable and we expect to hold the mid-forty percent gross margin for Fluor with utilization in the mid-sixty percent range.

Speaker 3

Our Q2 non GAAP gross margin include share based compensation of $6,500,000 We expect non GAAP operating expenses of $313,000,000 to $328,000,000 including share based compensation of $28,600,000 We anticipate our non GAAP other income to be a net benefit of $12,000,000 with our interest income exceeding interest expense. We expect our non GAAP tax rate to be approximately 16% and our non GAAP diluted share count for the 2nd quarter is expected to be approximately 432,000,000 shares. This results in non GAAP earnings per share to be in the range of $0.86 to $0.98 We expect capital expenditures in the range of $180,000,000 to $220,000,000 Our financial strategy and long term targets remain unchanged. We are investing for our future, while leaning on our playbook to drive operational efficiencies across the organization. We also remain committed to our capital allocation strategy of returning 50% of our free cash flow to shareholders over the long term.

Speaker 3

We are a different company today and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our employees around the world for the value they've unlocked during their transformation journey. Their efforts were most recently recognized by the management top 250 ranking published by the Wall Street Journal, which identifies the most effectively managed businesses. We are proud to have been named as posting the biggest gain of any company and we will continue to strive for operational excellence as we navigate the coming quarters. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Kevin to open it up for Q and A.

Speaker 5

Thank

Operator

you. Our first question comes from Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hi, guys. Thanks for asking the question. First question, Hassane, I just wanted to get into the linearity of demand you saw in the Q1 and thus far in the Q2 and maybe specifically what you're seeing in the silicon carbide side. I know you said that the market TAM is going to be slower, but you'll still grow 2x that. What's your estimation for what the market TAM

Speaker 2

is going to do? Yes. Specifically, on the Q1, we did see a slowdown through the quarter. Specifically, if I were to break it,

Speaker 1

you can

Speaker 2

think about it after Chinese New Year, typically, we would expect a slight recovery or back to linearity and we didn't. That's where we started to see some of the incremental softness that we talked about specifically in auto. As far as the silicon carbide, it's too early in the year to call a market. What I'm basing my comment on and specifically the 2x growth is really a bottoms up share gain that we have based on a vehicle by vehicle and socket by socket that we're designed in. And we know what the sockets and the designs of the platforms are out there.

Speaker 2

What is pending to see today and like I said, it's early in the year still is the sell through of these vehicles. As we get through the second half of the year, that picture will get clearer. I'll get a little bit more accurate as far as what the market would do. But for right now, we're looking at it as are we designed in more than 2x the sockets that are deployed this year and the answer is yes.

Speaker 6

Thanks for that. I guess for my follow-up, Thad, one for you on the gross margin side of things, congrats for holding the 45% floor. Can you just walk through some of the idiosyncratic puts and takes going forward? I know you said what the utilization impact will be when revenues and all of that go up. But East Fishkill, exiting fabs, all those sorts of things, what sort of what are

Speaker 3

the pluses and minuses as we think about gross margin through the year? Sure, sure. So just starting with the utilization. So as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, one point of utilization is 15 to 20 basis points of gross margin improvement. So think about it as being at the mid-60s, if we get back up into the low 80s, you can do the math on the tailwind there.

Speaker 3

For each fish kill, we expect this year it's about 100 basis points dilutive as we go through the rest of the year. That's the foundry business. As I mentioned, we now have the cost parity with our other fabs. So we're happy with the progress we've made there. That fab is underutilized.

Speaker 3

So you get that benefit as I mentioned on the utilization. The other component is the fab divestitures from 2022, the 4 fabs. We start to see that starting to be monetized in 2025. That's $160,000,000 of annualized costs. We won't see it all in 2025, but we'll start to recognize it in 2025 and the outer years as we move that production into our fab network.

Speaker 3

So that's another nice tailwind. And then we've got the ramping of new products that are accretive to gross margins. That includes silicon carbide. As we continue to scale silicon carbide in 25 and further that becomes accretive. And all new products as Sasan mentioned, the new product revenue is growing that at scale is all accretive as well.

