Power Integrations Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 6, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Neutral Sentiment: Jen Lloyd appointed CEO with Executive Chairman Balu Balakrishnan transitioning through February 2026 before moving to a consulting role to ensure leadership continuity.
  • Positive Sentiment: Q2 revenue rose 9% year-over-year to $116 million with non-GAAP EPS of $0.35, $29 million in operating cash flow, and over 1% of shares repurchased.
  • Negative Sentiment: Q3 guidance of $118 million ± $5 million reflects tariff-driven appliance weakness and a roughly 20% drop in July bookings, signaling a two-quarter inventory correction.
  • Positive Sentiment: Expanded GaN roadmap includes a 5th-generation TinySwitch up to 175 W, upcoming GaN top-switch products, and leading 1250 V and 1700 V GaN ICs—validated by TSMC’s planned 2027 GaN foundry exit.
  • Positive Sentiment: High-power and automotive segments gain momentum with 40% H1 revenue growth in gate drivers and Q2 design wins for traction inverters, solar/battery storage inverters, and electric buses.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Power Integrations Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

There are 9 speakers on the call.

Speaker 8

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Power Integrations Incorporated Q2 earnings call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press *0 for the operator. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joe Shiffler, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Operator

Thanks, Aubrey. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. With me on the call today are Executive Chairman Balu Balakrishnan, our CFO, Sandeep Nayyar, and for the first time, Jen Lloyd, who joined Power Integrations last month as President and CEO. After prepared remarks from Balu, Jen, and Sandeep, we'll take your questions. During this call, we will refer to financial measures not calculated according to GAAP. Non-GAAP measures exclude stock-based compensation expenses, amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, other operating expenses stemming from an employment litigation matter, and the tax effects of these items. A reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to our GAAP results is included in today's press release. Our discussion today, including the Q&A session, will include forward-looking statements denoted by words like will, would, could, should, expect, outlook, forecast, estimate, anticipate, and similar expressions that look toward future events or performance.

Operator

Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied. Such risks are discussed in today's press release and in our most recent Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 7, 2025. This call is the property of Power Integrations, and any recording or rebroadcast is expressly prohibited without the written consent of Power Integrations. Now, I'll turn it over to Balu.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Joe, and good afternoon. My role on today's call is simply to introduce Jen Lloyd, who took over as CEO just a couple of weeks ago. Jen came to us after a distinguished run of 28 years at Analog Devices, where she ran multiple businesses with a billion-plus in revenues. Most recently, she ran Analog's multi-market power business, responsible for strategy, products, P&L, and a large global team. She also previously served on our Board of Directors, stepping down in 2022 when she was assigned to run the power business at ADI. When the time came to search for a new CEO, Jen's name came to mind immediately. While we considered a number of excellent candidates, Jen was the clear choice, and I'm delighted that she has joined us.

Speaker 5

She has an outstanding track record of delivering innovative products to the market, attracting and motivating talented engineers, and driving profitable growth. She obviously knows the power semi-space, and from her time on our Board, she's already well acquainted with our business model and our culture. I have agreed to serve as Executive Chairman of the Board until February 2026, working alongside Jen to ensure a seamless transition. After this transition period, I will assume a non-executive board seat and take on a consulting role, assisting Jen and the Board in any way they ask me to. In particular, I expect to focus on innovation initiatives as well as IP matters, including any patent litigation that might arise, reflecting my history with the company and my patent holdings. While I plan to remain involved with the company for as long as I'm needed, this will be my final earnings call.

Speaker 5

Before I turn the call over to Jen, I would like to thank all of you in the investment community who have followed and supported Power Integrations over the years. Thank you to our stockholders for putting your trust in us. As a fellow owner, it was of utmost importance to me to leave our company in good hands, and I'm confident we have achieved that. To the analysts who have covered our stock for so many years, and some of you since our IPO all the way back in 1997, I have learned a great deal from you about our industry and your industry too, and I will certainly miss working with all of you. With that, I'll turn it over to Jen.

Speaker 7

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you, Balu. It's really an honor to take the reins from you as CEO of Power Integrations. Since my time on the board, I've admired the franchise you've built in high voltage, as well as the foundational technologies that will drive our future growth. I'll have more to say in the months ahead about my plans to deliver that growth and get us on a path toward a billion dollars in revenue. In the brief time we have today, I'll share a few thoughts on the opportunities I see ahead of us and discuss a few key developments since the last earnings call. The core of our business, almost 90% of sales, is power conversion ICs for appliances, consumer electronics, and a wide array of industrial applications. We have a market-leading portfolio of products for these markets, with more in the pipeline.

