Matt Murphy
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead
Thanks Ashish, and good afternoon everyone. For the first quarter of fiscal 2024, Marvell's revenue was 1.322 billion, above the midpoint of guidance. Higher revenue drove our non-GAAP earnings per share to $0.31, $0.02 above the mid-point. We were guiding revenue for the second quarter to go to 133 billion at the mid-point and expect sequential revenue growth will accelerate in the second half of the fiscal year. Before we get to our results for each end market, let me start by discussing the tremendous opportunity that AI represents for Marvell. In the past, we considered AI to be one of many applications within cloud, but its importance and therefore the opportunity has increased dramatically. Generative AI is rapidly driving new applications and changing the investment priorities for our cloud customers. Today's AI workloads require truly massive datasets. To efficiently process this data, the architecture for AI data centers is significantly different than standard cloud infrastructure. Rather than dual socket servers at the core element in Iraq, the primary building block in AI is a system containing multiple accelerators such as GPUs. In large deployments, thousands of these systems are interconnected to form a data center sized AI cluster, and what's required to interconnect these systems is orders of magnitude higher than in standard cloud infrastructure. To give you an idea, the latest dual CPU server in the cloud data center today can drive up to 200 gigabits per second of IO and contains the network interfaces to support that bandwidth. In contrast, an example of an advanced AI system containing 8 accelerators can drive close to 30 terabits of full duplex bandwidth. As hundreds of times more bandwidth required to connect these systems together, keep in mind, [meeting cloud data] [ph] centers connect thousands of these systems in a single cluster to provide maximum scalability for their customers with each of these systems capable of driving tens of terabits of network traffic. And in order to create the largest possible cluster sizes at data center scale, these connections need to be able to operate over increasingly long distances. These clusters require a staggering amount of high bandwidth connectivity, all of which needs to be provided at ultra-low latency and high reliability. And within a reasonable power outlook. This connectivity is best provided by fully optically connected infrastructure, utilizing digital signal processing and low latency high capacity fabric switches. This is why we see AI as a strong growth driver for our PAM4 optical DSP platform. And it is important to note that these DSPs are compatible with a variety of network protocols such as Ethernet, InfiniBand, and other proprietary solutions for maximum breadth and flexibility. Going forward, we see this trend only accelerating. While today's most advanced AI systems are already using the highest bandwidth interfaces available, it might surprise you to learn that the performance scale of current AI implementations are still constrained by network capacity. Take the [8 accelerator] [ph] AI system I discussed earlier, for example. Those systems today typically contain four 800 gigabit per second optical interfaces for external connectivity, which provide an aggregate of 3.2 terabits per second of bandwidth. But that is in a system capable of driving close to 10x that bandwidth. To bridge this gap, we expect that the number of optical interfaces per AI system to continue to grow as these clusters scale. And the next generation of accelerators are expected to have even more compute capability and higher bandwidth requirements. Given the speed at which AI infrastructure is advancing, the technology refresh rate is happening at 18 months to 24 months versus 4 plus years in standard infrastructure. Altogether, we expect a massive amount of connectivity in these AI clusters, increasing adoption of higher speed optical interfaces, and faster refresh rates to be a major demand drivers for our PAM4 DSP platform. In fact, in our last earnings call, we indicated that the ramp in our industry leading 800 gig DSP platform was driven almost entirely by AI applications. We have also announced the industry's first 1.6 terabit PAM4 DSP platform, doubling the throughput from the current generation, and we expect AI to drive the initial adoption of these products as well. In addition, as inference is deployed at multiple regional data centers, they need to be connected by high bandwidth low latency optical links over tens of kilometers. This technology has noticed data center interconnect or DCI, and Marvell has been a pioneer in this market. We created the industry's first pluggable module for DCI, and we are now providing 400 gigabits per second in our latest DCI product line. We already seen that AI cloud data centers are driving a significant increase in demand for 400 ZR solution. Another demand driver for our DCI products is that the next generation AI implementations are planning on clustering accelerators across different sites. AI is also a key growth driver of demand for switching inside the data center. Marvell has a growing position in the market for low latency high capacity switches, and we are seeing strong demand for our products. We recently announced our next generation 51.2T Teralynx 10 ethernet switching platform. Platform is based on the low latency architecture we acquired from Innovium and is built on Marvell's leading 5 nanometer technology platform. We are seeing strong interest for this product. We expect AI to lead the industry's transition from today's 12.8T switches to 51.2T enabling a quadrupling and network bandwidth. We expect 51.2T adoption will be a strong growth driver for the networking semiconductor market. Putting it all together, Marvell has built both a leading position and network connectivity for AI. We expect tremendous growth for our PAM4 optics DCI and Ethernet switching solutions fueled by the growing investment in AI. Perhaps even more exciting is Marvell's opportunity to address compute in AI through our cloud optimized silicon platform. As you heard earlier, the architecture of an AI data center is fundamentally different. In standard cloud infrastructure, the bulk of the compute is performed by CPUs, while