Speaker 3

So I think if you do the math there, you start to get pretty close to our target.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Vivek Arya with Bank of America Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Thanks for taking my question. Hassan, I'm trying to understand the message and the outlook for the second half that we get the weaker and the headwinds for Q2, but how should we think about the pace of recovery from here? Because I thought I heard Pat say that you plan to increase, I think distribution inventory, that sounds like a positive message, but if things started to get weaker towards the end of Q1, that doesn't sound like a positive message. So I'm just trying to understand what are you trying to signal for the second half? Is Q2 the bottom?

Speaker 7

And how should we think about Q3 from what we know today? Obviously, it's a fluid environment.

Speaker 2

Yes. I'll let me try to clarify here. First off, I'm not going to call the bottom. I was very clear last time. I'll call it when I'm sitting on the top on the other side.

Speaker 2

But what we are seeing, we did see the slowdown, that slowdown inventory digestion and demand and I believe the 2 are related persistence in our outlook for Q2. But for the second half, we are starting to see stabilization in demand. Now I wouldn't go as far as calling it a recovery, but I think if I were to use a letter that everybody talks about, it's an L at this point, meaning we're seeing stabilization, we're seeing recovery, meaning it's not deteriorating further. Now whether or not the demand will pick up, that's too close to call that, but at least we see stabilization in our outlook.

Speaker 7

Okay. And then on the silicon carbide, just 1 or 2 near term and then kind of the longer term. On the near term, what did your silicon carbide sales do in Q1 either sequentially or year on year? And what's your China exposure? And then there's a lot of industry discussion about low priced EVs, and I think you guys have both silicon and silicon carbide.

Speaker 7

And I'm wondering if there is an industry move towards these so called lower priced EVs, especially in the U. S. Market, would that be positive or neutral to ON's power opportunity?

Speaker 2

Yes. So on the first question, we're not breaking up the silicon carbide on a quarterly. Last year, we gave the annual and we talked about for both competitive reasons we're not breaking up the quarterly. What we have said is it will obviously increase in 2024 from 2023, but we will update the annual year or the annual results for 2024 as we get towards the end of the year. As for the low cost EVs, it is it's an interesting dynamic in the market.

Speaker 2

Our position, we will benefit regardless of what technology the customer uses, whether it's silicon carbide or IGBT. And we have seen areas where we have benefited from both, whether at the same customer account or even in the same platform. What I also want to highlight is we've been pushing the efficiency on silicon carbide both device and package with our new generation that we're we've announced and designed into customers where it will be ramping the second half of this year, specifically with a lot of the China OEMs that you can argue are at a low cost or low price point or a low cost EV. Those have also silicon carbide because the dynamic that you see, the benefit they get from using On Semi's silicon carbide with On Semi's packaging from a module perspective gives them the efficiency that they will save way more dollars on the battery than they were just going from silicon carbide to IGBT. So from a system level solution, the battery is the biggest bond.

Speaker 2

If they can save battery by using any of the technology, they win on the low cost and we've seen customers do that. But regardless of what technology and what system level cost they want to optimize, we will benefit whether it's silicon carbide or IGBT.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Chris Danely with Citi. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Thanks. It's the Ju turned Italian again. Just another question on silicon carbide. So if you're not going to give us the quarterly revenue, what are gross margins doing? Are they stabilizing?

Speaker 8

Are they going down? And then how about your pricing expectations for the rest of the year? Have your pricing expectations changed? And what revenue level do you need to get to that 50% gross margin target? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. I think the gross margin is for silicon carbide is stable. As we talked about last year, it will remain stable as we increase revenue, but we've also added capacity. So kind of the utilization and the growth will offset each other to give us that stability in the gross margin. Longer term, of course, you got the utilization as we grow into our installed footprint.