Speaker 7

For example, our flagship InnoSwitch platform represents the state-of-the-art in power supply architecture, building isolation into the package and eliminating optical feedback to simplify the system and enhance reliability. We're leveraging the technologies at the heart of InnoSwitch into our automotive efforts and into new disruptive products like our multi-output InnoMux ICs. We're also refreshing legacy product families to support their annuity-like revenue streams. Our new fifth-generation TinySwitch extends the simplicity of that architecture to 175 watts of output, more than 6x the previous generation, and provides a significant improvement in efficiency and standby consumption. In the coming months, we'll introduce a GaN version of our TOPSwitch products, giving longtime TOPSwitch customers a way to tap into the efficiency of GaN at extended power levels. Notwithstanding the near-term uncertainty, our core business is back on a growth trajectory after the long post-pandemic down cycle.

Speaker 7

After our exit from China's cell phones last year, the mix of our business is stickier with a higher margin profile. In India, we have a major role in the ongoing 5G fixed wireless rollout, as well as the planned installation of 250 million smart meters. We're also growing our metering business in other geographies, with three new design wins in Japan in Q2 and one in Europe using a GaN-based InnoSwitch. Overall, metering revenues are on track to grow 20% plus this year, and our higher voltage GaN products offer a path to ASP expansion in that market as customers upgrade existing silicon designs. GaN is already driving growth in notebooks, TVs, gaming, and many more applications. In fact, revenues from GaN products are up more than 50% for the first half of the year.

Speaker 7

While our core consumer appliance business faces short-term headwinds due to tariffs and stagnant housing markets, we remain bullish on the long-term opportunity. Rising wealth in emerging markets is making appliances affordable for more people every day, and tighter efficiency standards are driving adoption of GaN and brushless DC motors, all of which should benefit us as short-term headwinds subside. While I'm pleased that our core business is growing again, what's really exciting about the Power Integrations story is the opportunity to level up our business into higher power, higher value systems. Advanced high-voltage semiconductors are essential in EVs, AI data centers, electric rail, and in modern power grids centered on renewable energy, battery storage, and long-distance DC transmission. It's early days for me here, but it's already clear to me that we have the technology and the system-level know-how to win in these markets.

Speaker 7

On the high end of the power scale, we have the world's premier gate driver technology for IGBT and silicon carbide modules. Since entering the gate driver business more than a decade ago, we have invested in products and design support capabilities to prepare for the expanding opportunity in clean energy, electrification, and modern power infrastructure. These investments are paying off with customers driving more than 40% growth in high power revenues in the first half of 2025. High power design wins in Q2 included a traction inverter for a major U.S. heavy equipment manufacturer, solar and battery storage inverters for a Spanish OEM, and silicon carbide drivers for an electric bus at a European EV OEM. The other critical asset enabling the pivot to higher power is our proprietary GaN technology.

Speaker 7

Power Integrations was first to market with high-voltage GaN in 2019 and has executed an aggressive roadmap on multiple dimensions: cost, voltage, and power. While GaN is already driving growth in our core power supply business, it is also the key to our SAM expansion plans and ultimately our path to a billion dollars in revenue. Two important developments have occurred in the GaN space since the Q1 earnings call. First is the decision by TSMC to exit the GaN foundry business in 2027. While this creates challenges for competitors relying on TSMC, the real significance from our perspective is that it validates a core tenet of our strategy. For power transistors, process technology and device design are interdependent, and controlling both to optimize system performance is the best path to success, whether in silicon, silicon carbide, or GaN.

Speaker 7

It is no surprise that IDMs are moving into the GaN space, and we're well positioned to compete with our fabulous IDM model and well over a decade of GaN development, experience, and know-how. Owning the process and the device technologies used in our products allows us to differentiate at the transistor level on factors such as cost and voltage rating. Control over manufacturing parameters, yields, performance, and quality gives us maximum flexibility to develop system-level products for the markets and applications we target. Our system-level expertise allows us to extract the maximum performance from our proprietary GaN technology and provide system-level reliability and ruggedness. This relates to the other recent development in GaN, which is NVIDIA's announcement that it will support an 800-volt DC architecture in the next generation AI data centers.

