Microchip Technology Q1 2027 Earnings Report

Microchip Technology EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.76
• Consensus EPS: $0.70
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.06
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.27

Microchip Technology Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.48 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.46 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$26.20 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +38.00%

Microchip Technology Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2027
• Date: 8/6/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, August 6, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Microchip Technology (NASDAQ:MCHP) Inc. is a semiconductor company headquartered in Chandler, Arizona, that designs, develops and supplies a broad portfolio of embedded control and analog semiconductors. Its product lineup centers on microcontrollers (including the well-known PIC family), digital signal controllers and associated development tools and software, along with a range of mixed-signal and analog devices, nonvolatile memory, power management, timing, interface, wireless and security products. The company also provides integrated hardware and software solutions intended to simplify embedded design and accelerate time to market for OEMs and contract manufacturers.

Microchip’s products are used across a wide range of end markets, including automotive, industrial automation, consumer electronics, communications, aerospace and defense, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. In addition to silicon and reference designs, the company offers development ecosystems such as IDEs, compilers, evaluation boards and middleware to support system-level development and certification needs. These combined offerings target customers seeking low-power, reliable and cost-effective control and connectivity solutions.

The company sells its products globally through direct sales, distributors and a network of third-party partners, serving both large multinational customers and smaller design firms. Microchip has grown its technology portfolio and market presence through a mix of internal development and strategic acquisitions, and it is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker MCHP. The company’s focus remains on providing comprehensive embedded solutions and technical support to help customers move from concept to production.

Microchip Technology Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Strong June-quarter results: Net sales rose 13.2% sequentially and 38% year over year to $1.485 billion, while non-GAAP EPS of $0.76 exceeded the guidance midpoint by $0.07.
• Positive Sentiment: September-quarter outlook is robust, with revenue expected to increase 8% sequentially to approximately $1.60 billion and non-GAAP EPS guided to $0.91–$0.95. Bookings were the strongest in roughly four years, with a book-to-bill ratio well above one.
• Positive Sentiment: Data-center revenue is projected to grow from approximately $591 million in calendar 2025 to about $1 billion in 2026, supported by broad exposure across power, memory, security, timing, networking, and PCIe products. Management cited 14 PCIe Gen 6 design wins and expects further growth as designs enter production in 2027.
• Positive Sentiment: Management believes the distribution inventory correction is complete, with distributor inventory at a historically low 25 days and sell-through up 17% sequentially. Aerospace and defense demand is also accelerating, with potential for substantial multi-year growth as missile, drone, radar, and other defense programs ramp.
• Negative Sentiment: Gross margin is expected to peak near 66.5% in September, aided by favorable product mix, licensing revenue, pricing, and lower underutilization charges, but management cautioned that several benefits are one-time or lumpy. Foundry, substrate, OSAT, and test-capacity constraints are also lengthening lead times, while the company plans to prioritize debt repayment over buybacks or dividend increases.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Microchip's Q1 fiscal year 2027 financial results conference call. At this time, all lines are in a 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 star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, August 6th, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Steve Sanghi, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Thank you, operator, good afternoon, everyone. During the course of this conference call, we will be making projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We wish to caution you that such statements are predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. We refer you to our press release of today, as well as our recent filings with the SEC that identify important risk factors that may impact Microchip's business and results of operations. In attendance with me today are Eric Bjornholt, Microchip's CFO, and Sajid Daudi, Microchip's Head of Investor Relations. I will provide a new breakout of our net sales by end market, including further information on our total data center exposure. Eric will then go over our financial performance.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I will then provide an overview of the current business environment and our guidance for second quarter of fiscal year 2027. We will then be available to respond to specific investor and analyst questions. Let us begin with providing you with a further update on our exposure to the data center market. On June 1, 2026, we provided you a breakdown of our net sales from our Data Center Solutions business unit for calendar year 2025, which we said was $302.7 million. We also said that in addition to these net sales from the Data Center Solutions business unit, we have many catalog products from various business units that also have exposure to data centers. In the last couple of months, we have worked to pull together an estimate for this additional exposure to the data center market from these catalog products from various business units.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

These additional products include our power management analog products, mixed signal products, microcontrollers, digital signal controllers, security products, FPGAs, timing products, and Serial Quad I/O memory products. The additional net sales from data centers for these various business units for calendar year 2025 was approximately $288 million. This makes the total net sales from data centers for calendar year 2025 for all Microchip products to be approximately $591 million. That was the $303 million approximately from Data Center Solutions business unit and $288 million from all other catalog products for a total of $591 million. This was approximately 14% of our net sales for calendar year 2025. We have also estimated the data centers sales growth expected in calendar year 2026. We earlier told you that our net sales from Data Center Solutions business unit is expected to be about $500 million for calendar year 2026.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Our net sales from the products from all other business units, which also go into the data centers, is expected to grow from $288 million in calendar year 2025 to about $500 million in calendar year 2026. This makes the total net sales expected in calendar year 2026 from all of Microchip products, Data Center Solutions business unit, as well as all the other catalog products going into data centers as about $1 billion. This is expected to be up approximately 69% from $591 million net sales from data centers in calendar year 2025. A growth of about 69% from $591 million net sales in calendar year 2025 to about $1 billion in calendar year 2026. Now a little bit about calendar Q1 and Q2.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

In calendar Q1 2026, which was the March quarter, our net sales from data centers was up 77.2% from calendar Q1 2025. In calendar Q2 2026, the June quarter just ended. Our net sales from data centers was up 97.8% from calendar Q2 2025. As our numerous new designs wins on our PCIe Gen 6 switch, PCIe Gen 6 retimer, storage controller, NVM controllers, power management products, mixed signal products, security products, timing products, and memory products proceed to production in calendar year 2027, we expect significant growth from data centers in 2027 and thereafter. Here is our end market net sales breakdown for the June quarter. We remind you that these percentages are our best estimates of the end market splits.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