Speaker 2

So that will give us a nice upside on the gross margin. As we ramp internal substrates that will give us the incremental gross margin that gets us be above the 50% that we talked about and as we march closer to the model for the corporate level model at 53 long term. Now one thing I do want to highlight is we also are making incremental improvements on our efficiency side, which means that we are able to service the same level of power that the customer require with a smaller die. So from a system level cost, we are also making technology improvements in order to improve our cost. So between the cost, the new products that we talked about earlier and growing into the capacity, that's where that's going to give us the incremental the incremental margin.

Speaker 2

We see it in the standard margin if you take out the underutilization and that's what we're going to grow into. So we're pretty comfortable with our trajectory on silicon carbide margin and we'll continue to execute.

Speaker 8

Great. And then for my follow-up, between your 2 big markets, auto and industrial, would it be fair to say that the industrial market appears to be stabilizing, but the automotive market is getting a little bit weaker? And is all of that weakness in silicon carbide or is there weakness in auto outside of silicon carbide?

Speaker 2

Sorry, you blanked out the last digit question? Yes.

Speaker 8

Yes. Can you guys hear me okay now?

Speaker 3

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Speaker 8

Okay, great. So just between the 2 big end markets, auto and industrial, is it fair to say that broadly speaking, the industrial market for you guys is stabilizing? And then on the automotive market, is it fair to say it's getting a little bit incrementally weaker? And is that incremental weakness all silicon carbide? Or is there weakness in the non silicon carbide automotive business?

Speaker 2

Yes. I think at a high level between the market, your comment is true. I don't think from a overall from the automotive side, the second part of your question, I don't think it's only on the silicon carbide. Silicon carbide, I think it's well understood in general as far as the TAM. But our growth on silicon carbide is really more on share gains rather than just specific to total market.

Speaker 2

And we've been very consistent about that. 2024 is still on track for that. But we did see incremental softness in automotive on the silicon side as well, which is more on the broader aspect of automotive.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks guys.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Toshiya Hari with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Hi, good morning. I had a question on the silicon carbide business as well. For this year, Hassan, what's the rough split between automotive and industrial? And more importantly, I was hoping you could speak to your diversification efforts. I think customer concentration has been a bit of an issue from an investor perspective.

Speaker 5

Your largest customer was significant last year. I think they'll continue to be significant this year. But how should we think about your customer base and your customer mix broadening in SiC specifically going forward?

Speaker 2

Yes. So the first part of the question, it's been pretty consistent. You can think about it as eightytwenty, 80 auto, 20 industrial, give or take depending on the quarter and when the ramp happened, they're a little bit asynchronous ramps based on the end market. As far as diversification, we've been very consistent on 2024. We'll be more diversified than what 2023 was.

Speaker 2

That remains the case. Last quarter we called out ramps in automotive OEMs in Europe starting to ramp EV with on semi silicon carbide. The comment I make today is further proliferation in the Chinese EV, which today is the biggest penetration of electrification in light vehicle production. Between those two efforts as these ramp in the second half, getting us to that 2x market that I talked about, that's going to come with further diversification across all geographies, very consistent with where our LTSAs originally were and where the ramps have started to occur. So predictable, consistent and we're executing to that.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you. And as a follow-up, I feel like you talked about data center a little bit more than on prior calls. To level set us, can you speak to the exposure you have to AI or data center more broadly today? And how are you thinking about the growth profile there over the coming years, given the focus on AI infrastructure spend across your end customers?

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. If you go back to our last Analyst Day where Sudhir in his prepared comments, he talked about the Power Tree being very similar in automotive, industrial and cloud and data center. We've talked a lot about our penetration and our success in auto and industrial and we've shifted our focus over the last 3 years to the cloud and data center. And at Analyst Day, we talked about that outlook being about 22% CAGR over the next 5 years. That's what our investment thesis has been.

Speaker 2

We've been introducing products both on the power discrete side and furthermore on call it controllers and point of load and so on, which is more on the intelligent power coming from our analog and mixed signal group that we've organized around that effort. So all of these put together are where our investment has been. I talked more about it this quarter than I did last quarter even just because of our progress on it. Last quarter I talked about our success in sampling a lot of these products coming from that group. We're further sampling and engaging with customers.