Speaker 7

The new architecture will save space and improve efficiency by reducing the need for rack-level AC to DC converters and drastically reduce copper usage by enabling lower current. Power density is the name of the game here, and the 800 to 54-volt conversion at the server board will likely require GaN to achieve the kind of densities needed in next-generation data centers. Our 1250V GaN can support an 800-volt rail in a conventional architecture, whereas lower voltage technologies like 650V GaN will require stacking of multiple devices, compromising power density and adding complexity. While silicon carbide is capable of handling 800 volts, GaN's higher switching speed enables a smaller transformer and higher efficiency, again resulting in higher power density. We are the only company shipping 1250V GaN today, and we designed our technology with the higher voltage applications in mind.

Speaker 7

Data center architectures will continue to evolve beyond the 800 volts, and we're ahead of the curve with 1700V technology already in the market and higher voltages still to come. We've taken the right technology steps to be well positioned to offer system-level solutions, and my focus will be to make sure that our product development efforts are aligned with the markets we're going after. At Analog Devices, I oversaw the introduction of many, many products, including system-level ICs and modules. I know what it takes to define and develop complex products that anticipate and meet customers' needs and are delivered on time. Markets like data center and automotive have different requirements than the broad-based low-power markets that comprise our core business, and I will be adapting our teams and our processes to those needs. Before I turn it over to Sandeep, I'll comment on the near-term outlook.

Speaker 7

Orders have slowed in recent weeks, likely reflecting customer caution around constantly changing tariff headlines. Our third-quarter revenue outlook of $118 million, plus or minus $5 million, reflects continued strength in the industrial category and in GaN products, tempered by softness in appliances, which make up most of our consumer category. Steel tariffs and tariffs on finished goods tend to be meaningful in this market, given the high dollar value and steel content of most appliances. A large U.S. appliance customer reported recently that Asian OEMs have continued to load inventory into the U.S. to take advantage of delays in tariff implementation, which is likely to affect demand from our Asian customers in the second half. However, channel inventory of our products remains healthy, which should enable our business to re-accelerate as excess finished goods inventory clears.

Speaker 7

Meanwhile, we continue to see growth in our industrial business led by high power and metering, as well as new designs ramping in automotive as that business builds towards a material revenue contribution in 2026. Next, Sandeep will cover the details of the second quarter results. Sandeep?

Speaker 5

Thanks, Jen, and good afternoon. On second quarter, our second quarter results were on target with revenues up 9% year over year to $116 million and non-GAAP EPS of $0.35. We generated $29 million in cash from operations and repurchased more than 1% of our outstanding shares during the quarter at an average price of about $46. Looking at the revenue details, sales were up 10% sequentially. As expected, industrial was the primary driver of the increase, rising nearly 30% from the prior quarter on strength in metering, home and building automation, broad-based industrial, and high power, where we saw growth in solar energy and high voltage DC transmission. Communication revenues increased more than 20% sequentially, driven mainly by seasonal trends in cell phone. Similarly, seasonal trends in tablets drove a high single-digit increase in the computer category.

Speaker 5

As we previewed on last quarter's call, consumer revenues were sequentially lower, down mid-single digits after an unusually strong first quarter that benefited from front-running of tariffs. Revenue mix for the quarter was 40% industrial, 37% consumer, 12% computer, and 11% communications. Non-GAAP gross margin for the second quarter was 55.8%, down 10 basis points from the prior quarter, as a slightly more favorable mix was offset by higher input costs flowing through our inventory. Non-GAAP operating expenses were $46.7 million, up sequentially, due mainly to annual salary increases, which took effect early in the quarter, and also driven by executive transition costs and litigation expenses. The non-GAAP effective tax rate was 4%, resulting in non-GAAP earnings of $19.9 million or $0.35 per diluted share. Diluted share count was 56.4 million, down about 700,000 from the prior quarter, driven by repurchases.

Speaker 5

Our GAAP results included one unusual item in the second quarter. That was a charge of $9 million related to an employment litigation case in California. We are contesting the outcome in post-trial motion seeking reversal of the damages award and potentially a new trial, and plan to appeal if necessary. The cash impact, if any, would occur only at the completion of that process. Inventories on the balance sheet fell by 30 days to 296 days. Channel inventory fell by three-tenths of a week to 7.6 weeks, well within what we consider to be a normal range. Cash flow from operations was $29 million for the quarter, while CapEx was $6 million. We returned $44 million to stockholders during the quarter, including $32.6 million in the form of buybacks and $11.8 million in dividends.