There is probably a couple of percent error band due to the fact that about 50% of our business and the long tail of customers are serviced through distribution, which makes it difficult to track the end market. Our June quarter end market breakdown was as follows. Industrial was 32.2%, data centers, 17.1%, Aerospace and Defense, 16.7%, automotive, 15%, communication, 8.2%, consumer appliances, 7.4%, and compute, 3.4%. You can see that we are now breaking out end markets of data center and compute separately. We are now breaking out our sales into seven end markets. From June quarter 2025 to June quarter 2026, year-over-year growth, our industrial net sales grew 24.3%. Data center sales grew 97.8%. Aerospace and Defense grew 45.6%. Automotive grew 29.3%. Communication grew 53.3%. Consumer appliances grew 19.1%, and compute grew 9.6%.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

This is the most comprehensive breakout you have heard from us, enough to unpack for you. With that, I will pass it on to Eric.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

All right. Thanks, Steve. Good afternoon, everyone. We are including information in our press release on this conference call on various GAAP and non-GAAP measures. We have posted a full GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation on the investor relations page of our website at www.microchip.com and included reconciliation information in our earnings press release, which we believe you'll find useful when comparing GAAP and non-GAAP results. We have also posted a summary of our outstanding debt and leverage metrics on our website. I will now go over some of the operating results, including net sales, gross margin, and operating expenses. Other than net sales, I will be referring to these results on a non-GAAP basis, which is based on expenses prior to the effects of our acquisition activities, share-based compensation, and certain other adjustments as described in our earnings press release and the reconciliations on our website.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Our non-GAAP financial results were all above our guidance provided on May 7th, 2026. Net sales in the June quarter were $1.485 billion, which was up 13.2% sequentially and up 38% from the June 2025 quarter. We have posted a summary of our net sales by product line and geography on our website for your reference. On a non-GAAP basis, gross margins were 63.8%, including capacity underutilization charges of $38.5 million. Operating expenses were at 28.7% of sales, and operating income was 35.1% of sales. Non-GAAP net income was $438.6 million, and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were $0.76, which was $0.07 above the midpoint of our guidance. On a GAAP basis in the June quarter, gross margins were 63.2%.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Total operating expenses were $602.1 million and included acquisition and tangible amortization of $90 million, special charges of $18.9 million, which were primarily driven by two longstanding legal matters, which were settled during the quarter, as well as our activities associated with the closure of Fab 2. Share-based compensation of $66.3 million and $0.4 million of other expenses. The GAAP net income attributable to common shareholders was $202 million or $0.37 per share. Our non-GAAP cash tax rate was 7.5% in the June quarter, and we expect to have a tax rate of about 7.5% for all of fiscal year 2027. Our tax rate is down from the prior year for a variety of reasons, including the amortization of domestic research and development experimentation expenditures capitalized in previous years, and the impacts of a reduction in inventory reserves. Our inventory balance at June 30th, 2026 was $1.047 billion.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

We had 175 days of inventory at the end of the June quarter, which was down 10 days from the end of the March quarter. Included in our June ending inventory was 14 days of long life cycle, high margin products whose manufacturing capacity has been end of life by our supply chain partners. Inventory at our distributors in the June quarter was at 25 days, which was down one day from the March quarter, and at the lower end of what we have experienced historically. Our cash flow from operating activities was $511.5 million in the June quarter. Our adjusted free cash flow was $478.6 million in the June quarter. As of June 30th, our consolidated cash and total investment position was $272.3 million. Our total debt decreased by $138 million in the June quarter, and our net debt decreased by $170 million.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Our adjusted EBITDA in the June quarter was $587.8 million and 39.6% of net sales. Our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA was $1.798 billion. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 2.85 at June 30th, 2026. We expect our net debt to adjusted EBITDA to reduce significantly as we progress through fiscal year 2027. Capital expenditures were $13.9 million in the June quarter, and we expect capital expenditures for fiscal year 2027 to be about $100 million. Depreciation expense in the June quarter was $37.8 million. I will now turn it back to Steve, who will provide some additional commentary on our June quarter results and our guidance for the September quarter. Steve?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Thank you, Eric. I will now reflect a bit on our performance in the June quarter. The June quarter was an excellent quarter for Microchip across the board. We beat the high end of our guidance in net sales and our non-GAAP financial metrics like gross margin percentage, operating expense percentage, operating profit percentage, and earnings per share, all beat the high end of our guidance. In all of these metrics, we continue to make excellent progress towards the long-range targets. For non-GAAP gross margin percentage, we are at 63.8%, which was a sequential improvement of 222 basis points. Our non-GAAP operating margin was 35.1% in the quarter, which was a sequential improvement of 452 basis points. Our inventory and days of sales came down again last quarter. We're getting pretty close to a range of 130 to 150 days of inventory.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We will now take the focus off of inventory and instead focus on handling the large growth we are experiencing and deal with various constraints in foundries, OSAT, and internal production. I will now talk about our business environment. We believe that we have completed the distribution inventory correction. Our overall distribution inventory is now low, and some replenishment needs to take place in the coming quarters. We saw a small decline in distribution days of inventory in the June quarter. Our distribution sell-through grew by 17% sequentially in the June quarter. This is a result of distributors' customers completing their inventory correction and starting to reengage in buying our products. Our customer count is now going up. We are also seeing customers from new designs and from our improved relationships start buying our products, adding to our bookings, revenue, and customer count.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Now, let's get into guidance for the September quarter. Our bookings for the June quarter were very strong. The book-to-bill ratio for the June quarter was well above one, resulting in a higher backlog entering the September quarter compared to when we entered the June quarter. The June quarter was also the strongest booking quarter in about four years. A comment about lead times. Lead times for majority of our standard products have been four to eight weeks for some time. But now, with our die inventory and finished goods substantially reduced, we are seeing lead times stretch on many of our products. We are running into challenges on certain kind of substrates, subcontracting capacity, and foundry constraints on multiple nodes. These challenges previously were isolated to specific areas, but have now spread broadly to many of our products that come from foundry.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