Speaker 2

I'm very bullish about it. You'll hear more about it as we get through the year. But the target markets are auto industrial, but on top of that it's the cloud and data centers.

Speaker 5

Are you able to size it for us today? Is it low singles, mid singles? Any hints there?

Speaker 2

Not yet.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Gary Mobley with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Hassane, you probably realized this already, but most investors are worried about the ability for non China silicon carbide suppliers to compete in the China market against local competition. And your messaging on that front was clear and that you're gaining share at the top 10 China automotive OEMs. But longer term, what's your hook to remain successful in that marketplace?

Speaker 9

Is it a focus on higher voltage battery systems? Is it hybrid silicon silicon carbide solution? Is it local investment into the China market? Any color there would be helpful.

Speaker 2

Yes. Look, I've always been very consistent on we compete on the value of our products, because at the end of the day, if you don't have value in the product, somebody somewhere is willing to take a lower margin for just good enough. That's not the business we're in. Therefore, maintaining our investments and maintaining an aggressive roadmap that provides value for the customer. For a customer perspective, they need to be looking at it by, if I use On Semi, I can save 100 of dollars on battery versus if I use somebody, maybe cheaper locally and I will have to add that cost on the battery.

Speaker 2

If that is the case, which is what we do and why we win in any geography, then it's irrelevant of what the competition is doing as long as we maintain our leadership on the technology. We've proven this year after year. The competition in China has been no less or more, whether it's European vendors or local Chinese vendor, and we've proven our ability with our internal and vertically integrated strategy to compete to have the best financial structured business for silicon carbide and to grow above market by gaining share. All of these are the leading indicators of how we were going to continue to tackle that business both in the short term and the long term.

Speaker 9

Thanks, Sasan. As my follow-up, I wanted to ask about your design win metrics. You called out a 30% quarter over quarter increase in design wins. I presume that's lifetime value. But looking at it as a more long term basis, the trends you're seeing there, lifetime value on maybe a trailing 12 month basis, is that supportive of the 10% to 12% long term revenue growth targets you guys have outlined?

Speaker 2

That's right. We do see that. That's kind of based on the model. You're right, it is a lifetime revenue. But the way I look at it to support the 10% to 12%, it is the I guess the overlaid annual revenue on top of the base, on top of the new products that continue to grow.

Speaker 2

If I put all of these together, our next outlook is supporting the 10% to 12%. So you take the base, you add the new products and you add new design wins on top of it and that layering effect gives us that 10% to 12% growth.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Harsh Kumar with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Yes. Hi. Thank you. Hassane, I had a quick question for you on distribution and OEM partner inventory. I guess the question is, which one of which one for you is bigger?

Speaker 10

And then are you comfortable at this point with the inventory you're holding? Clearly, you mentioned that you're raising inventory at the distry, but would you give us some color on the inventory at the OEM partners? And also, this environment is a very good customer pricing. Are you seeing pricing generally hold up pretty well for your products?

Speaker 2

Yes. Let me start with the pricing. Pricing is we've been saying pricing is stable. That's the power of the LCSA. A lot of the conversations we've had with customers on given the demand environment has been more on what do we do on the volumes rather than the pricing.

Speaker 2

That goes back to the win win. We invested in capacity. We will support customers in a softer market, but it has not been a pricing discussion and we don't expect it to be a pricing discussion. As far as the inventory, look, we've been it changes based on the market. We believe the industrial side of it, if you recall, we start taking utilization down and reducing our shipments in industrial back at the end of 2022.

Speaker 2

So we've had longer than most of our peers kind of a period in 2023 where we've helped customer drain in the industrial market drain their inventory. That's why we're seeing that stabilization that that talked about and even better outlook for the standard part of our industrial business. So that's on the industrial. On the automotive, I don't think we're done. We saw that softness in Q1 as I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 2

You see it in the outlook for Q2. But I do think that there is further stabilization in the second half of the year. So that tells you kind of where we feel the inventory of the customer is. But I will remind everybody, inventory of the customer is related to also demand. If demand picks up, inventory drain accelerates.