accelerators are primarily used for off-load tasks, such as networking and security. In contrast in AI infrastructure, accelerators like GPUs are the primary compute engines, while CPUs are used for control purposes, a 180 degree reversal from standard cloud infrastructure. Fundamental difference results in a higher ratio of accelerators to CPUs and AI with accelerators now to dominate compute opportunity. This combined with the sharp increase in AI investment is driving a higher proportion of the incremental compute [PAM] [ph] in cloud data centers towards accelerators. Today, we see cloud customers enhancing their AI offerings by building custom accelerators of their own designed to address their specific needs. This is a core part of Marvell's cloud optimized silicon strategy, and we now see a much larger and faster growing opportunity for custom compute and AI infrastructure. When we previously discussed our cloud optimized silicon opportunities and revenue ramp expectations at our Investor Day in October 2021, we projected revenue from the first set of design wins to grow to $800 million annually once all the programs were in production. These designs included a variety of accelerated computing applications including AI, security, storage, and video along with several networking applications. When we look today at the same set of design wins, driven by AI, our total lifetime revenue expectations from these have increased significantly. Same time, the relative proportion of projected lifetime revenue from AI has increased from approximately 20% in our prior forecast to well over half today. As a result, computing and AI applications has now grown to become the single largest revenue driver and opportunity for Marvell's cloud optimized silicon platform. The continuing increase in demand from AI, we see annual revenue from those same set of cloud optimized design wins, well exceeding the prior 800 million projection as these programs ramp over time. In fact, we have a number of custom silicon products tied to AI expected to ramp into volume production next year. As an example for one of these programs, initial samples are already up and running at our customer's lab and qualification is proceeding well. And in other case, we expect to take out this quarter and deliver first silicon before the end of the calendar year. As you can see, in addition to our strong position in network connectivity for AI, we believe we are well-positioned to address the compute opportunity. Over the last few months, we have taken time and carefully map our revenue from AI so we can track its progress over time. Given the tremendous progress we've made, including the recent demand increases from our customers, we are expecting our revenue driven by AI applications to grow at an accelerated pace. In fiscal 2023, we estimate that our AI revenue was approximately 200 million, up dramatically from the prior year. This revenue was primarily from our PAM4 optics and 400ZR DCI products. Since our last earnings call in early March, bookings for these products have increased very significantly. As a result, we expect Marvell's overall AI revenue to at least double in fiscal 2024. Looking to fiscal 2025, we expect robust growth to continue from AI for network connectivity. Layering on top of this is the growth we expect from the ramp of the cloud optimized programs we discussed earlier in the call. In aggregate, we foresee our overall AI revenue to at least double again next year. In other words, we are forecasting an AI revenue growth CAGR over 100% over the fiscal 2023 to 2025 time frame. In the future, we expect generative AI implementations involving video and images to provide a tailwind to overall storage and exabyte growth, both in HDD and Flash. However, it is difficult to accurately allocate revenue from our storage business specifically to AI. So, the AI revenue forecast I just discussed does not include any storage contributions. In addition, we expect the increase in network traffic from AI will also provide a tailwind for our broader networking portfolio over time, which we have not yet captured in our AI revenue forecast. We've seen rapid shifts in our cloud customers plan to spending on AI infrastructures becoming a much bigger portion of their CapEx. We believe that Marvell is one of a scarce few semiconductor companies positioned to enable this trend and is uniquely able to participate in all three aspects of AI systems, networking, compute, and storage. We set out in 2016 to pivot Marvell to data infrastructure and have successfully executed that strategy, forming the right team, technology, and customer relationships to lead in this market. With AI becoming the ultimate data infrastructure application, Marvell is at the center of this incredible transformation. We are confident that we will be one of the most relied on semiconductor companies to help our customers achieve their vision. We look forward to sharing our continued progress in AI in the future. Let me move on now to reviewing our results and expectations by end market starting with data center. In our data center end market, revenue for the first quarter was 436 million, declining 32% year-over-year and 12% sequentially. Our overall data center revenue in the first quarter was higher than guidance driven by cloud where we saw stronger demand for our optical data center interconnect products from expanding AI deployments. As expected, storage was responsible for the majority of the overall sequential decline in our data center revenue in the first quarter, although we are forecasting sequential growth to start in the second quarter and our data center storage business continue to grow in the second half. Looking ahead to the second quarter for our overall data center end market, we expect cloud revenue to grow over 10% sequentially. However, we are expecting the enterprise on-premise portion of our data center end market to decline an offset growth from cloud. As a result, we expect revenue from our overall data center end market to be flat sequentially in the second quarter. Turning to our carrier infrastructure end market, revenue for the first quarter was 290 million growing 15% year-over-year and 5% sequentially. We saw strong demand for our wireless products, as 5G adoption continued to expand in new geographic regions along with