Speaker 5

We repurchased just over 700,000 shares during the quarter with an average price of about $46, as noted earlier. At quarter end, we had $42 million remaining on our repurchase authorization. Turning to the Q3 outlook, as Jen noted, our revenue expectation reflects limited near-term visibility with customer caution around tariffs offsetting company-specific growth drivers. We expect revenues to be in the range of $118 million plus or minus $5 million. I expect non-GAAP gross margin to be between 55% and 55.5%, down slightly from the prior quarter on higher input costs flowing through our inventory, as well as a slightly smaller benefit from the dollar-yen exchange rate. Non-GAAP operating expenses for Q3 should be around $47.5 million, up modestly from Q2, driven mainly by legal costs and R&D activity.

Speaker 5

I expect the non-GAAP tax rate to be around 5%, while other income should be similar to the second quarter levels. Now, operator, let's begin the Q&A session.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the number one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the number two. If you are using a speaker phone, please lift the handset before pressing any key. One moment, please, for your first question. Our first question comes from David Williams of The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. First off, a different thank you or congratulations on the CEO appointment there. We're certainly looking forward to working with you, although it is unfortunate that Balu will be, we will certainly miss him.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 8

Thanks, David.

Speaker 4

I guess with that, it sounds like there's a lot of different dynamics going on in the market in terms of the tariffs and maybe some of the cautious pull-through and what we've seen through the first half of the year. I guess, how do you think about the guidance in terms of being de-risked based on kind of all of these different undercurrents? Can you maybe talk a little bit about where your bookings are kind of exiting the quarter? Thanks.

Speaker 5

Yeah, David, thanks. Our bookings at the beginning of the quarter actually were healthy, and we thought, you know, using the normal turn, the business that we get between 20% and 30%, and in fact, last quarter we had, you know, like 27% turns, that we would have a reasonably higher quarter than we have guided. The month of July saw a real slowdown in bookings where our bookings in July were nearly 20% below the normal run rate of the prior months. Seeing that and basically hearing what the others have talked about about the Q4 quarter in their calls, it clearly, you know, as you know, we see things much earlier than them, at least by a quarter. That's why you're seeing us guide the way we are based on the bookings and based on what we are hearing.

Speaker 5

Because of the tariffs, clearly we are seeing the impact in an appliance business. Especially if you look at our major appliances, they grew, you know, nearly 15% in the first half. That clearly shows, which is well above our, you know, normal growth rate in that business, as well as design wins, which led to us to believe there was clearly some front-running that happened there. When you hear people like the big U.S. company talking about how the Chinese OEMs have been putting in a lot of finished goods in the U.S. prior to the tariffs, it leads us to believe that'll have an impact in the second half. Putting all that together, that's why we have guided to the level we have guided.

Speaker 4

Great color there. Thanks for that. Maybe just kind of thinking about the strategy going forward, there were a couple of things that you had mentioned in terms of your prior experience and how you feel like your strategy will be deployed here at Power Integrations. Just wondering, can you kind of talk through some of the higher-level things that you're thinking about? Obviously, you know, we've always thought Power Integrations ran very efficiently and very well. Coming in, I think you might have a different view. Could you kind of give us maybe a level set of where your head is in terms of thinking of the strategy? Thank you.

Speaker 7

Sure, absolutely. Power Integrations has a great foundation, great technology here, high-voltage expertise, system expertise, and so on. I think what I see as a gap or where we can improve is on the R&D efficiency and driving improvements there. I think the end goal is really to invigorate the growth to achieve the model that we set out, the double-digit growth model. I think the applications that we're looking at, those are great applications that fit very well with the technology that we have. We have to have the products out there to meet the needs of the customers in those application areas. Areas like data center, automotive, and leveraging the capabilities in high voltage is what we want to do, but we got to make the engine efficient.

Speaker 4

Thanks so much. I'll jump back in with you.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Our next question comes from Tore Egil Svanberg of Stifel. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi, Torry.

Operator

Sorry for speaking. We can't hear you. Okay, Aubrey, why don't we move on to the next and we'll come back to Tore?

