Everspin Technologies, Inc. (MRAM) Q3 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good afternoon, and welcome to Everspin Technologies Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Monica Gu, Investor Relations for Everspin.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Everspin released results for the third quarter 2026 ended September 30, 2026, this afternoon after market close. I'm Monica Gould, Investor Relations for Everspin. And with me on today's call are Sanjeev Aggarwal, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bill Cooper, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin the call, I would like to remind you that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements regarding future events, including, but not limited to, the company's expectations for Everspin's future business, financial performance and goals, customer and industry adoption of MRAM technology, successfully bringing to market and manufacturing products in Everspin's design pipeline and executing on its business plan. These forward-looking statements are based on estimates, judgments, current trends and market conditions and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. We would encourage you to review the company's SEC filings, including the annual report on Form 10-K and other SEC filings made from time to time in which the company may discuss risk factors associated with investing in Everspin. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this call, and except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statement made on this call, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The financial results discussed today reflect the company's preliminary estimates, are based on the information available as of the date hereof and are subject to further review by Everspin and its external auditors. The company's actual results may differ materially from these estimates as a result of the completion of financial closing procedures, final adjustment and other developments arising between now and the time of the -- that the financial results for this period are finalized. Additionally, the company's press release and statements made during this conference call will include discussions of certain measures and financial information in GAAP and non-GAAP terms. Included in the company's press release are definitions and reconciliations of GAAP net income to non-GAAP net income, which provide additional details. A copy of the press release is posted on the Investor Relations section of Everspin's website at www.everspin.com. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Everspin's President and CEO, Sanjeev Aggarwal. Sanjeev, please go ahead.

Thank you, Monica, and thanks, everyone, for joining us on the call today. We are pleased to report third quarter revenue of $20.6 million and non-GAAP EPS of $0.12. These results reflect another record revenue quarter, the highest in Everspin's history and at the high end of our guidance range, driven by strong product and nonproduct revenue growth. We recorded strong product revenue growth, which rose 34% year-over-year and was up 11% sequentially. This growth was driven by strength in Industrial Automation, Data Center, Medical and Energy Management applications. Growth in Industrial Automation was led by a continued recovery in customer demand, particularly in Japan. In the Data Center market, we saw strong demand for RAID storage configurations, while Energy Management benefited from the transition of new design wins to shipments in Europe. We have not discussed MRAM's role in medical applications in much detail before. So I would like to offer some additional perspective. Everspin MRAM is increasingly used in medical applications that demand high reliability, data retention during power loss and endurance under continuous operation. MRAM's non-volatility, high speed and inherent endurance make it ideal for use in life-critical systems where memory failure is unacceptable. Medical devices most commonly using Everspin MRAM include both patient-critical equipment and diagnostic instruments. For example, in dialysis machines, MRAM records operational and sensor data such as pressure, flow rate and alarms. In infusion pumps and portable diagnostic services devices, MRAM stores calibration data, dosing logs and firmware states. And in defibrillators and patient monitors, MRAM retains event history, shock delivery data and configuration settings. We continue to make steady progress on our project with Microchip to build MRAM capabilities in the Gresham, Oregon, fab. Process development and transfer activities are ongoing, including the tape-out of masks for products. We remain on schedule with our goal of delivering first qualified silicon for our Toggle and sensor products by the second half of 2027 and STT products by the first half of 2028. Turning to some of our recent development efforts. We remain on track to have a 256-megabit xSPI prototype based on TSMC's 16-nanometer FinFET process technology in the first half of 2027. This prototype will verify our design and put us on the path to designing high-density UNISYST, unified code and data memory products, later in the year and beyond. 256-megabit xSPI will be the first product in our UNISYST family, which will then be expanded to include 1-gigabit, 2-gigabit and 8-gigabit densities. These products will be deployed in low Earth orbit satellites for secure boot memory, FPGAs for configuration memory and flight control systems for fast data logging and security, for example. Our momentum with customers designing our PERSYST Toggle and STT-MRAM into space-based missions continues with both new design wins and existing design wins continuing their progress into production. To further accelerate the adoption of Everspin's MRAM in the aerospace and defense segment, we recently signed a strategic partnership with Teledyne's HiRel Semiconductor business unit. Through the partnership, Teledyne HiRel will offer our 64-megabit, 128-megabit and 256-megabit PERSYST STT-MRAM solutions as part of its memory products portfolio for military and aerospace customers with target applications such as avionics, VPX and single-board computer platforms, radar and electronic warfare payloads, satellite electronics and autonomous systems. Last quarter, we discussed our strategy to expand our addressable market in the data center segment by developing products based on the Compute Express Link, or CXL, interface over the next few years. To further efforts on this front, Everspin successfully demonstrated the world's first CXL-connected MRAM at the Storage Networking Industry Association developer conference in September. CXL MRAM combines standard high-speed connectivity with MRAM's persistence. This solution creates a fast, persistent buffer, so data remains available through a power interruption or system restart without relying on battery-backed DRAM or having to first flush data to an SSD. Further, a CXL-MRAM solution enables nanosecond class cache and writes up to 100x faster than NAND-based solid-state storage. A key use for this application is to hold data generated during AI processing before transferring it to long-term storage. Other potential use cases include financial and algorithmic trading systems and in-memory databases, such as online transaction processing, or OLTP, and online analytical processing, or OLAP. Each of these use cases will benefit from CXL MRAM's strong value proposition in small block or low latency writes. We continue to explore ways to expand Everspin's market opportunity. To this end, Everspin led the effort to form a LPDDR persistent memory task group at JEDEC, the standards-setting organization for the semiconductor industry, during their August committee meeting and our VP of Corporate Strategy, Steffen Hellmold, is serving as the Task Group Chair. This effort responds to strong industry demand for persistent memory solutions that can leverage the existing LPDDR ecosystem, thus creating a simpler path for system-level integration and ultimately easing the adoption of MRAM. The work is intended to enable controller support for both DRAM and persistent memory as well as approaches that enable LPDDR DRAM and persistent memory from multiple vendors to operate within compatible system architectures. Potential customers range from edge, IoT, wearable, mobile, enterprise to data center and hyperscale CSP markets. In closing, we remain focused on executing against our priorities, advancing our technology road map and delivering value for our customers and shareholders. We believe our technology, customer relationships and disciplined approach to execution position us well to capitalize on the opportunities ahead. I want to thank our customers for their continued trust and our employees for their commitment and hard work. I will now turn it over to our CFO, Bill Cooper, who will walk you through our third quarter financials and fourth quarter 2026 guidance. Bill?