The challenges in subcontractor capacity and test capacity are also stressing our lead times from products built by our own fabs. Our customer requests for expedited shipments have increased significantly from a few quarters ago. We are receiving a large number of orders for requests inside the lead time, and many times are going unsupported in the quarter. We are advising our customers to give us longer term backlog to match at least our lead times and preferably matching our manufacturing cycle times. I also wanted to give you an update on the pricing. The price adjustments we discussed in the early June have now been successfully implemented in the marketplace. Most pricing is effective between mid-August to early September, making a small impact to the September quarter.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Taking all of these factors into account, we expect our net sales for the September quarter to be up 8% sequentially, ±1%. This at the midpoint will be up 40.6% from the year-ago quarter. We expect our non-GAAP gross margin to be between 66%-67% of sales. We expect our non-GAAP operating expenses to be about 27.5% of sales. We expect our non-GAAP operating profit to be between 38.5% and 39.5% of sales. We expect our non-GAAP diluted earnings per share to be between $0.91 and $0.95 per share. At the midpoint, non-GAAP earnings per share would be up 165.7% over the year-ago quarter and up 22.4% sequentially. Our guidance on non-GAAP gross margin percentage obviously raises some questions because it exceeds our long-term target of 65%. There are a lot of factors impacting this guidance.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

First, there is some excellent product mix in there. There is our 100% gross margin on an expected very strong quarter for our licensing business unit. There is price increase capturing the inflationary costs that we absorbed in the prior quarters. There is lower new inventory write-off versus prior quarters. Finally, there is lower underutilization charges as we are ramping up the factories. As you can see, there is no single item for this gross margin. There are a lot of items that we have been improving to get to our financial model. The net result is that we are very close to our financial model, with gross margin percentage above it and the operating margin percentage just a shade below the model. At this point, we will leave the long-term model unchanged.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

You should not expect non-GAAP gross margin percentage to continue to rise above this level. With that, operator, will you please poll for questions?

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct a question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star followed by the number one on your touch tone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you would like to cancel your request, please press star two. As a reminder, please limit yourselves to one question. If you wish to do a follow-up question, please queue by pressing star one. Our first question comes from the line of Timothy Arcuri from UBS. Please go ahead.

[Timothy Arcuri, Analyst at UBS]

Thanks a lot. Steve, I wanted to ask you just your perspective on how long that this upturn can last. September is going to be the sixth quarter above seasonal. I know it's a unique time, and you're coming off a big downturn, and it does sound like you think both the distis and the end customers are just beginning to rebuild inventory. Usually you're not above seasonal for more than eight quarters. You know that better than anybody does. How do you assess this? How do you think about how long this can go on? Thanks.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

There are at least three or four factors going on that may make this last a bit longer than usual. The first is the Data Center. Data Center exposure is going through significant growth. We just talked about growing almost 69% this year. I think that's one that could last longer. The second one is aerospace and defense. The aerospace and defense buildup is just beginning. We're getting lots of orders for missiles and drones and radar installations and interceptors and battle tanks and ammunition and all kind. That's a multi-year buildup, I think that could last for a while. The third one is, while you say that it's been above seasonal for eight quarters, I haven't counted, I don't know how many exactly.

[Timothy Arcuri, Analyst at UBS]

I think you said six. Yeah.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I think the two markets, industrial and automotive, started much later. They've probably been just recovering maybe only about a couple of quarters. So I think there is a lot more to go on the industrial market as it is growing. A lot of the AI is going into industrial, and industrial is also a very broad market, our largest market segment. That could go longer. Other is the automotive, which is probably still not extremely strong. I think automotive market is just kind of beginning to recover. I think those are the factors which could make this upturn last a bit longer.

[Timothy Arcuri, Analyst at UBS]

Thanks. Eric, just super fast. Are there any inventory sale of previously written down inventory that is inflating margins? Thanks.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

I would say, we're kind of like we said last quarter, that inventory reserves have kind of normalized at this point in time. We did reserve quite a bit of product based on our accounting policies and where the business was at. During the down cycle, there is sell-through. There's sell-through every quarter. New reserves are coming down. It definitely is a net benefit to margins, but we don't think that's going away, at least in the short term, with where we're at.

[Timothy Arcuri, Analyst at UBS]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Vivek Arya from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Vivek Arya, Analyst at Bank of America]

Thanks for taking my question. Steve, I wanted to talk about the data center. What is the right way to model your data center growth for the next two to three years? Just conceptually, what are the moving pieces, and how are you benchmarking whether you are gaining share, losing share, keeping share? Like, what is the sort of addressable market for you? How fast is that growing, and how do you expect Microchip to do relative to that market? Thank you.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Vivek, our data center exposure is probably the broadest of any other company. Many companies could have exposure, let's say, on PCIe switch or could be just in a power management going to the rack. As I read through my summary, it's very broad. It's power management, it's memory, security products, microcontrollers, analog parts, mixed signal parts, switches, controllers, and others. It's difficult to assess what is the total TAM in each of those markets in data center and how much our competitors have and how much we have and really try to assess all that. We have done a lot of work on this one on the request of investors and analysts, this is probably the most comprehensive breakdown we have given you, and we'll continue to give you update.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I don't really not able to project it over the next two to three years and answer your question on are we gaining share or losing share? I would like to think we're gaining share.

[Vivek Arya, Analyst at Bank of America]

Maybe if I could follow up on gross margins at 66.5%. I think you mentioned we should not expect more than that. If you're putting in pricing just in this quarter, you're not really reducing inventory anymore. Mix seems to be getting better, why shouldn't there be more upside to gross margin? If there is no more upside, is this kind of level sustainable? Just kind of the puts and takes on gross margins right beyond this very impressive 66.5% midpoint that you're guiding to. Thank you.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

It's a good question, and we knew we'd get it, so Steve provided some commentary on the various things that are impacting it. There's a couple things that are not really repeatable that are happening this quarter. We do expect a larger licensing revenue, which is 100% gross margin this quarter. That business tends to be lumpy, and this will be a lumpy quarter from licensing. When we do a price change, and I think you've heard others talk about this in distribution, that impacts the inventory that is sitting in the distribution channel, and that's kind of a one-time impact in terms of the revenue that'll be recognized or expected to be recognized from that. There's a lot of moving parts. Obviously, we do still have things working in our favor with improving utilization and whatnot.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

It's a balance, and 66.5% is a very healthy margin is how I describe it.

[Vivek Arya, Analyst at Bank of America]

What are those one-offs, Eric? Sorry. How much?

