Everspin Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRAM) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Richard Shannon: Okay, that is helpful. Maybe another line here on the income statement to talk about here both for the fourth quarter and going forward here. Gross margins, and I’d like to focus on the product gross margins, if I did my math right. Did roughly 49% in the fourth quarter, well first three quarters, the year you’re between $54 and $58. I think you had a more optimal mix in the past quarters, but also some strong yield. So can’t you explain the drop off here into the fourth quarter? How much of that was yield’s product mix and other dynamics?

Anuj Aggarwal: Yeah, so I’ll try to be a little careful here, because I know we don’t provide too much guidance on gross margin, right. I’ll say that, you know, we’ve always communicated that our internal model is between the low-to-mid 50s. I think as you’re seeing the yield stabilizing and the product mix stabilizing, you’re getting back to a more normal expected range for the gross margin and that’s evident in the guidance that we’re providing. In Q4, we did see a little bit higher supplier costs and things like that. But overall, we feel like it’s more in line with the internal model that we’ve shared in the past.

Richard Shannon: Okay, fair enough. Let me jump over to Sanjeev, talking about the new xSPI product here. I just want to kind of ask a big picture, top down question here on how you see this product ramping out this year, if you could give us some maybe bottoms up thoughts here on, you know, attach to FPGAs, MCUs and others and which densities you’ve seen to pick up? And then ultimately, how can we think about revenue contribution from that product line this year?

Sanjeev Aggarwal: Hi, Richard. Thank you for your question. I think it’s an important question to understand our revenue profile going forward. So I think the way to think about it is that, you know, most of our adoption is in the industrial markets. So it is a long cycle time for qualification. So I don’t think you’re going to see significant revenue from the 64 meg or the 16 meg in 2023. Having said that, we have seen strong traction with our customers in Q4. And in Q3 last year, which actually prompted us to tape out a more optimized density and die size at 16 meg. And what that did for us is, that actually opened up the customers that were using alternate memories like SRAM, nvSRAM or ferroelectric memories, FRAM. So I think, think about us taking over some of the market with the low-density parts from nvSRAM and FRAM, and then the high-density, the 64 meg, and then the 32 meg for example, they’re going to basically attach to industrial IoT applications, aerospace and defense, process automation, you know, the standard application that you’ve seen Toggle MRAM get into over the last decade or so.

Richard Shannon: Okay, that’s fair enough. One last question for me. I’ll jump in line here on OpEx. Here you talked about the last couple of quarters about OpEx coming up here as you’re investing more in this new STT-MRAM line. How much long are we going to see kind of, you know, elevated levels of investment in mostly from the R&D line? And then do we see it getting back down to, you know, a level seen earlier last year? Or how do we think about that long-term?

Anuj Aggarwal: Yeah, you know, great question. And, you know, so we don’t normally provide guidance on the OpEx, but what I can share is you know what we expect it to be a little bit higher in Q1, right as we’re getting ready and taping out the lower-density product and getting everything ready, but I expect it to kind of level off and slightly decrease as the year progresses. So if that helps.

Richard Shannon: Yep, that does help me. I’ve asked enough questions. So I think I’ll jump on the line. Thanks for all the answers guys. Appreciate it.