Good morning, everyone. We'll move on to our next presentation. I'm Chris Caso, Wolfe's Semiconductor Analyst, so thanks for joining us at our conference. Next up is Microchip. With us from Microchip is Matthias Kaestner. Hopefully I pronounced that correctly.
Matt is good.
Matt is good. That's fine. And Sajid Daudi from Investor Relations. Matthias is the corporate VP of Auto, Data Center, and Networking. I know Microchip has had you out on the road a bit with investors recently because we've heard data center is kind of good right now. So thanks for joining us. I know, and Eric, if you're listening, I hope you feel better.
There you go.
So maybe to start, Microchip has been, you know, pretty vocal over the last quarter or so with a view that, you know, the cycle is really starting to turn. And of course, Microchip was a little later to see the recovery, and now it sounds like that you are. So maybe you can give us an update of kind of what you see from a booking standpoint, from, you know, what's going on with customers, particularly as we go into the Chinese New Year holiday, which I know is an important time for you.
Yeah, and before we begin, I'll just kind of share the four safe harbor statements, which is that during the course of this discussion, we'll be making certain forward-looking projections regarding the future outlook of Microchip, and we refer you to the SEC filings that identify important risk factors. And so with that, yeah, I think what has most significantly changed in the December quarter is the distribution channel has largely normalized. So as you know, the sell-through/sell-in gaps came down very significantly during the December quarter, which was down to about $12 million for the quarter. So we believe that kind of quantifies that distribution is largely corrected. Additionally, we're seeing pretty strong and interesting demand patterns, right? So during the course of the December quarter, bookings activity was significantly stronger. We were seeing the book-to-bill was also substantially above 1.
We're seeing expedite requests that have accelerated, especially over the past couple of quarters. So really just continued momentum, continued recovery, and, and, really, seeing this momentum build into the March quarter, which kind of calls out for the guidance that we provided.
Right. And, maybe you could separate out, well, maybe first to start that, does it feel that you're now shipping in line with end-market growth right now, or do you feel like you're still undershipping the markets and maybe that's probably not the same answer for every end market?
Yeah, exactly. I think really it's difficult to kind of quantify, you know, make an end-market statement with 10,000 customers and having the large exposure that we have with distribution side. So but we do believe that it is normalizing every quarter. Like I said, distribution is largely corrected on the direct side. We still have customers that are buying certain products to consumption and certain products they're still burning inventory on. So that element still kind of continues. So it's difficult to comment on end because we just don't have that visibility. But our expectation is that things are normalizing across both sides of the business.
Largely in line with end-market demand today with some isolated pockets where customers delever over-inventory, but it's not the majority.
Right. And, you know, I think what's also been interesting in this cycle is, you know, there's different end-market growth dynamics depending on the different end markets. And, again, under your purview, auto and data center, they're very diverging end-market trends there. And so, you know, as you look out over the last year, data center has been a big contributor here. Maybe you could help to level set us for, you know, how big data center is for Microchip and, you know, the extent to which that has driven some growth over the last year, even though, you know, you're still going through an inventory correction in some of the other markets.
Data center is one of our larger market segments. So is the automotive market as well. Data center grew in share within the overall Microchip revenue portfolio, while automotive had declined a little bit, but also coming back. We do see strong demand from the automotive side, as the cycles are normalizing and the car makers are doing better in general. So, I mean, data center is a hot topic where everybody is firing all cylinders, driving some of the shortages on the memory side, etc. But that's also a driver for us at Microchip. But Microchip is not dominated by the end-market segment data center.
Right.
And then we report data center at roughly 19% of last year's fiscal year's revenue, and that includes compute and data center. And then, as you know, we roll up our end markets once a year. So next quarter we'll be providing more color. We'll have that granularity. And then, you know, there is definitely talk about breaking out and providing additional data. So next quarter, stay tuned. We'll provide an update then on the exact nature.
That'll help us get to do the math on exactly how much of a contributor that was to revenue. Just looking forward, you know, you guys have talked about better than seasonal growth for a couple of quarters now. How far out should we expect, you know, better than seasonal growth? And I guess there's two factors that would drive that. One is, you know, did the end market start accelerating? Did your customers start to restock? And then, you know, is where you're still under-shipping demand and snapping back. So, you know, for how long should we be thinking about better than seasonal growth for Microchip?