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

We haven't broken those out, Vivek. They are definitely impacting the margins favorably this quarter.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We think the entire quarter of increased prices, although there are some expenses, too. We're getting cost increases also from foundries and OSATs and all that, so there's a balancing on that, too. Full quarter of increased prices will balance some of these one-time costs that he talked about, or one-time benefits he talked about. One is a very rich product mix in licensing, and second being this one-time benefit from the inventory and distribution. Those two will be negative for the following quarter. The full quarter price increase will be positive, and it'll probably balance and gross margin, which could be still in that range, but don't expect it to go higher.

[Vivek Arya, Analyst at Bank of America]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Quatrochi from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Joe Quatrochi, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Yeah, thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just curious on the data center business. When you look at your design win pipeline, as you think about 2027, how should we think about just the potential for accelerating growth?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Well, like I said, we have very broad exposure. If you were to start to look at the design wins across our microcontrollers, memory products, power management, and others. One of the reason it took us that long, and it's more difficult to do is, on Data Center Solutions business unit, which is like the Gen 6 switch and retimers and others, there, we engage with very large customers. We engage with hyperscalers and enterprise customers in winning large design wins. When you look at our catalog products broad base, there we don't win designs at hyperscale as an enterprise. We win designs at power supply companies and card stuffers and module makers and companies like Lite-On and Delta and others, which then are selling their products into Data Center Solutions business unit.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Across our entire portfolio, there'll be hundreds and hundreds of designs, and it's very difficult therefore to answer that question. We will limit the design win information to really the Data Center Solutions business unit. There we could tell you that last quarter when we came to you, we had six design wins. At the end of the quarter, we had this quarter, we had 12 design wins, and as of today, we have 14 design wins, 12 on the Gen 6 switch and two on the Gen 6 retimer, and many more in the works. I think that one is easy to identify, but if I were to start to identify design wins or analog catalog products or memory products or security products, they're endless.

[Joe Quatrochi, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

That's helpful color. Maybe just, you talked about things increasingly getting tighter from a supply perspective. I know you guys have maybe some tools that are still yet to be installed or put into production. Are we getting close to where that might be a possibility or is it more the tightness particularly on the back-end side?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We don't have shortages on our internal fab capacity. We're still not at 100% utilization on our tools, and like you said, there are many more tools available that could be readily installed. We have not yet started installing them because we still are not at a full utilization. Many of internal products get assembled and tested at the subcontractors on advanced packages and different test platforms, and that's where we have some of the constraints for the internal fab capacity. On the foundry, we have constraints on many nodes, and if some of the foundry wafers are coming inside for assembly and test, then we're doing better. If they're going outside for assembly and test because they are on some advanced packages and test platforms, then they are getting squeezed by AI capacity that's crowding out. It just depends on what the combination is.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

If it's inside assembly, inside test, and inside fab, that is the best combination. Anytime there is foundry involved or outside OSAT involved, then that's where some of the constraints are.

[Joe Quatrochi, Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Rolland from Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

[Christopher Rolland, Analyst at Susquehanna]

Oh, love. Sure. Oh, come on guys.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Hey, Chris, you're on

[Operator]

Christopher Rolland from Susquehanna, your line is now open.

[Christopher Rolland, Analyst at Susquehanna]

Hi. Sorry, I think there was a bad connection there. Yes. My question is just about serviceability of upside, both external and internal [Inaudible]. What is the game plan here and would we ever consider a 300mm fab? Would that ever come back into the thinking here?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Yeah. When we talk about constraints, you shouldn't interpret that as there is no additional capacity available and there's no additional growth available. Constraint simply means we could use more than what we were given. If we were given more, the upside could have been a little larger. Every quarter we have incremental capacity. Fabs and assemblies and tests are growing their capacity, and we have increasing allocation. On many of the products, we were constrained, in March quarter too, yet in June quarter, we were able to post substantial growth, and that's what we're planning to do for the September quarter. Yes, there is more assembly capacity available. Yes, there is more test capacity available. We're also bringing some products from outside to inside and growing our inside assembly and test capacity.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We're getting increasing allocation on a lot of the constrained nodes from this quarter to next quarter. You should not by any reason interpret a word constraint to be that the revenue is capped here. Not at all.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

I think the second part-

[Christopher Rolland, Analyst at Susquehanna]

Great

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

of your question was the possibility of 300mm, that's not in our plans today. We will rely on our foundry partners to provide anything that we need on 12 inch and the technologies that it supports.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We have hundreds and hundreds of masks running on 300mm and trying to put our own 300mm fab in technology, which will not be compatible with the foundry technologies because we'll have to build our own, then all those parts will have to be redesigned. It's just not a practical thing to do. There's no plan to have our own 300mm fab.

[Christopher Rolland, Analyst at Susquehanna]

Excellent. Perhaps as a follow-up, just because AI has just been such a growth engine and you have PCIe, some other AI products here as well, is this going to be an area of focus that you guys may be looking to bolster, either organically from here, or even inorganically, moving forward?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We're not looking for any large acquisition inorganically. We recently announced a small acquisition inorganically, which is a company called Hailo, which is headquartered in Israel, and that deal should close sometime in September. Its revenue is small, but its products are outstanding. Company ran into some financial troubles and they had to restructure and became available, and we bought it. The benefit it provides to our roadmap is just totally incredible. In the area for AI on the Edge, it advances our roadmaps by about five years. The products, they already come to us, it was going to take us four to five years, about four years, to produce those products and another year to market them and get the design wins and all that, which they already have. Significant benefit from that acquisition, but it's not a very large acquisition that moves the needle.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I think it will move the needle on our clock, because its revenue should grow pretty rapidly because it's basically primed and all the resources of Microchip selling it, we could grow it rapidly. In the very first quarter, it's a small revenue.

[Christopher Rolland, Analyst at Susquehanna]

Thanks so much.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Caso from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

[Chris Caso, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Yes, thank you. For my first question, if perhaps you could comment on December quarter seasonality. I think typically it's down a bit for you. It looks like consensus is up a little bit in the December quarter as it stands now. I guess the question is: with the different mix of your business, how does that affect seasonality going forward? What are the factors that might cause this December to be different than whatever would be typical?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I think what we are willing to say is, usually our December quarter is down 3%-5%, we think the quarter would be better than seasonal. We're not willing to comment on what the long-term new seasonality would be. As some of these markets we're in, data centers and aerospace and defense and others become more mature, I think a couple of years out, maybe a different seasonality. For now, I don't know the answer to it long-term. Short-term, the December quarter should be better than seasonal.