Speaker 2

If demand stays stable, it will take longer. But we feel like customers have a healthy level of inventory and we feel good about it for the second half to call the stabilization. As far as the disty, we've always run very disciplined distribution inventory. We do have second half ramp for new products that we talked about. You're going to see us click that up.

Speaker 2

Remember this quarter or the prior quarter, we drained $19,000,000 on the inventory in the channel. Although weeks of inventory went up, dollars came down, although we beat slightly the guide. So with that, that gives you the disciplined approach that we've been pushing for and we'll continue to do that. But we do expect inventory at the disty to go up just readying for the ramps both in silicon carbide and some other new products that we have in the second half. Internal inventory, internal inventory has been very disciplined.

Speaker 2

We drained the base aggressively based on the utilization. We've taken a declining utilization to maintain inventory. The only inventory that went up is a strategic for good reason. It's all a cap transfers.

Speaker 10

Got it. Thank you, Hassan, for all that color. I had a sort of a multipart question on silicon carbide. You talked about 2x growth relative to the market based on design wins, bottoms up approach. I guess when you talk to your customers, what are what kind of growth are they implying?

Speaker 10

And then secondly, you talked about wins in China. Are these based on your own internal wafers? Are they based on your own internal wafers or they based on your outsourced wafers or external wafers? And then is there any situation you see where silicon carbide is flat in 2024 and just kind of wild possibility?

Speaker 2

I don't want to talk about wild possibility. Look, I can only comment on what we see and where the customers and the market is. Silicon carbide is going to grow in 2024 and it's and we are going to grow 2x. What I can say about the market is specifically what I commented on earlier. We know the platforms that are ramping this year.

Speaker 2

We know the platforms we are in. We know what products we are putting in those platforms because think about it, by now all this stuff is qualified and just shipping and ramping. So based on that, that's where the 2x comes in. What I am not commenting on as far as the TAM is, well until those cars ship in the market, you don't really have a TAM to call out. So that's the reason for that.

Speaker 2

As far as mix, I saw 50% of our substrates over 50% of our substrates are internal, But we don't ship, I guess, a different mix whether it's going to China or it's going to U. S. Or going to Europe. We ship out of our inventory based on what we need to run manufacturing. And right now, it is a mix of over 50% remains internal.

Speaker 2

But no customer has a requirement, where the substrates need to come from because the substrates are not what gets qualified at customer level. It is the device that gets qualified at a customer level.

Speaker 10

Very helpful, Sean. Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Harlan Sur with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. With the view that dynamics in the second half are going to start to normalize or stabilize, Are LTSA customer calls to revise volumes, push off cancellations on the non LTSA business, are these activity levels here starting to stabilize or decline ahead of the second half shipment stabilization? Or do these activity levels continue to remain at pretty high levels?

Speaker 2

Yes. No, you're right in that comment. So they are they have slowed down, requests for push outs, requests for changing volumes and so on, which gives us that comfort to call out the second half stabilization that we talked about. But yes, it's basically just like the LTSAs have been a tool in the market softness and seeing it earlier, that same tool for the slowdown in that discussion and the amendments that we're doing with customers gives us that other side of it.

Speaker 3

And Harlan, I would add, if you look at the non LTSA orders, the order pattern is getting stronger. So that's the stabilization we're seeing. We're seeing less cancellations, less push outs than what we saw over the last couple of quarters.

Speaker 11

Perfect. Thank you for that. Then from a geographical perspective, Asia ex Japan, which is primarily China, has declined about 24% dollar terms over the past 2 years versus the total company, which is down 4%. How much of the decline in China is just broad based China weakness? How much of it is your lean distribution strategy?

Speaker 11

Or how much of it is just related to low margin commodity focused China business, which you've been moving away from over the past several years?

Speaker 2

Yes, I think I don't have the breakdown, but majority of it is that the exits that we talked about, because if you recall a lot of those exits were in the non auto and industrial. So if you add it all up and you do a year on year then those exits are targeting that market which is where the demand has been. So that's expected. On the industrial and automotive, actually we've seen the share gains obviously on silicon carbide as I talked about in automotive, but in industrial, in prior quarters, I've talked about LTSAs with 8 of the top 10 energy storage or renewable energy vendors. Most of them are in China.