Speaker 8

Got it. Our next question comes from Ross Clark Seymore of Deutsche Bank AG. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hi, everybody. Can you hear me okay?

Operator

Yes. Hi, Ross.

Speaker 2

All right. Perfect. Just making sure. First, Balu, congrats and sad to see you go as well. We've been a little bit longer and Jen, congrats on the new leadership role. I guess my question for the third quarter guide, you talked in the prior question a little bit about some of the dynamics you're seeing in aggregate. Could you talk a little bit about how you're seeing them by segment? I know you said industrial is still strong, consumer has the appliance issues, but when you think about the puts and takes versus the slightly up guidance, how do the segments work out?

Speaker 5

Yeah, I think you're not going to see much mix. I think growing from $116 million to $118 million, pretty much what you're seeing is you're going to see industrial and consumer to be kind of flattish, and the growth, little growth coming from the other two segments. Actually, in consumer, even though it looks flattish, the appliances are really down because we have won the design win in video games that is kind of offsetting that. Really, the bread and butter major appliances and the comfort appliances are actually down. I think the reasons that I attributed to about how strong the first half was, plus the tariffs, is really, but I think what really changed for us is the real slowdown on bookings that happened in July for us to give caution a little bit here.

Speaker 2

Got it. Thank you for that color, Sandeep. I guess for any of you, but maybe Jen, the longer-term item that you talked about, the material revenue in automotive for next year, et cetera, I guess a two-part question. One, are you seeing any changes in the roadmaps for those or the desire and uptake of those products, given the uncertainty that you have in the near term? Two, what does material mean in automotive?

Speaker 7

Yeah, okay. I'll just take the first question on the automotive roadmap and maybe the progress that we're making. I mean, we're continuing to make really good progress with automotive, with the roadmap that we have that we set out. We've got products in, I think, about 30 cars on the road now, mainly in China, but we also now have some models hitting the road soon in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. We're continuing to win designs. I think last quarter you heard about our first GaN design win for automotive, and we had wins this quarter across a number of regions. We had a couple in China, but also one in India and a couple in the U.S. In terms of the uptake, we're still on track for high single digits in millions this year, and we're expecting that to continue ramping next year and beyond.

Speaker 5

Yeah, basically, Ross, you know, we had talked about 2026 where the meaningful revenue, where we get into the low tens of millions, we are actually tracking to that. I think we talked about towards the end of the decade, 2029, the $100 million goal. We started with the emergency power supply as what I call the base, and now we have proliferated into different with micro DC-DC with the, you know, potential to eliminate 12-volt battery. As a result, we've got a real pull. I think you heard that the emergency power supply pulled us even a place like Japan, you know, where we were not initially going.

Speaker 5

The beauty is we are getting really good traction, and that's why we really feel good about the low double-digit tens of million in 2026 with all the design wins and the run rate that we are starting to see starting in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2

Perfect. Thank you.

Speaker 8

Thank you. May we go back to Tore Svanberg for his question?

Speaker 5

Yes, thank you for that. Sorry, just managing a few calls here. Balu, congratulations again on your retirement. I really appreciate working with you over the years. Thanks for your wisdom. Jen, welcome on board. I guess my first question on this sort of, you know, pull-in slash inventory adjustment. First of all, is it mainly in consumer or are you seeing it perhaps in a few other parts of your business? Since channel inventory is still quite lean, should we think of this as being sort of like a fairly short-lived correction compared to what we've seen before? It's a really good question. The way I look, I'm looking at it, and I'm just trying to read the tea leaves here. I've never seen this adjustment to be less than two quarters. Sometimes it lingers a little more.

Speaker 5

The reason I'm trying to do this is because all the other companies were talking about Q4, and we see it a quarter earlier. For us, mainly it was in appliances, but our visibility, you know, as you know, is low. I think the real drop in orders, 20% decline from a normal average over the last six months, was meaningful. That at least gave us some caution. Appliances, clearly, if you really look at the major appliances, which you know is about 50% of the total consumer, grew 15% year over year there in the first half, which is above the normal growth rate along with the normal design wins or the extra market share we get. Clearly, there was some front running that we can see could have been a little in other areas, but the only place where it's visible to us is in appliances.

Speaker 5

Taking what happened in July, the front running, visibility low, and then hearing what all the others in the industry are talking about Q4, and that we normally see these things a quarter earlier, led us to do this adjustment that we have talked about in our guidance.