[Chris Caso, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Thank you. As a follow-up, it does appear that we're in the recovery part of the cycle now. Steve, I know that you've been a little cautious about cash flow and getting debt level down and putting the company in the right place. With an apparent recovery happening now, some better cash flow going on, maybe you could update us on your view of cash return and what to do with cash that you're going to be generating.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We still have substantial debt. About $5.5, is it, close?

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Yeah, net debt's about $5.2 billion.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Yeah, net debt is about $5.2 billion. Gross is a little higher than that, closer to $5.5, maybe. Even though the leverage ratio has now come below three, we believe the debt level is still too high, and we will continue to use the entire cash that's available beyond the current dividend and use it to pay down the debt for foreseeable future. There's just no plan to buy back stock and no plan to increase the dividend for foreseeable future.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Yeah, we're very pleased about the progress we made last quarter on our reduction in the net debt to EBITDA. It dropped to 2.85. I would expect with our guidance, it will drop below two and a half this quarter. Making good progress.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Yeah, making very good progress hopefully heading to a number where it starts to drive different actions, we're not there yet.

[Chris Caso, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Is there a particular number you have in mind that would drive different action?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Not that I'm willing to share.

[Chris Caso, Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Understood. Okay. Thank you.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Sure.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Vijay Rakesh from Mizuho. Please go ahead.

[Vijay Rakesh, Analyst at Mizuho]

Yeah. Hey, Steve. Just going back on the data center side, is there a way to look at what your content is, like Dollar per kilowatt or per rack? In terms of the current design wins, any of them on the scale-up side, on the rack, where do you see those wins, if you can give some more color on the follow-up? Thanks.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Just trying to understand the question.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

We do not give any sort of direction in terms of Dollar content per rack. That was the first question. Of the 12 design wins, it is my understanding that we have both scale-up and scale-out opportunities within that. Sajid, you confirm that?

[Sajid Daudi, Head of Investor Relations at Microchip]

It's mostly at the core level, the vendor level.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Yeah.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Basically-

[Vijay Rakesh, Analyst at Mizuho]

Got it.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

A PCIe switch connects the GPUs to CPUs and CPUs to memory, and it's used if you scale out or scale up in both cases, and that's where all our design wins are. There are some hyperscalers in there. There are some enterprise customers in there. It's pretty broad mix in those 14 design wins.

[Vijay Rakesh, Analyst at Mizuho]

Got it. Eric, on the gross margin side, is the assumption that we should expect it to be kind of in this flattish going forward or? Thanks.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Yeah. What we said earlier is that you shouldn't model in that it's going above the 66.5, I'll call it, that we're guiding to at the midpoint of guidance. It's a really strong gross margin that's above the long-term model. We're continuing to make improvements, but there's definitely some headwinds on the cost side that we're absorbing also. We're comfortable that we're going to be in about this range for at least the next few quarters.

[Vijay Rakesh, Analyst at Mizuho]

All right. Thanks.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Harlan Sur from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

[Harlan Sur, Analyst at J.P. Morgan]

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. If I look at the mix of your direct versus your distribution customers, the June quarter marked the second consecutive quarter where your direct customers only grew like mid to high single digits sequentially, whereas your disti business grew strong double digits sequentially in March and June. On a year-over-year basis for both March and June, disti outgrew direct by around 2x. I know it's harder to track your direct customers' internal inventories, are they still maybe working through some excess inventories? Does that imply direct customers are a potential future tailwind for growth when their inventories start to normalize?

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

I think I would look at it more of where the distribution network was coming from with very elevated inventory when you look back a year ago and working through that and now getting down to what is a very reasonable inventory level. I'm telling you the 25 days that we quoted, them kind of returning to a normalized level where now they are needing to purchase kind of in line with what the consumption is. They've got a lot of customers that are coming back that were over inventory that now they need to support. I view it more from that perspective. I don't know if Steve has any different view than that.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I think, when the products were constrained, the direct customers got better supply than the distributors did. When the market essentially came down, and the supply became available, that's when the distribution got served. Distribution built inventory later, and that's why it took longer for distributors to correct. As they corrected, now you're seeing the benefit. I think the OEM customers were slightly ahead of it.

[Harlan Sur, Analyst at J.P. Morgan]

No, I appreciate that. Steve, within your aerospace and defense business, this segment underperformed your overall growth profile last fiscal year. This segment is starting to drive some pretty outsized growth. It was up 46% year-over-year, 20% sequentially in the June quarter, as you highlighted. Defense spending by the U.S. and global governments. You've got global commercial space programs are all quite strong. You guys have a very strong leadership position in Rad Hard FPGAs, Rad Hard MCUs, interface timing, power. Do you anticipate growth outperformance for A&D for fiscal 2027? More importantly, does the multi-year growth profile look like continued outperformance, just given some of these programs have very long program lives?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Well, qualitatively, yes. Quantitatively, don't dial in a 46% growth because we're talking of these growth numbers are from pretty depressed levels. In March quarter 2025, our total company revenue was $970 million, and we're now guiding to $1,603 at the midpoint. There has been a massive growth from the bottom in March of 2025. When I do year-over-year comparisons, they obviously look very, very good, which is great, but just don't dial those kind of numbers going forward. Qualitatively, yes, we are very positive on growth on data center. We are positive on growth on A&D, and we think that industrial and automotive are trying to catch up. There were later recoveries, and industrial is probably a little ahead of automotive, and that makes up all of our major segments. That's the small. Communication is small, consumer is small-

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

computer is small. The four large segments are industrial, data center, A&D, and then automotive.

[Harlan Sur, Analyst at J.P. Morgan]

Perfect. Thank you.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Two out of those, data center and A&D, are very strong, and industrial and automotive are trying to catch up.