Yeah, I mean, I think as you kind of look back at some of the commentary that we've made over the past couple of quarters, visibility continues to improve, though, you know, one quarter out is really where our best look is. And so our outlook for the March quarter is 6.2% growth, which is above seasonal. Typically, I'll argue that nothing's been seasonal over the past, however many years, but, regardless of that, typically we see 2%-3% growth in the March quarter, and we're delivering 6.2%. So we're optimistic. Our visibility beyond the March quarter is still kind of improving. And so really our expectation is that we'll continue to see solid strength if this momentum continues. But really we're beyond the current; we're beyond the March quarter.
We're really not making any comments other than we'd expect this momentum to kind of continue.
Right. And with respect to, I think on the last earnings call you started to indicate that you did start to see lead times extend for certain products. Maybe you can go into that a little more detail, you know, how widespread is that and, you know, obviously as lead times extend that gives your customers an incentive to give you a little more visibility.
We still have about 200 days of inventory. So when it comes to our internal manufacturing, wafers coming out of our own wafer fabs, we don't have any issue. We maintain the short lead times in most of the cases. Where we see lead times extending for the most advanced foundry nodes that we're using on all the way to 3 nanometers. And, for some, the assembly components like substrates that are currently getting tighter and where we experience longer lead times also from our suppliers in the OSAT side.
Right. And then, yeah, lead times have essentially just kind of bounced around the bottom in that 4-8-week timeframe. And so for that, you'll for that extension, you probably need tighter capacity and, you know, kind of longer lead times expansion.
Right. But point taken, there's a difference between what you produce internally and externally. And, for the data center market, which is strong now, I believe the majority of that is external.
That is correct.
Right. So, you know, maybe this provides a segue into, you know, what you're doing with factory loadings and the impact of margins. You did indicate that you were planning to increase the factory loadings on this particular quarter. Talk about why that's the case, because I believe the internal business is more of sort of classic Microchip, you know, more broader market as opposed to data center.
Yeah, our, our manufacturing footprint today is about 37%-40% internal, 60% external. On the internal side, anything 110 nanometer and higher is mostly internal products. And, and like we were talking about, the lower 90, 90 nanometer and lower is on the external side. And so given today where we're seeing the momentum in aerospace and defense, networking, data center area, those are higher rich, richer, mixed products and so higher margin products as well. And all of that activity is happening in the outside foundries. Internally, we reported underutilization, which is really the only headwind to gross margins today after the March quarter. About $50 million-$51 million is what we reported. Like you said, we will probably expect to see improvement in that, but it'll be more at a, steady clip rather than a step-up function in any capacity.
If you look at our guidance for the March quarter, which is calling for 61% gross margin, that is, in, in addition to the fact that last quarter had a good licensing revenue benefit, which we, kind of contemplated in our original guidance. And so as the momentum continues, we'll see now if the momentum is stronger, we may inflect some of this, higher, but our expectation is that you probably should see a gradual gross margin improvement, most likely in the line of what we're reporting for the March quarter, about a 500 basis point improvement, about 50 basis point improvement.
50 basis point, yeah. You know, to be clear, a big part of the improvement that happened in the March quarter was elimination of the inventory reserve charges.
That is correct.
And so it sounds like that, that headwind is pretty much gone by the end of this quarter, and your incremental benefit is from mix and, and improving utilization.
Mix, improving utilization, and also if you remember, we've been writing off a lot of inventory. So the benefit of that is, you know, it's already been expensed to cost of sales. So, you know, that'll be a good flow through coming from there. The challenge with that is that there's a lot of variability. You just don't know, you know, how much of that you would sell. We know there's no obsolescence risks on that inventory, but the next three months or the next three years, it could take that long, right? So it's kind of not predictable or forecastable.
I'll put a complete inventory is going to be more than three months.
Yes, yes, yes.
For sure.
Right, right. But what about, I mean, in terms of loading, and, the impression we've gotten from prior calls is that your, your gross margin target is 65%. So it sounds like you're still confident in achieving that. It sounds like that, however, you know, based on what you're talking about with regard to factory loadings, that's not over the next kind of two or three quarters. It's a bit, you know, we probably think into next calendar year. Is that reasonable?
Most certainly. And we've kind of publicly stated that that will come at a slower pace and probably carry through most of this calendar year into next calendar year. So, our path to 65% is very much achievable. We have very confident in our ability to achieve that. Obviously, we've come back from you know a gross margin low of 52% or something. So we've recovered about 1,000 basis point you know over the past year as we've implemented our nine-point recovery plan, but still ways to go. So the path is clear and you know we have the timing of that remains depends on how strong the market recovery goes.