Operator

Yeah, that's great. The commentary from Whirlpool on this was very clear, and that's why we're very confident in what's happening in the appliance space. They cited a 20% increase first half over first half in Asian imports of appliances into the U.S. Our major appliance business was up mid-teens year over year in the first half, which, as Sandeep said earlier, is pretty far above what you would normally expect. We can clearly see it in the appliance space. As Sandeep said, there may be some of that activity happening in other markets, just not as visible to us.

Speaker 5

No, that's a great caller. As my follow-up, I don't know if this is a question for Balu or you, Jen, but you mentioned the TSMC exit from GaN. That's obviously a really big industry data point. I'm just curious, have you sort of seen any changes in the competitive landscape since then? There's obviously a few players that have sort of tried to qualify other foundries. Whether it's your sort of fab competitors or fabless competitors, have you seen any changes? You're hearing other people talk about moving away from TSMC and going to other alternatives. The other alternatives are not as robust. Trying to move from one foundry to the other is not something that happens as quickly. The big distinction is for us, yes, you all had all these competitors at 650. Nobody has what we have at 1250 and 1700.

Speaker 5

The advantage we have, and especially people are talking about the 800-volt, and we have products that'll supply into the auxiliary that supports the 800. We've been thinking about this way ahead. I think what we talked about in our analyst day, that having the whole control on the process, the device, and the model, and just that we have a very proprietary technology is really differentiating us and putting us ahead of the pack.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you for that.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Our next question comes from Christopher Adam Jackson Rolland. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks, guys. I want to also echo my congrats to Balu on your what sounds like a semi-retirement. Welcome, Jen. I look forward to working with you. My first questions are really around, Jen, you know, it was nice to hear a chunk of your prepared remarks talk about GaN in AI data center in particular. If I read that correctly, it sounds like you're signaling a commitment and a focus there. That's of interest to me. That said, you guys are not, as of today at least, on the list of approved vendors at NVIDIA. It does seem like a dynamic list, and I think people are being added to that all the time. My question is, when do you think you might get on that list? Additionally, what are the GaN products you would be providing there?

Speaker 1

Would they be at the rack level or the power supply or even, you know, the first or second stage? Opportunities beyond that for ASIC guys beyond NVIDIA as well would be great. Thank you.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thanks, Chris, for the question. That was a long question. Let me try to unpack that. I think just maybe I'll take a step back and just say, you know, we're playing in the data center ecosystem. We're already shipping into auxiliary power supplies, and that's an area where we're gaining share with the GaN versions of the InnoSwitch platform, thanks to the rising power requirements there. Next year, we're going to be sampling GaN products for the main converters under the current architecture, where you have AC to DC converters at the rack level. That architecture is going to be around for a while. Higher voltages, higher voltage DC, like I talked about earlier in the prepared comments, that approach isn't going to replace that overnight. We're also expanding our product offerings for the 800-volt level.

Speaker 7

We actually designed our 1700V GaN InnoMux for 800 volts, and that product is a perfect fit for the aux power supplies for 800-volt architectures. It requires both 54 and 12-volt outputs at high power. The 1700V is a voltage level that you need for the flyback architecture for that 800-volt data center architecture. GaN is clearly a great, maybe the best choice for the 800 to 54 volts in light of the space constraints. For that, with 800 volts of input, our 1250V is a really important technology. Both our 1250V and 1700V GaN capabilities are going to serve 800 volts in both data center and automotive. Maybe Sandeep, you can jump in on the products, the timeline of some of the products.

Speaker 5

We had already got the InnoMux, which is already there. We talked about next year sampling the product, which Jen talked about. That'll be followed up subsequently with the 800-volt in the main when it goes to the new architecture in 2027-2028. We are engaged with everybody. As you know, we don't do discretes. We do system-level products. We're working with everyone. When our system-level product comes out, you'll hear a lot more announcement. It doesn't mean because if you're not there, we're talking to everyone. Part of the reason why GaN has not been that adopted is because discretes are not as reliable. When we provide our product at a system level, the adoption is at a different level. It's a matter of time. We are very engaged with all the different people who are playing in this ecosystem.