Speaker 2

We've had tremendous growth in those markets over the last few years that we called out 22% to 23% even. So all of these are shared gains, but yes, they are offset. And one is the general weakness that everybody sees with how big the market is for semis in China. But specifically for on semi, it is the exits, which are today help and hold the margin where we are structurally.

Speaker 11

Yes. Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Christopher Rolland with Susquehanna. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Hey guys, thanks for the question. I guess my first one is on the image sensor business primarily. If you could talk about kind of demand and sell through there, but also inventories and your plans on internalizing some of those wafers from foundry into Glopo as well?

Speaker 2

Yes. So I think like demand for we have a high market share in image sensors. So demand for image sensor overall demand follows the automotive. We do believe that inventory situation is getting better. I put that under the commentary I made about general automotive.

Speaker 2

But the growth that we've seen specifically on the 8 megapixel is specific to a migration to higher resolution cameras that we really talked about over the last 2 to 3 quarters. We've been calling it out. So that continues. That's a trend we can clearly see based on the growth of that business even in light of the light vehicle production numbers that are starting to come up. So from that perspective, it's clear.

Speaker 2

We do have an effort to introduce new products coming out of the fab. It is not 100% internal. We do have foundry partners that we value in this business and we'll continue to work together internally and externally. But as you can think about it as a supply assurance rather than a shift in strategy to just go internal.

Speaker 12

Great. And also just a couple of housekeeping. Did you guys give lead times, utilizations and then cumulative LTSAs and or next 12 month LTSAs?

Speaker 3

Yes, Chris, it's Thad. Let me go through that. So just starting in reverse order, the lifetime LTSA value is $15,700,000,000 over the next 12 months. The value of that is $4,700,000,000 I think that's consistent with what you heard last quarter if you think about what rolled off in Q1. Lead times are down just slightly, roughly around 40 to 41 weeks.

Speaker 3

So not a big change on that side of things. And I did mention in the prepared remarks, utilization decreased slightly from 66% to 65%. We expect to be running kind of in this range, plus or minus for the remainder of the year. And so we start to see more of a market recovery. As we see the stabilization, we believe we can kind of keep this utilization for the remainder of the year.

Speaker 12

And Thad, since I have you, do you have sick LTSAs as well?

Speaker 3

I don't have that.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Joseph Moore with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

Great. Thank you. I wonder if you could talk to the opportunity in hybrid cars, as you sort of see some of the demand shifting from battery powered to hybrid, what's the opportunity for ON? Is that silicon carbide? Is it IGBT opportunity?

Speaker 13

Can you just talk to that?

Speaker 2

Yes. So the both the opportunity in, I would say plug in hybrid, parallel hybrid or the non bev part of the electrification effort and mobility is both on IGBT and some customers still are putting silicon carbide in there depending on the drivetrain. But the opportunity for us that I called out in prior quarters is about $3.50 worth of content or non BEV. That's only in the powertrain. And then about $7.50 in a full BEV vehicle compared to $50 powertrain content in internal combustion.

Speaker 2

So those are kind of the ballpark numbers that we've talked about.

Speaker 13

Great. Thank you for that. And then in terms of the pricing conversation, the LPSA pricing you said is holding up. When you have new agreements, new customers, new designs, do you see or is the pricing for that any different than what you've seen in the past? Pricing is embedded in your current model?

Speaker 2

No, I mean we don't see on a product by product basis. If we say the value of the product is what we price on, value doesn't change whether it's design to design. Where you do see pricing movement is new technologies that we want to introduce where the customer gets a benefit, but also we get a benefit whether it's moving to a much smaller die given the efficiency of our new model. Those are the normal course of the business where it is incremental margin for us, but you may see an ASP delta, but it's a different product. But that's the way the industry runs.