Thank you, Sanjeev. During the third quarter, we delivered record revenue of $20.6 million, up 47% year-on-year, slightly exceeding our guidance range of $19.5 million to $20.5 million, driven primarily by strong product revenue growth. MRAM product sales, which include both Toggle and STT-MRAM revenue, were $16.9 million, an increase of 34% over the third quarter of the prior year and up 11% sequentially. Licensing, royalty, engineering services and other revenue increased to $3.7 million from $1.4 million in Q3 '25, primarily due to continued revenue recognition on our $40 million subcontract agreement with a U.S. prime contractor. Our GAAP gross margins of 51.4% were consistent when compared to 51.3% in the third quarter of 2025. A more favorable mix of high-margin nonproduct revenue was offset by higher manufacturing and production costs, which impacted product gross margins in the current quarter. To counter rising input costs, we began to institute pricing increases in the fourth quarter and expect product margins to improve sequentially. We continue to target long-term gross margins above 50%. GAAP operating expenses were $18.5 million, up from $8.8 million in the third quarter of 2025. The increase was primarily driven by litigation costs of $6 million. Non-GAAP operating expenses of $8.5 million increased 13% from $7.5 million in the prior year third quarter, driven by increased spending on customer engagement and marketing initiatives. These investments are intended to strengthen customer relationships, expand our market presence and support our long-term revenue growth objectives. Other income remained steady at $0.4 million as our $14.6 million contract for the DoD contractor continues to wind down. We recorded third quarter non-GAAP net income of $3.1 million or $0.12 per diluted share based on 24.4 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding. This was within our guidance range of non-GAAP net income of $0.10 to $0.15 per share and compares to non-GAAP net income of $1.5 million or $0.06 per share in the third quarter of 2025. Our reported non-GAAP results exclude the impact of stock-based compensation, litigation expenses and regulatory provision. Our balance sheet remains strong and debt-free. We ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $43 million, down $2 million from $45 million at the end of the prior quarter. Cash flow generated from operations increased to $0.9 million for the third quarter, up from $0.2 million in the second quarter. Turning to guidance. We expect Q4 total revenue to be in the range of $21.5 million to $22.5 million and GAAP results per fully diluted share to be between a net loss of $0.08 to $0.13 per share. On a non-GAAP basis, we anticipate earnings between $0.13 to $0.18 per fully diluted share. These non-GAAP figures exclude the impact of litigation costs, NRE related to the Microchip MRAM line and stock-based compensation expense. In summary, we are pleased with our continued solid execution and performance on our core business and remain committed to maintaining financial discipline while focusing on scaling our business and converting additional design wins to revenue. Operator, you may now open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from Neil Young with Needham & Company.

