Gene Sheridan
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open
Thank you, Steve and welcome to everyone on the call today. I’m very pleased with our Q4 results, which came in above our midpoint guidance across all key metrics. For 2022 in total, I'm especially happy with the dramatic expansion and diversification we achieved both organically and through acquisitions. Navitas entered this year with a solid position in five major growth markets with leading edge GaN and silicon carbides, along with complimentary silicon drivers and controllers. Such a position give us confidence to reiterate our expectations to double our revenues in 2023 as compared to 2022. This month, we completed the buyout of our Silicon Control, our joint venture, constituting our third transaction in just nine months. All major steps in building up portfolio of leading edge GaN, silicon carbide with silicon-based digital isolators and analog controllers optimized for wide band-gap materials, which we believe is unequal in our industry. This pure-play focus on next-generation power semiconductors without any distraction or dilution by traditional silicon power devices, uniquely positioned Navitas for growth and leadership in next-generation electrified systems from EV and renewables to industrial and appliance markets to mobile consumer and data center segments. In total, these transactions have expanded our market opportunity by 75% from $13 billion to over $23 billion per year by 2026. 2022 is an extraordinary year for our company. We rapidly expanded into these new market segments transitioning from a company in 2021 that was 100% mobile consumer focused to a more diversified set of markets resulting in 2022 revenues with approximately 30% in appliance and industrial, 12% in solar and storage, 5% in EV, and 40% in mobile and consumer segments. With these diversified markets, also comes a diversified regional footprint with 24% of our 22 sales in North America, 32% in Europe, and 44% in Asia. Let me explain further about our joint venture controller transaction. Elevation Semiconductor was a JV created in 2021 with Halo Microelectronics. The JV was started to create application-specific silicon antelope controllers optimized for high frequency GaN and silicon carbide to enable even higher efficiency, density and integration at a lower cost. As you know, Navitas has a unique capability with organic integrated circuits. Much of what we're integrating again has traditionally been designed into these silicon analog controllers. With this new capability and controllers, we can accelerate our pace of development and innovation with the optimal partitioning and integration between the silicon controllers and again, power devices to deliver more value and a more complete solution to our customers. The initial products from this venture target mobile chargers, consumer adapters and appliance auxiliary power supplies. Over time, we expect this technology will be introduced in all of our target markets, including EV, solar and storage, data center and more industrial applications. We closed the Elevation transaction last week with 20 new employees joining our company, composed mainly of design applications, products and test engineers. The first generation products were introduced last year and already have generated dozens of customer lens and appreciable ramping revenues. These products will be rebranded as Navitas plus we will launch a new generation family in March at the APEX Expo Electronic show. Let's turn our progress to each of our target markets. In EV, we've established a strong position with our silicon carbide technology in ultra-fast roadside chargers. Our level three DC fast chargers deliver up to 350 kilowatts of power or up to 20 miles per minute of charging, and at 10% to 80% charge in only 18 minutes dramatically reducing range anxiety concerns for consumers. Our silicon carbide differentiation resides in the technology itself in which we deliver industry leading in-circuit efficiencies and cooler temperatures. Furthermore, level three charger architectures are moving to a higher bus voltage from 1000 volts to 1500 volts, which helps to increase power density, simplify designs, and further improve efficiency, reliability, and cost. A 1500 volt bus requires up to 3,300 volt silicon carbide device capability. A voltage range for Navitas silicon carbide brings unequal performance with limited competition. Our silicon carbide technology has already been adopted by over a dozen roadside charger customers and is being integrated in over 50% of the U.S. roadside chargers, including Electrify America and EVgo. Just one of these customers, we expect shipments to approach a million units by the end of Q2. The total roadside charger potential for selling carbide is estimated to be over $1 billion by 2030, growing at a 30% annual growth rate. We believe this year's rollout of the Inflation reduction Act, which includes $7.5 billion for EV charging infrastructure, will accelerate this roadside charger growth