All right, welcome back, everyone. Next, we have Ideal Power Inc. It trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol IPWR, and it is the developer and innovator provider of a broadly patented bidirectional semiconductor power switch. Happy to welcome its CFO today, Tim Burns. Welcome, Tim. How are you doing?
Great. Thank you, Ana. I'm looking forward to giving an update to the audience here.
All right, the floor is yours.
All right, so I'd like to focus this update on commercializing our B-TRAN technology really to our path to revenue and profitability, and as part of that, weave in some of the recent announcements we've had on a commercial basis. The first market that we're really going after is the solid-state switchgear market. This is a market where we already have two products. We have a B-TRAN discrete device and a SymCool Power Module. We're engaged with several very large companies that are interested in our technology for this market, and taking a step back, the reason that our technology is so relevant to this market and really is a game changer in enabling technology is that our technology has very low, ultra-low conduction losses. It's also inherently bidirectional, which reduces part count.
It operates orders of magnitude faster than the competitive option for solid-state circuit breakers, which is electromechanical breakers. And it also adds programmability, diagnostic capability, and enhanced safety and reliability. So there's long been a desire from the market to move to solid-state semiconductor devices, but there wasn't a power semiconductor switch that had the ultra-low conduction losses really required to make this a competitive option and the preferred option for suppliers of circuit breakers. For electromechanical breakers, they're typically slow to act. They have physical contacts that wear, so they require maintenance. They're also susceptible to arcing, which is a safety issue. And really, solid-state semiconductor-based circuit breakers solve these problems. The challenge with IGBTs and even silicon carbide MOSFETs is the conduction losses are just too high.
So we're really enabling technology for the market, is why we've drawn so much interest from very large companies in this market. Unfortunately, we can't name any yet, but if you look at some of the large players in this market, which would be of the caliber of companies that we're talking to, you're talking about the Siemens and the Schneiders and Eatons and GEs and ABBs of the world. We were able to announce our first design win in this space here just last month. It was with a large circuit protection equipment manufacturer in Asia. They serve really the industrial and utility markets. And as part of that, we have a development program that will go through the first half of 2025, with commercial sales expected later in 2025 after we get through the development of their initial product.
That product is really planned on being marketed to grid-tied solar and energy storage equipment providers and also utility electric distribution companies that are providing the circuit breaker solutions to the market. For us, I mean, even in the first year of sales, it could be several hundred thousand dollars of revenue. If you look at over two years and beyond, this could be a $1 million opportunity, and their plan isn't just to have one solid-state circuit breaker of one size with the B-TRAN. It's actually to develop a family of solid-state circuit breakers in a wide range of ratings for the market, so this is a great opportunity for us. We think it's the first of more to come here in the coming months because we're pretty far along with a lot of companies in this market.
This, and this being the solid-state switchgear market and solid-state circuit breakers, is really our path to revenue here in the short term, and it's also the path that could bring us to profitability without even considering the other markets, which there are several where our technology applies, so for us, it's all about growth in the industrial market. That is our focus. We recently had another announcement also last month about our SymCool IQ product. This could be used in circuit protection applications. It just has a localized driver for control, and it also opens up some additional markets, so things like renewable energy, energy storage, and EV charging, so that's probably a couple quarters or so behind the SymCool and our initial products targeting the solid-state switchgear market, but it's really those first two boxes, top boxes on the slide that you're looking at.
That's what will get us to revenue ramp. That's what will get us to profitability, past cash flow break even. So we're really excited about the industrial opportunity. We're excited for the design win that we just had. We're also excited for the future design wins we're expecting to be able to share with our investors here in the coming months. For that SymCool IQ product, that company is also in solid-state circuit protection, but they also work with power conversion solutions. So it's things like EVs, EV charging, renewables, data centers. Those are some of the target markets for that opportunity. It was our first order for the SymCool IQ in December. And we expect to be able to announce here more orders in the coming months.
But for us, I just want to make sure that people understand that even though electric vehicles are an enormous opportunity, a $3.6 billion SAM for our technology, it's the longer-term opportunity. What we're really focused on now is the $2.4 billion opportunity between solid-state switchgear and some of the energy and power markets, and that is what will drive us to profitability, drive us to start the revenue ramp here this year, and really show some significant growth in 2026, but with that, happy to answer any questions that the audience has.
Fantastic. Thanks, Tim. Yeah, so if you can provide a little bit more on the design win on items to be completed in the second quarter of 2025, maybe the process into the commercial sales ramp-up stage too?
Sure, yeah. So for that, they were looking actually at silicon carbide MOSFETs as a potential solution for solid-state circuit breakers, but they ran into the issue of the losses were too high. So they evaluated our B-TRAN technology and decided to go ahead with us and build initial prototypes of their product in the first half of the year. So that involves us working with the team. We're doing our work on the actual even things like the heat sink for the device, the device itself, basic level controls. And they're going to incorporate that into an existing package they have for a circuit breaker solution that they were working on and have the system level controls on top of that. So for us, there's that work that's going to be done here.
We're actually targeting to finish this early on our side just because we like to kind of accelerate the process. But that will then lead to them getting customer feedback during that process on the product and then launching the product here. We're expecting later this year and really being the first customer to start ramping revenue with us here in 2025. So it's a great opportunity for us. It was a situation where the first win is always the toughest win. So we're glad to have that first win under our belt. And we're trying to leverage that with existing companies that are going to want to be competitive in the market and are going to have to compete against a solution that has a first-mover advantage.
And with that said, since you announced the design win, has there been a shift in sentiment with other companies that your company is engaging with?
Yeah, so it helps to light a fire, so to speak. We're engaged with several. It's more than a handful, certainly more than half a dozen, very large companies. We're talking about billion- to multi-billion-dollar companies that are looking at our technology for solid-state circuit protection. So for us, we can now go back to them and say, "Hey, this has been adopted by a very large company that's actually looking to launch products here after they finish a development cycle that's just going to be a couple of quarters." And it's an opportunity that you don't want people really getting advantage because they've moved before you for this application. So I think it's really accelerated the pace of meetings and I would say the pace of evaluation of the technology by some of these companies. So for us, it is just a positive.
It's one of the reasons why we're so excited about 2025.
What are you doing to expand the industrial and automotive pipeline?
So for us, it's a multi-pronged approach. So we have a business development team here that works with the large companies that we're engaged with. Even if you look at something like the company in Asia, right, our initial reaction to that was, "Well, who are their competitors, right? Who is it that we need to be getting in front of to really broadly distribute this technology?" We're working with three distributors, one here in the U.S., Richardson Electronics. We're working with two Asian distributors. They're making the introductions. I mean, B-TRAN is a new power semiconductor technology, so there is an education process that these companies have to go through and an evaluation process. But we're pretty deep into that process with, again, several very large companies.
Can you give a status of the automotive reliability test program? Any update?
Yes. So yeah, we're actually about to complete the first round of testing, and when I say the first round, it's multiple lots within that round of testing. We're going to really look at the package. I mean, from all the test results so far, the device itself is having no issues going through the testing, so no device-level failures to report. I think there's probably some more we can do on the packaging just to make it a little bit more robust, but it's been going great, and we still expect to have that done here in the next couple of quarters.
Fantastic. Well, we do have more questions for you, but we'll send them to you so you can answer on your own time. And we look forward to having you back on the conference for a little bit longer next time.
I appreciate it, Ana. Thank you.
All right, thanks, Tim. Everyone stay with us. We'll be right back.