[Harlan Sur, Analyst at J.P. Morgan]

Got it. Thanks, Steve.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Blayne Curtis from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

[Blayne Curtis, Analyst at Jefferies]

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I had two. I just want to go back to the conversation about normal seasonal and if you're shipping above. Is there any way to think about what pricing was as a tailwind in September? I think your seasonality usually may be up 4% or 5%. You did 8%. Just trying to understand, I think you said it's done by September 1st, but can you quantify what the impact was?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

The impact of pricing on September quarter was fairly small. Basically, going to get less than a month out of the three months. A lot of the customers pulled some orders. They pulled some orders prior to the higher price becoming effective. Within the quarter, they pulled in from September into August before the price increase, or August into July before the price increase. Stayed within the quarter, but many people pulled the orders in trying to really avoid the price increase for a few more days, a few more weeks. The impact on September quarter is fairly small, but the impact on December quarter will be the full quarter.

[Blayne Curtis, Analyst at Jefferies]

Thanks. I want to ask you, is this kind of a one-time thing that you're going to give us these end markets, or are you going to break this out more regularly on a quarterly basis versus annual? Within that, I guess the only other segment that was up nicely was communications. Maybe you could talk about what's going on there.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Our intent is to provide it more regularly. In terms of communication, we are seeing a significant recovery in communication markets from 5G, from other communication racks, the major communication customers, a lot of them in Europe. We're seeing significant recovery in that segment. It was a pretty good growth. That sector was quite depressed also a year ago. When you look at year-over-year numbers, the year-ago numbers were very low. A lot of that good number is because the prior year numbers were very low, although we're seeing recovery too. It's a smaller segment. It's about 8% of our business, so it's not as pronounced as the larger segments. Communication, we have seen recovery.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

I'm just going to be a little bit more clear in Steve's response on the end market breakout. It is our intention on a go-forward basis to break it out quarterly. That's what analysts and investors are asking for. We've set up a process to be able to do that, so we'll share it with you at the end of each quarter.

[Blayne Curtis, Analyst at Jefferies]

Amazing. Appreciate that. Thanks.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Tom O'Malley from Barclays. Please go ahead.

[Tom O'Malley, Analyst at Barclays]

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. You mentioned margins kind of staying at these levels on a go-forward basis, we've been hearing from others in the space, just a strengthening of input costs that are causing some margin headwinds. Could you maybe call out the areas in which you are seeing the most pressure? How are you able to offset those? You guys mentioned one of your line items on gross margins, as obviously offsetting some of that with pricing increases. Do you feel like you have the flexibility to continue to do that on a go-forward basis if the cost environment keeps getting worse?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We did this price increase with the intention of a one-time price increase in which we capture some of the costs we have been absorbing in the prior six months. We increased the price on those parts also. We didn't set it up where we're going to do a quarterly or every six months price increase. There has to be another event, a major price increase by the foundries and OSATs on us, and if that happens in 2027, then we'll take a look at it again. Currently, there is no expectation we've given to the customers that this will be a routine price increase every so often. This is basically for now, it's one and done, a new price increase will be driven by a new set of events.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Yeah. We are continuing to ramp our factories, which will provide us better utilization, decreasing our underutilization charges, which hopefully can offset some additional cost increases that are likely to come in.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Some of the price increases.

[Tom O'Malley, Analyst at Barclays]

Got you.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We already had knowledge of some of the price increases, which we have already had knowledge of haven't kicked in. They're kicking in either in the fourth quarter on January 1. We tried to dial into this price increase.

[Tom O'Malley, Analyst at Barclays]

Thanks for walking through that. Yeah, just as a follow-up, I don't want to get greedy here because you guys are providing a lot more color, and we do appreciate it. In terms of the growth rates of these different segments, you tried your best earlier to kind of capture Data Center, but some of this other stuff, you now have multiple years of data that I'm sure you can see what it's been growing at. Any color on what you expect each of these segments to grow longer term? Are you going to save that for an Analyst Day or something down the road? Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I think they vary widely. These things vary widely. They're very lumpy and one year industrial could grow, every year automotive could grow. They go through different cycles of inventory correction. Communication could grow based on 4G going to 5G. There's a 6G. I don't really think there is anything like you can say, "Take it for this segment, is that going forward?" We don't think there's a number we can put together. Like you said, we have really put a lot of effort in providing this breakdown. Be nice, so we keep doing it.

[Tom O'Malley, Analyst at Barclays]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Jim Schneider from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Jim Schneider, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could maybe just kind of comment on the behavior you're expecting to see from distributors you talk to. You talked about 25 days being at the low end of the historical range. When you talk to them, what's your sense about the levels they want to get back to? What's realistic to expect over the next, say, 2-4 quarters in terms of a healthier channel inventory? Do you think they want to get sort of back to the normal levels or potentially even above that to build some stock?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I personally met with some of our largest distributors only in the last three weeks, what the distributors are saying is that, they know their inventory is low, they would like to get their inventory to a normal level. They would like their customers to place the orders on them so they know what to place the order on us. They're saying, despite the repeated warnings to their customers and all the talk that's happening in the industry where AI is crowding out everything, there are plenty of articles on longer lead time. There are various analyst reports on lead time growing. Companies are talking about it. The distributors are frustrated that their customers aren't listening and aren't giving them longer-term orders, which is, that's what has happened in the past. Customers don't move till they get in trouble.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

They have to go some lines down, then they panic. I think in each cycle, there are new set of purchasing managers. They move around, the old ones retire, the new ones come in in every cycle. I can say the same thing about our direct customers. Some of them have to go lines down, then they ask for expedite, we say, "We can't do it," or, "It will cost money to do it," that's when they wake up, they give you longer-term orders. Distributors are not getting orders from their customers, they're complaining, some of them are planning to give us some orders based on their expectation of longer-running designs where they think they will get the order, or they know what to order.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

They're not able to order across the board because they don't know what to order.