Okay, maybe we'll pivot to some of the markets. Matt, while you're here, you know, there's been a lot of interest in Microchip's data center exposure. I think perhaps some of that interest is the fact that people didn't realize that you had data center exposure, which is perhaps one of the reasons why you're here. So maybe talk to us a bit about where you do participate in data center. You mentioned some of the PCI Express wins on the earnings call. You know, how broad is the portfolio? Where is it positioned? And how much of it's new?
So our data center business has basically three main pillars of products. One is PCI Express switching, PCI Express retimers, and we do this for generations. We're not new in this game. We do this for generation 3, 4, 5. Now we have generation 6, which is the latest product out in the market. We're working with customers. It's the first generation 6 PCIe switch, built on 3-nanometer technology that provides quite significant power advantage over other products that are out there. So this is creating quite a lot of interest. The other pillar is flash controllers or the large flash storage systems, which includes a complete software stack that comes along. So it's a very complex product and we get a lot of traction there. Also, this is not a new family of products, but with every generation, basically the speed doubles.
Then PCIe Gen 5 to Gen 6 is doubling of the speed per, per lane, usually also adding more lanes. So, that's the name of the game in the data center connectivity world is all about speed. Then the, the third line are HDD controllers, which, HDD is considered older technology, but, because they have the cheapest, cost for storing data, they will have a very, very long lifetime. And a lot of, of the hyperscalers and data center providers are committed to use HDD for their storage needs. When it comes to content like video content, audio content, etc., where the highest access speeds are not really required. So a hard disk drive is good enough.
But of course, also this technology is improving and we continue to develop products for that segment of the market and have good customer traction where we're sampling to customers, where we're closely aligned with them to define the features that they value. We add features. We're not only doubling speed from generation to generation, but also adding features like security. Post-Quantum Cryptography is a big trend. Quantum computers are not there yet to break the cryptography, but everybody wants to be ready so that the deployments they do in data centers are future-proof. Those are all things that we embed in our products today and where we believe we have a very good position.
Right. So, you know, maybe to start with the PCI Express Gen 6, maybe talk about for some that want to know, may not know, like the application for that. So why is PCI Gen 6 important?
So within a data center, you got the main processor, the GPU, the likes like NVIDIA. We're not providing this type of product, but a standalone GPU doesn't work. It needs to be connected to other GPUs. It needs to be connected to high-speed memory. It needs to be connected to the outside world. And for that, a lot of switching technology and connectivity technology is required. And PCI Express is the de facto standard interface on each and every SoC of every, of a, GPU SoC for servers. And that's where PCI Express is coming into play. In the past, the cycles from generation to generation were 3-4 years. This because of the need in the data centers to have higher connectivity speeds has been compressed down to 18 months- 24 months.
So, we beefed up our development team and effort to be able to work with this cycle and to be on the forefront and having the first competitive products out with each new technology cycle. The number of PCIe switches in data centers varies depending on the architecture, depending on the GPUs that are being used. But the ratio of 3: 4: 5 high link count switches per GPU is not uncommon. There's a substantial number in the substantial market for us.
Right. Is Microchip participating in UALink as well?
We do have activities on the Ethernet side, but UALink is one of many standards that is moving forward. So if you look beyond PCI Express Gen 7, there are competing technologies. NVIDIA is proposing their own evolutions of NVLink to cover some of those markets as they're doing it already today. So this is not new, but there are some more proprietary solutions that are also pitched by some of the industry players in that space. But UALink is certainly on our radar screen.
Okay. Maybe speak of the FPGA business as well, because that has been another, I don't know, maybe, maybe I say surprise grower, but, but probably not surprise to you with good margins. So, so where is FPGA fitting into the, the picture?
So, all right, FPGA business is growing very strongly at the moment. So it's one of the ones that's driving our revenue forward. And it's across many different markets. I think the original strength was in the Aerospace and Defense segment where we have also radiation-hardened product for satellite operations, etc. It's a high-margin business and the Aerospace and Defense market segment of all of our segments is probably among the strongest today for the obvious geopolitical reasons as well. But the FPGA business is not limited to that. There are good applications on the industrial side, for example, industrial robots. There are applications on the automotive side and there are also applications on the data center side. In the past, and then less advanced process technologies, an ASIC development wasn't that expensive.
So it was justifiable to develop a custom product for a specific application, even though the volume is not extremely high. Now with the mask cost and development costs going into triple-digit million-dollar figures for the most advanced nodes, you need significant volume to justify an ASIC development. And that's where FPGAs come into play. They're used when customers have a specific need to translate protocols to process video data and things like that. So this is across many different industry segments, including data center, including industrial, including automotive, and of course, aerospace and defense.