Speaker 1

Great. Maybe just a follow-up to that and then a quick other one. If you could give us a metric, either dollars per accelerator or rack or something like that, and tell us who your main competitors are in AI. Secondly, for Sandeep, am I understanding this correct? Will industrial continue to grow and outgrow the other segments because they don't have some of these other pull-ahead dynamics? Do you still think you can hit the double-digit long-term CAGR next year, or do you think this plays into next year as well?

Speaker 5

We absolutely get back. I think this is an adjustment that is happening in small macro and tariff-related. I told you this, if you really look at it, industrial will continue to be a very strong growth driver next year. We're going to grow in automotive. We're going to grow very strongly in metering, in high power, and home building automation. In fact, I think all four segments will grow next year with communication having good strength. We talked about the, you know, the big GaN win that we had. We also are winning in networking there. I really think post how long this adjustment lasts, is it two quarters or three that I don't know. Not smart enough, but it's at least two because you're hearing other people talk about the fourth quarter. I think we'll be back to a double-digit growth starting next year.

Speaker 5

To the extent that you talked about the content, I think we have talked about that in the existing structure. We could get content worth about $1,000 a rack at best. As Jen talked about, you know, we've got a lot of opportunities because of our 1250V and 1700V.

Speaker 7

Yeah, I can just follow on. I mean, I think in terms of competitors, I think what we compete with mostly is discrete designs using MOSFETs or silicon carbide. Really, like Sandeep said and I said earlier, nobody else has the kind of the 1250V GaN. This is going to replace silicon carbide and silicon MOSFETs for performance reasons going forward. We're excited about that.

Speaker 5

The most unique is our proprietary GaN is extremely reliable, and obviously, it's very much more cost-effective than silicon carbide. I think we've been talking about the play of our differentiation, and you're seeing our model related to GaN really play out with the exit that Jen talked about of TSMC.

Speaker 1

Thank you very much, guys, and welcome, Jen.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Operator

Thanks, Chris.

Speaker 8

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ross Clark Seymore of Deutsche Bank AG. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hi, guys. Just wanted to sneak in one quick follow-up. Sandeep, what's the expectation for channel inventory? You guys are doing a good job of keeping it pretty tight. I know it's in your target range, but within your guidance and maybe in the second half as a whole, since you're talking a little bit more about the fourth quarter, how are you expecting the channel to act?

Speaker 5

I think this quarter I'm expecting the sell-in and sell-through to be kind of flattish. We are running, you know, if you really look at it, we're running at 7.7. If you look at it within that, consumer is running at 6. I think part of the reason we are back to that, Ross, is we have a lot of inventory and we have short lead times, so people really don't want to, you know, load up. I think there's caution because of tariff. Quite honestly, the appliances get impacted because the steel tariffs actually do affect the end product quite a bit. That is another reason that is impacted. As I said earlier, we had a pretty strong year-over-year in major appliances in the first half.

Speaker 2

Gotcha. I guess speaking a little bit on the fourth quarter comment that you talked about, this potentially being a two-quarter adjustment, et cetera, is seasonality even a framework that matters? If so, how would you think seasonality occurs versus this cyclicality/tariff issue as we get into the fourth quarter?

Speaker 5

Yeah, that's an interesting part. For us, seasonality in our business really is in high-power business. Typically, in the first quarter, it's down. Of course, a little bit in the communication where you have cell phone, that is, as you know, certain quarters that are stronger. I think, and the other thing is for us, in the third quarter, typically comfort appliances, you know, tend to come down because of the cycle of the build. I think with this whole front running, things have gotten backed out a little in the appliance area. Now, whether this will be two quarters or three quarters, you know, I'm not smart enough. The reason I'm putting two quarters is because we see it slightly earlier. We saw it in July. People are still seeing fourth quarters. I think it's at least that.

Speaker 5

I have to see what happens in Q1, a little too early. I want to see if there's more clarity that comes on this tariff that changes the whole equation. You know, every day you turn and there is a different rate at different places. We don't know how that'll play out.

Speaker 2

Fair enough. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Interest rates is the other thing, you know. If the interest rates do tend to come down, that helps the housing market. That's another thing, you know, we have to wait and see what happens there.

Operator

All right, Aubrey, do we have any further questions?

Speaker 8

Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Joe for his closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Operator

Okay. Thanks, everyone, for listening. There will be a replay of this call available on our website, the investor section of our website, investors.power.com. Thanks again and good afternoon.

Speaker 8

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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