our customer specific product ramps. This resulted in approximate 25% sequential growth in wireless revenue. Partially offsetting our wireless growth was the start of inventory digestion in our wired end market. Moving on to our outlook for the next quarter, we expect revenue from our overall carrier end market to decline in the mid-single-digits sequentially, due to continued inventory digestion in our wired end market. Moving on to our enterprise networking end market. Revenue for the first quarter was 365 million, growing 27% year-over-year and flat sequentially, which is better than our guidance. Our first quarter enterprise networking results reflected a strong ramp in custom ASICs offset by our planned reduction in channel and customer inventory of our merchant products. Looking ahead to the second quarter of fiscal 2024, we project our enterprise networking revenue to decline by more than 10% sequentially, due to inventory corrections in this end market. Turning to our automotive and industrial end market, revenue in the first quarter was 89 million, flat year-over-year and declining 10% sequentially. While our automotive business continues to deliver strong growth both year-over-year and sequentially, these gains were offset by a decline in our industrial business. Looking to the second quarter of fiscal 2024, we project revenue from our auto and industrial end market to grow sequentially in the low teens on a percentage basis. Moving on to our consumer end market, revenue for the first quarter was 142 million below our guidance declining 20% year-over-year and 21% sequentially. Looking ahead to the second quarter, we are forecasting revenue to grow sequentially in the mid-30% range, driven by strong seasonal growth in demand for our custom SSD controllers. In addition, we are expecting growth from our ACD controllers as we start shipping closer to end market consumption. In summary, we are guiding sequential growth to resume starting with the second quarter and we expect growth will accelerate in the second half of the fiscal year. Few markets remain choppy and we expect revenue from our wired and enterprise end markets to continue to trend down due to macroeconomic uncertainty and inventory corrections. We expect revenue from our wireless end market to step-up in the third quarter before taking a pause and declining in the fourth quarter. We see many positive signs in our data center end markets. We are forecasting our data center storage revenue to resume growth in the second quarter and continue to improve as we start shipping closer to end market demand. Putting aside storage, we expect cloud to be the key growth driver for our data center revenue. We are guiding our cloud revenue to grow over 10% sequentially in the second quarter, and we are seeing a significant increase in demand from AI for the rest of the year. In addition, we expect our cloud optimized silicon programs to ramp more meaningfully as the year progresses, in-line with the revised expectations we outlined during last quarter's call. As a result, we are confident in our expectations for higher growth for the company in the second half of the year. We also expect to drive significant margin improvement going forward. We anticipate that inventory corrections will be mostly behind us by the end of this year, and we are excited about the resumption of revenue growth driven by Marvell's specific product ramps. We have been laser focused on a number of cost improvement actions to improve gross margin. As a result, we have confidence in our forecast for our non-GAAP gross margin to return to at least the low-end of our target range in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year. We've been in extensive discussions with our customers and have a clear view of their current road maps. While some programs have been pushed out, others have been accelerated. We are aggressively reprioritizing our investments, aligning to the highest ROI opportunities in front of us. We are also focused on driving additional efficiency to further reduce our operating expenses. We are making strategic road map adjustments and combining some of our businesses to reflect changes in the market. As an example, resulting from our customers' growing needs for custom compute, we've combined our custom ASIC and processor product groups into a single organization. Other teams are also working on efficiency improvements. As a result, we expect our OpEx to exit at a lower run rate than previously communicated. This discipline on expenses is expected to carry into fiscal 2025 and help us to deliver strong operating leverage going forward. Willem will provide more details in his commentary. Before closing, I'd like to express my appreciation to Rick Hill, who will be retiring from the Marvell Board at the end of his current term. Rick joined Marvell a little over 7 years ago as Chairman of the Board and acting CEO during a very difficult time. He moved quickly to stabilize the company, personally reassuring customers, employees, and shareholders. He helped establish a world-class board of directors and was instrumental in the recruiting of the first key group of executives. I joined Marvell in large part because of Rick. It is very rare to find an individual who is willing to contribute their time and energy and impart their wisdom to others for the satisfaction of seeing a company thrive and the next generation leaders succeed. At the most critical moments over the past 7 years, Rick always had the Marvell teams back and his belief in the team enabled us to take bold steps to transform the company. Without his leadership and mentorship, Marvell would not be where it is today. I'm truly grateful to Rick for his exceptional contributions to Marvell, and it's an honor for me to succeed him as Board Chair. Additionally, I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Ed Frank, who joined us from the Cavium Board in 2018. Ed has been an outstanding director and will be retiring for the Marvell Board when his term expires in June. I'm grateful to Ed for his years of dedicated service to Marvell. Finally, I want to thank our dedicated team of employees. Together, we are moving forward with confidence that Marvell's best days are yet to come. With that, I'll turn the call over to Willem for more detail on our recent results and outlook.