[Jim Schneider, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Yeah. Guess some things never change. Maybe as a follow-up, Steve, you'd provided some good commentary before about your internal capacity, both on the front end and back end. Realizing you're continuing to add capacity on margin and you had mothballed a bunch of capacity in the downturn, can you maybe give us any kind of sense, as you think about kind of reextending that capacity from the current levels of internal capacity you have today, if you did without doing anything unnatural, how much more capacity could you support above that level? Is it 10%, 20%, 30%, et cetera?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

It's higher than the numbers you're talking about. We got substantial capacity, which is unutilized. If you keep ramping to use all the installed equipment, we could grow significantly. There is $450 million of equipment that's still sitting back, some of that not even installed, and that can take the capacity a lot higher. Rather than trying to put the numbers on it, the internal capacity, fab capacity is not a constraint. In most cases, internal assembly and test isn't constrained either, because we could add more capacity. We're adding as we speak. Where the constraints are is one in the foundry and the second one in the OSAT. There are a lot of packages we don't do internally. We don't do BGAs internally. We don't do many of these packages that require substrates and advanced packaging and multi-chip and other we do outside.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

AI is crowding out a lot of that capacity, and that's where we're getting constrained. Now, our major suppliers are building more factories, and ASE is building more factories, and Amkor is building more factories, and others are building more factories. The capacity is growing, and we're getting our share of it, and that's what I said, don't think of constraint as there's no growth available, but we're not getting everything we need. We can make higher growth if we had everything.

[Jim Schneider, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

That's helpful. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Quinn Bolton from Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

[Quinn Bolton, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. I guess, Steve or Eric, I wanted to just sort of follow up on the underutilization charges. I think you said $38 million this quarter, so about 260 basis points. You didn't mention it as one of the margin tailwinds that was driving the gross margin to 66%-67% next quarter. How should we think about those underutilization charges kind of decreasing over time? Are you keeping those and they can largely offset input price increases beyond the September quarter to help you keep margins in that 66-67 range? Is there a different way we should be thinking about the roll-off of those underutilization charges?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

You're thinking the right way. What we are asking you guys is to take that underutilization charge as it goes away and not add it to the gross margin because, like we said, we got a one-time gross margin benefit in this quarter from distribution inventory on which we have taken a price reserve, and when the prices are going up, that reserve goes down. That becomes a one-time 100% gross margin. There's a very good licensing quarter. It's lumpy, this quarter is very good. As it goes back to normal, that 100% margin goes away. There are lots of moving parts, and as those one-time things roll off, the utilization is improving, and the number you talked about then helps to keep the gross margin in that range rather than take it higher.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Yeah. The underutilization improving was mentioned by Steve in his prepared remarks about being a help in the 66.5 midpoint guidance this quarter. Just on the underutilization charges, last quarter, I think they reduced by about $8 million sequentially. I'd expect about the same in the current quarter.

[Quinn Bolton, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Got it.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

He was taking the remaining underutilization charge, dividing it by the revenue-

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Yeah

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

coming up with 238 basis points improvement and saying why the gross margin doesn't go up. What we're saying is that there are a lot of one-time things, and it will-

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Offset those.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

offset those.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Yeah.

[Quinn Bolton, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Got it. I think that's pretty clear. Just wanted to ask on auto, most of your peers year-over-year probably grew in their auto business 15% or so. I think you're up nearly 30%. Do you think that's just a function of you're early in the auto cycle coming off a pretty steep bottom? Are you feeling better about the auto end market? Certainly feels like SAR is still pretty lumpy, but just any quick thoughts on how you see the auto demand going forward?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I think there are two reasons. One, we went down more than the others. Our overall reduction post-COVID, our inventory was higher at the customers because Microchip was less flexible, so we had more inventory at the customers. Therefore, we went down more, so our recovery has been stronger. Secondly, I think we gained share in pretty much all markets in the last two years.

[Quinn Bolton, Analyst at Needham & Company]

Thank you, Steve.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Joseph Moore from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Joseph Moore, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thank you. On the topic of capital allocation, how are you guys thinking about M&A and inorganic growth at this point? Is that still something that you're It seemed like you were maybe through with that, but just how are you thinking about that now that there's a little bit more activity?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We're not thinking of any large inorganic growth. The only things on our plate are some small companies, technology where it could help a hand there. Like Hailo is a very small acquisition that moves our roadmap substantially on AI on the edge products, which are products that we would have produced in the next four years in our business units, and we get those day one. It's not a lot of dollars, and eventually, when we close the acquisition, you'll know what we paid. We're not engaged in any large acquisition today.

[Joseph Moore, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Okay. Thank you for that.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We're going to use the money to bring down debt. We are not comfortable with $5.5 billion in debt.

[Joseph Moore, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Makes sense. Thank you so much. Then, on the data center, I guess it'd be great to just, at some point, get, I appreciate you breaking out the numbers, if we can get more of a sense of breadth. You talk a lot about the PCI Express opportunity, but I know the history of the company with PMC-Sierra and Standard Microsystems and all of the IP that you have. Not really a question, but just it would be great to get a sense of the breadth of opportunities that you guys face in that business at some point.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Noted.

[Joseph Moore, Analyst at Morgan Stanley]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Will Stein from Truist. Please go ahead.

[Will Stein, Analyst at Truist]

Great. Thank you for taking my question. Steve, I'd like to ask about the defense end market specifically. As I recall, following one of your acquisitions years ago, there was a big supplier to the DoD. I think you're now the largest semi supplier to the DoD, and I think the reports about depletion of weapon systems has been pretty widely covered, and there's an effort to rebuild those. This has been a strong end market for you for a while, I think, and I think your outlook was strong there as well. I wonder if, from your perspective, when you see the orders on the books, has the rebuild already been Sort of placed into the supply chain, or is that something that we should consider as possible upside more on the come?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

It's more on the come. We are seeing only the front end of the orders on missiles and those kind of products. We've gotten some orders to which we're delivering. That sector was up 45.6% in June quarter over the June last year. Some of it is in there. The growth that the government and Department of Defense is talking about on this thing is a production increase of 4x to even four to 8x is a number that we're hearing from primes. The primes don't have the capacity for everything else to ramp that much, so they're trying to get everything needed to really ramp that much. Lot more growth is ahead.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I've spoken to the CEOs of the primes, and they're asking me, "Are you ready to substantially ramp this?" I said, "Ramp what?" I mean, you got to give me the order so I can figure out what components are needed. A general question, are you ready to ramp? Yes, I'm always ready to ramp. I think that's really what it is. They're trying to figure out their own needs regarding what all the things are needed. They're contacting the suppliers, figuring out the ramp of capacity, then give the orders, then we start building. Our orders are strong, but it's only a fraction of really what is needed out there.