My first question, I wanted to ask on litigation costs. So it looks like they stepped up in the quarter. I was hoping maybe you could discuss sort of what the cost assumption is embedded into the 4Q '26 guide. And then maybe, if possible, could you discuss OpEx directionally as a whole as we start to look into next year? And then I have a follow-up.

Yes. Neil, yes, good question. I think what we've seen, obviously, is an uptick in the litigation costs in Q3. What I would say is in Q4, we expect to see some still fairly substantial costs. I would expect that it is going to be slightly lower than what we saw in Q3. And then as we look forward in 2027, one of the things we did want to stress is this matter will go to the ALJ at the end of this year. And then as we move and look forward into 2027, those litigation expenses should reduce significantly.

Great. And then my last one. So you provided some color on product sales by end market this quarter. That was very helpful. But specifically, I was curious in learning more about the new data center wins in Europe you mentioned. So any more detail you can provide there would be great.

Yes. Neil, thank you for that question. The RAID storage configuration that we're basically talking about is the journal memory, and these are mostly with the hyperscalers like Google, Amazon, NXP, those kind of design wins, which are basically what we've seen in Q2 and Q1 of this year as well. And as far as the shipments in Europe, these are mostly related to the energy management applications that have actually turned in from design wins to production in this quarter.

Our next question comes from Jack Vander Aarde with Maxim Group.

Okay. Good to see the solid revenue growth as well as a solid outlook. Sanjeev, maybe a quick question for you. Just overall, you mentioned the design wins kind of across a few of your key segments and how those are ramping up. I'd like to get just a sense of -- I'm not sure if you have this on hand, but I think last year, you had over 238 design wins or something like that, close to that number, which were up from the prior year as well. For design wins overall just tracking this year, are they up overall? Do you have a good sense of that? And just sort of the size and scope of those opportunities?

Jack, good question. So, we usually report our annual design wins at the end of the year in our 10-K. But I think a good indication is the product revenue growth that you're seeing quarter-over-quarter and also year-over-year, that basically indicates the number of design wins that we've been able to turn into production and the new design wins that we're seeing. So I don't have a number to give you, but obviously, they're going up into the north. Sorry, up into the right.

And maybe just a follow-up, too. Across your verticals that you highlighted, definitely you spent a lot of time on defense and data center and then also across some of these newer like medical as well, actually. Just what are some of the segments here though or end market verticals that you see actual potential maybe exciting upside relative to your original thoughts? Where do you see some of the greatest upside potential relative to your plan over the next few years? And then I have a follow-up for Bill.

Sure. So I would say, Jack, that I'm most excited about the low Earth orbit satellite in the aerospace and defense industry. We're also seeing a lot of traction in the data center market. Those are the 2 segments that are growing pretty rapidly, closely followed by industrial automation in general across the world, Japan as well as Europe.

Fantastic. One more question from me for Bill. From a segment perspective, licensing, engineering and other revenues picked up strongly as expected from the recent contract. It was good to see. But what I noticed is that the gross margin in that segment also stayed relatively stable, very strong, close to 90%. Is there any -- is that sort of a reasonable expectation going forward? Or just wondering how much visibility you have given this new revenue stream?

Yes. Jack, thanks for the question. What I would say is that area, the licensing, royalty, engineering services, that really is a high-margin area for us. Typically, we certainly expect it to be, again, fairly high margin. So you can kind of think of it in terms of the 70%, 80%, up to 90% range. Certainly, again, it depends on a number of factors depending on whether it's royalty or foundry services or licensing or engineering services. That's really what that mix of that really drives the margin. But again, it will be a high-margin area.

Our next question comes from Richard Shannon with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

First one I want to ask about is on gross margins and specifically product gross margins here. So, Bill, I think you mentioned in regards to the third quarter margins that you had a positive mix offset by some manufacturing costs. I wonder if you could help us understand both of those dynamics here. Is the mix here product or end market or geography related? And then what are these manufacturing costs? And what's the sustainability of that dynamic?