Speaker 3

And Joe, it's Thad. Just remember, we walked away from that $475,000,000 of highly volatile price sensitive market. So I think in this situation, you'd probably see some pricing pressure on that. Obviously, we're not seeing it because we don't have that business today.

Speaker 13

Appreciate that. Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Joshua Buckhalter with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Speaker 14

Hey, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in and taking my question. I apologize for beating the silicon carbide horse, but I understand there's a lot of volatility in that market and your reluctance to give a granular market forecast right now. But maybe we compare it to a few quarters ago. Has the increased volatility been, would you say, because of a meaningful change in the adoption curve across the EV industry at a broad base of customers?

Speaker 14

Or is it because of push outs or unit dynamics because of the early adopters that's driving the lower and

Speaker 2

more volatile forecast? Thank you. Look, I can't call out specific cost. I think everybody can read what specific customers talk about and what their specific outlooks are. But what I would tell you is it's not a push out, meaning every design that we thought would go to production when we were sitting here in 2023 is still going to production.

Speaker 2

So it's not a push out of models. OEMs are not sacrificing the long term view that they have on BEVs just because of the short term volatility. So we are seeing the designs qualify, designs ramp with a plan to ramp in starting the second half of this year, what I called out Europe already, I talked about China as well. So it's not a push out. What I would say the TAM is my comment about the TAM is what those volumes are.

Speaker 2

So the volumes that were planned last year are different than they are planned this year given the environment, but the same models planned are still going to market. So it's a very important distinction because one is the longevity and the strategy of the OEMs and the other one is just reacting to a macro environment that we're in today.

Speaker 14

Thank you. That's helpful, Hassan. And maybe for Thad, you called out that over the last 12 months you've returned over 100% of free cash flow to investors, which is more than your formal policy of 50%. It was just because of some dislocation in the market you saw and we should expect it to trend back towards 50% or should we expect it to sort of remain elevated here in particular as you go through the period of peak capital spending? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. If you look back over

Speaker 3

the last 12 months in Q4, we bought back $300,000,000 that was above our target there. And that was the dislocation, right? We've said our policy longer term is 50 percent over the long term, but we will take advantage and be opportunistic where it makes sense.

Speaker 13

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Quinn Bolton with Needham. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hey guys, thanks for squeezing me in. I know you're not calling for a recovery yet in the second half of the market, but Sasan, your comments on the battery electric vehicle ramps in the second half of the year certainly imply that perhaps silicon carbide sees a better second half. So, I'm wondering what's the offset that would keep revenue sort of more stable, in the second half if I'm reading your comments about the battery electric vehicle ramps in the second half correctly?

Speaker 2

Yes. If you look at and again, we don't guide. We guide only 1 quarter at a time. But the second half silicon carbide is higher than the first half of silicon carbide. That's absolutely correct and that's because of the ramps that I called out.

Speaker 2

When I talk about stabilization, we go back to normalization and you think about it as normal supply and demand. Where demand is, that's what's going to be the offset or not for the second half. So it's too early to call is demand going to recover or not. But there's definitely demand increase on silicon carbide specifically that we can pinpoint to.

Speaker 4

Got it. Makes sense. And then just I think you touched on it quickly in the prepared comments, but can you just give us the progress update on the 200 millimeter substrates and manufacturing needs to look into next year?

Speaker 2

Yes, still on track. What we talked about is qualifying in 2024 ramp in 2025 and we're still on track to exactly that timeline. So no changes there, which is obviously a positive development of our silicon carbide efforts.

Speaker 4

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the Q and A portion of today's presentation. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Hassane El Khoury, President and CEO for any closing remarks.

Speaker 7

Thanks to

Speaker 2

the tremendous effort of our global teams. We've transformed the company, improved our resiliency and adapted to changing market conditions to deliver sustainable financial results. We remain dedicated to our customers, our financial commitments and our strategy of enabling the sustainable ecosystem. Thanks to everyone on the call for joining and supporting OnTime.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.

Remove Ads
Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
Onsemi Q1 2024
00:00 / 00:00
Remove Ads