[Will Stein, Analyst at Truist]

Appreciate that. If I can follow up with a question about AI data center. I think what most companies have expressed through this earning season is that that end market still looks quite strong and stable. I think you've said as such, so far this call as well, although, the stocks are sort of telling us that it seems like there are some people who are very concerned that the spend may roll over quickly, or maybe there's already some fear is being expressed, let's say. What are you seeing in terms of the duration of the backlog, the stability of the backlog and outlook? Are there perturbations that make you nervous about that backlog, or has that changed for the better in that perhaps it's gotten even more stable and longer duration in the last couple of months, let's say?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Well, I would say if you take two pieces of it. One is our Data Center Solutions business unit, and second, you take all the catalog products. On all the catalog products, I think we're seeing a growth even slightly higher than the Data Center Solutions group. Those are going from 288 to 500, and there are lots of new design wins. They're still ramping, and it's not a single design win. It's hundreds and hundreds of them all over the place in they are in the rack, in the power, incoming into the data center, just all over, security products, memory products, parts on the card, parts on the power management, parts on the bus, converters, and all that kind of stuff. That is really just very broad-based and very difficult to get your arms around by design wins because it's just too numerous.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

When you get to the Data Center Solutions group, there, like we have talked about 14 design wins. There, I think we have talked before that we were major suppliers on Gen 2, Gen 3, and Gen 4. We were very late to market on Gen 5 during the post-COVID period, and we essentially lost all of our Gen 5 business. We got none by the time we came to market, that business was gone. Since then, we've produced our Gen 5 products, and we're getting lots of revenue in the second source position, and it is ramping, and Gen 6 is just starting. The part went to production at the end of June. We're just shipping first parts to customers as we speak. There, we're in the early inning, and it's all growth ahead because it's coming from low numbers. Does that answer your question?

[Will Stein, Analyst at Truist]

The indications that you're getting from customers, is the pattern of backlog or the pattern of orders, the backlog, the duration of it, is it stable and getting longer, or are there things that are moving around fast enough that suggest there's, I don't know, some lack of certainty, let's say?

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I'm saying that the customers who are shipping those parts in volume today, they can probably answer that question better. We're not shipping in volume. We have won 14 design wins on which we have shipped nothing yet.

[Will Stein, Analyst at Truist]

Well, got it. Thanks, Steve.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Hey, I want to add one thing, and this is more in response to Joseph Moore's question a question ago. Sajid worked with our business unit leaders and produced a data center slide. It's slide 14 on the investor deck that we posted on the website. I think you guys will find it interesting. The left-hand side of that slide speaks about our Data Center Solutions business, which we've talked about more on a public basis over the last few quarters. The right side of that slide talks about the other products and some of the areas where that plays. I think that might help you, Joe, and others as you look at that slide, and you can obviously follow up with Sajid if you have any questions.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Right. On the right-hand side of that slide, it talks about five specific areas. One is grid to rack and in-rack power, so that's really bringing power to the rack. Second is the system management, various Ethernet switches, USB hub controller, MCUs that are doing predictive maintenance, fan controllers, temperature sensors, those kind of parts. The third is timing and synchronization. There is a tremendous amount of accurate nanosecond accuracy of timing needed and all the systems, so they can all work together, and we provide that timing and synchronization. Fourth is security, so you can't get into it and hack it and all that. Fifth is networking, routers, switches, Ethernet PHYS, optical modules, and other stuff. Take a look at that slide. It's useful.

[Operator]

Our last question comes from the line of Joshua Buchalter from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

[Joshua Buchalter, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Hey, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in, and let me echo the appreciation for the incremental disclosures. Yeah, maybe follow up on the last one, since you brought up that slide. Any way you can maybe rank order the contributions today or even a year or two from now on the different buckets on that slide 14 for a data center? Thank you.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

I don't know about a year from now, but not today.

[Joshua Buchalter, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Fair enough.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

We'll take that question under advisement and take a look at what we can do.

[Joshua Buchalter, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Okay. Can't hurt to try. Anyways, I wanted to follow up on the pricing increases, and I'm sorry for picking at this. I was wondering, any help you can give us on the scope? Was it mainly with channel partners, but was it channel plus direct customers, more across different end markets, or was it just across the board? Thank you.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

It was largely across the board, there was not an equal increase on every product, there was not an equal increase on every customer, because every customer buys a different mix of various different products. There was some correlation to whether we're producing internally or externally, where the cost increases are, and there was some matching of the cost increase to the ASP increase of the product. It was a very complex equation because we ship 100,000 SKUs, but it was very broad-based.

[Joshua Buchalter, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Got it. Thank you, Steve.

[Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip]

Generally well accepted by our customers, I would say.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

One distribution comment to me directly was that Microchip executed the best among many of their other suppliers who had done the price increase. We were the model. We were the standard how it should be done.

[Joshua Buchalter, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Thank you both.

[Operator]

This is the conclusion of our Q&A session. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Steve Sanghi, CEO and President, for closing comments.

[Steve Sanghi, CEO and President at Microchip]

Well, thank you very much. I think we delivered a great quarter, and we are set up to deliver another outstanding quarter with a huge increase in gross margin, EPS, and everything else. There are several conferences this quarter, and Microchip management will be at those conferences, and we look forward to seeing you at those conferences and continuing this dialogue. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Executives

• Steve Sanghi, CEO and President

Analysts

• Eric Bjornholt, CFO at Microchip
• Timothy Arcuri, Analyst at UBS
• Vivek Arya, Analyst at Bank of America
• Joe Quatrochi, Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Christopher Rolland, Analyst at Susquehanna
• Chris Caso, Analyst at Wolfe Research
• Vijay Rakesh, Analyst at Mizuho
• Sajid Daudi, Head of Investor Relations at Microchip
• Harlan Sur, Analyst at J.P. Morgan
• Blayne Curtis, Analyst at Jefferies
• Tom O'Malley, Analyst at Barclays
• Jim Schneider, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Quinn Bolton, Analyst at Needham & Company
• Joseph Moore, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
• Will Stein, Analyst at Truist
• Joshua Buchalter, Analyst at TD Cowen