Yes. So what I would say is, Richard, definitely saw some challenges or some small reduction, a couple of points there lower in terms of the product margins. And we had signaled, right, that we were going to see some -- continue to see some product headwinds in terms of the cost, right, materials and services costs. And obviously, there's a lot of pieces that go into that bucket. And we recognize that, right? We had seen it coming. And for that reason, we instituted a price increase in Q4 as well. We continue to see a good product and nonproduct revenue mix. I think really, we were trying to indicate that, again, those headwinds are really confined to the product side of the equation.

Okay. That is helpful here. A very quick question here. You mentioned the regulatory provision. Can you explain what this is and where this comes from? I have no other context here. So help us understand this one, please.

Right, right. Yes. Good question. So on that one, we actually have a fine that's related to export controls from BIS, a government agency within the Department of Commerce. And so we took that particular provision in anticipation of settling that particular fine agreement. It's not settled yet, but that's our best estimate today of what we expect to close it out.

Okay. Fair enough. Let's see here. Maybe kind of looking forward, a question for Sanjeev. Looking forward to the opportunity to compete against the -- into the NOR Flash space here with some products coming to market next year. I noticed that Infineon sold its memory businesses, including NOR Flash, to, I think, an Asian supplier here. Within that context here as well as what we've seen with some NOR Flash guys who are moving their capacity towards DRAM. Maybe you can talk about the changing dynamics within NOR Flash and how, if anything, might your strategy has changed to enter that market next year?

Yes. Good question, Richard. And we are seeing the same thing or we are hearing the same thing, I guess, that many of the fabs are converting their NOR Flash capacity into DRAM, which is creating a challenge for the NOR Flash capacity or availability. And based on that, we are seeing our distributors actually ask for MRAM parts that would actually replace NOR Flash. And we're starting to see traction over there. And I think you're seeing some of that revenue roll into our reported revenue for Q3 as well. So I think we are all in the -- we are in the right place, and we have the right parts. So I think it's good news even for the UNISYST part, the prototype that's coming out in Q1 of '27 and the follow-on product later in the year. So I think we'll be well positioned for addressing the high-density NOR Flash market as well.

Sanjeev, any way that you'd offer to quantify how much of your products that you think could be because distributors are looking to replace NOR Flash they can't find?

I don't think it's significant or material yet, but we do see traction where it could become significant in Q4 and Q1.

Okay. Is that baked into your revenue guide for this fourth quarter?

It is, yes.

Any way you try to quantify that for us?

We've typically not done that. So let me get back to you on that one.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Josh Sullivan with JonesTrading.

I just wanted to just check in how the CXL MRAM presentation at SAM (sic) [ SNIA ] went and how the customer response has been so far?

Yes. Thank you for that question, Josh. Yes, the demo at CXL went actually very well. We were one of several demo tables over there. And I would say that we had visitors all day long or all day long for 2 days. And then we had several customers that actually were repeat trying to understand the application and the use. So since then, we've actually had several follow-on discussions trying to identify use cases. We obviously don't have anything yet, but we're hoping that we will have something identified here in Q4 or Q1. So a very, very positive response, very well understood that bringing persistence to the solution is very important. And the fact that you can actually connect it to a CXL bus and not worry about compatibility was a huge win and success for us.

And then on the JEDEC task group, what's the time line for kind of setting standards or those conversations to maybe translating into revenues for you guys or at least something that's observable?

Yes. So the JEDEC Group is basically the standards group for the Electronic Devices Council (sic) [ Joint Electron Device Engineering Council. ] And that typically takes about 18 to 24 months to set the standard. So we expect that we will probably reach some kind of agreement with all the participants over the next 12 to 15 months, and that will probably take another quarter for that spec to get published. And our goal is to start the design early next year so that we are actually ready to intersect when this spec is actually published. So 6 months later, hopefully, we'll have samples on hand, which would be an LPDDR6 MRAM that we can then start sampling with our customers. So what I would say is samples by the end of '28, revenue sometime -- early revenue in '29.

Okay. Got it. And then you highlighted the medical market, an area you haven't typically talked about. Why now? What is it that's driving that market? I think you had mentioned that the memory shortage isn't necessarily driving sales at least right now. But curious why the medical market at this point in time is becoming something to highlight.

Yes. Basically, we saw a significant uptick in our product revenue in that segment. So there are some new design wins that we're seeing over there and also some more pull from our customers. And that's the reason why we highlighted it in the prepared remarks today.

And this concludes our Q&A session. I will pass the call back to Sanjeev Aggarwal for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. I really appreciate your time and look forward to our next call, which will be in February sometime. Thank you.

This concludes our conference. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.