rate and adds significant upside to this market. This month, the Biden administration announced a goal to install a half a million EV chargers in the U.S. by 2030 with all EV chargers funded through the bipartisan infrastructure law built in the United States. Also by July 2024, at least 55% of the cost of all components only to be manufactured domestically, which matches well with our Texas based silicon carbide wafer manufacturing with our supply chain partner X-FAB. In addition to the roadside chargers, our silicon carbide technology is in development or production for EV onboard chargers with major customers that include General Motors, BYD, and Mercedes AMG. As previously announced, we have created a joint EV design center with Geely, a rising China-based EV player with almost 10% of worldwide EV sales in 2022. This center will initially co-develop next-generation onboard chargers for Geely, utilizing a combination of GaN, silicon carbide and digital isolators to address both 400 volt and 800 volt battery system. With the Geely Center and our existing EV system design center, we are developing five onboard system platforms supporting 10 customer projects to utilize our GaN or silicon carbide and we are still on track for our first GaN based EVs in production in 2025. Let's turn to renewable energy. We installed solar power capacity is expected to exceed that of natural gas in 2026 and of coal by 2027 becoming the largest in the world, reflecting a 3x increase in installed capacity from 2022 to 2027. In commercial string inverters, we have over 20 customers in production or development today, including AP Systems, Power Electronics, Chint, Growatt, Sungrow, BYD and X-FAB. As with EV, DC fast chargers, bus voltages and solar and energy storage are also rising to 1500 volts, driving more of this market to our strength with 3,300 volt silicon carbide capability. As recently announced, [indiscernible] has achieved 25°C cooler temperatures and 3x longer expected lifetime in their 4.6 kilowatt solar string inverters. Thanks to our unique trench-assisted planar, silicon carbide technology. For residential solar, microinverters convert low voltage DC to high voltage AC power at 350 to 450 watts per individual panel, here, GaN is still on track for a significant 2024 revenue ramp with multiple solar residential customers. We also anticipate accelerated growth in this segment as the Inflation Reduction Act dedicates over $50 billion to solar, storage and wind starting this year. Turning to home appliance and industrial applications. We continue to make excellent progress across GaN and silicon carbide, and we now have over 45 customer projects either in production or development. In gallium nitride, our GaNSense half-bridge ICs are shipping in high volume in the appliance market, while silicon carbide is shipping in volume today with high power industrial motor control applications. In total, we anticipate 2023 appliance and industrial revenues will increase nicely as a percentage of Navitas revenues. Here again, the Inflation Reduction Act dedicates $9 billion to upgrade U.S. home appliance efficiencies, which we anticipate will create additional tailwinds in this segment. In data center news, the European Union’s high efficiency requirement for power supplies known as Titanium Plus came into effect on January 1. Navitas dedicated data center team continues to develop four high performance system platforms to deliver Titanium Plus efficiencies, higher power density and lower system cost compared to legacy silicon systems. These system platforms have enabled 10 customer development projects, all of which target production later this year or early 2024. In mobile, fast and ultra-fast charging for smartphones and laptops, design wins continue at a strong pace despite the market slowdown in 2022. Last year, Navitas and our customers developed nearly 100 new GaN fast charger designs from Samsung, Oppo, Lenovo, Dell, Anchor and more plus the recent 210 watt GaN fast charger for Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 12, which enables 100% charge in a lightning fast 9 minutes. In addition, our GaN technology is utilized in the new OnePlus 210 watt fast charger and Navitas just featured in the global OnePlus 11 5G launch alongside Google, Qualcomm and other major technology partners. And this week we announced the Realme GT 3 with a 240 watt GaN fast charger. Given our market expansion and diversification, we anticipate our mobile and consumer business to be appreciably less as a percentage of revenue in 2023 as compared to 2022. In summary, 2022 was a year of significant expansion and diversification of technology markets and regions. Now with leading edge GaN, silicon carbide, digital isolators and analog controllers, we are uniquely positioned to displace legacy silicon power devices in multi-billion dollar established markets, while also enabling the electrification of major new growth markets like solar, energy, storage and electric vehicles. Now over to Ron Shelton, our CFO.