Right. And just one point of clarity, for the audience. I think, as we report from a reporting hierarchy standpoint, we report an MCU category, an analog category, and other. FPGA largely sits in the other category, you know, as people kind of look at our line items and see, just as a highlight for folks listening in.
Right. And that was an area of strength in the last quarter, but I guess part of that was from licensing, but then FPGA was.
FPGA was a piece of that as well. Some of the feedback that I got post-earnings was that people thought we missed on the MCU analog side where, you know, overall, like I said, we contemplated the licensing piece in our original guidance and the upside came from the silicon business, which December quarter, again, seasonally, typically is down 2%-5%. There's some kind of confusion, so hopefully that clears it.
Okay. I'll repeat the question for the webcast. It's just the question of PCI Express scale-up versus scale-out opportunity, PCI Express switch, scale-up versus scale-out opportunities.
We do see it in both areas. And it depends a lot on the data center architecture that customers are choosing. But we do see deployment of PCI switches in scale-up as well as scale-out.
Pivot over to auto a bit. Maybe you could speak about the Microchip exposure in auto. Historically, the microcontroller business has had a strong auto component. I think people understand that. Maybe you could talk about some of the other areas you're participating in auto as well, which may not be as well understood.
So historically, microcontrollers was one strong component, but we were, I think, always strong in specific applications. For example, touchscreen controllers or touch controllers in general for touch buttons, surfaces, sliders, all the way to the touchscreen where we had a significant, have a significant share of the market. Car access is another element. So the chip that goes into the key fob, but also all the electronics that are inside the car to realize the hands-free functionality, approach the car and pull the handle open without taking the key out of your pocket. To make this in a secure manner, it's a tricky thing. So a lot of electronics involved and we are also one of the two big players in this area. It's not just microcontrollers itself, it's complete solutions that go around. We are historically also working on the in-vehicle networking side.
So we have connectivity products for LIN, for CAN, for MOST, and for the very early Ethernet connectivity as well in automotive. And we do see a trend, that today up to 20 different technologies used to transmit data throughout the vehicle, which is a challenge to scale. It's a challenge for the software development. And the big trend is that, people are moving away from the multitude of different standards towards a unified Ethernet-based system. And we're extremely well positioned in that as we developed switches for automotive, we developed dedicated transceivers from 10 Mb 10BASE-T1S, all the way up to the gigabit speeds that are used in automotive. While Ethernet, the Ethernet itself will reduce the software complexity, will reduce the development times of cars with that. So that's important for the carmakers.
In addition to Ethernet, we believe that there will be two other pillars that will be embedded in future vehicles. One is PCI Express. You have a main computer in the car doing all the ADAS functionality, all the in-vehicle infotainment functionality, and there you have high-performance processors. They need to be connected to each other also for functional safety reasons. They need to access a common high-speed memory. So for that, PCIe switches are also required in automotive vehicles. Not the same class of switches with the same number of lanes and the same speeds as is used in data centers.
But for automotive, we derived an automotive switch from our PCIe Gen 4 data center switch, added the safety and security features to it as required in automotive, cut it down from the number of lanes from a cost point of view to make it suitable for automotive use. Without being in data center, this would not have been possible because the initial market for that is relatively small. But because we could derive this technology from our data center products, we had a unique opportunity to do so. We expect this market to grow fast. By the way, not only in automotive. The same product, we got a lot of interest from server makers, from industrial, for robots, etc. So this is proliferating beyond automotive.
The third element in automotive where we developed connectivity solutions and made an acquisition in April last year is the connectivity between the camera and the main computer and between the main computer and the displays. Today, proprietary technology from competition is used, but the industry is driving towards open standards. We teamed up with some automotive companies, some OEMs, including BMW, to develop a standard called ASA, Automotive SerDes Alliance. We have the first products out in the market, get a lot of traction, a lot of proof of concepts, etc. Automotive is a slow-moving market, but once you're in, you're in there for 7 years, 10 years, for a certain vehicle. The traction there is tremendous, on both ASA, Ethernet, as well as PCIe.
So I do, I do believe that the future growth in automotive, a significant portion of the future growth in automotive will come from the connectivity side. And just to give you a perspective, CAN, Controller Area Network, is the legacy standard that's in cars for more than 25 years now. There are more than 2 billion CAN nodes a year deployed in cars. And, with the new Ethernet, 10 Mb standard, 10BASE-T1S, we have a chance to replace many of them over time. So the market potential for that is tremendous. The benefits for the customers are tremendous. You have everything on the same, standard so that they, the upper layers of the software stack remain the same, while when they have different need, need for different speed grades, they just exchange the transceiver layer, the lowest layer of the protocol, while they can keep the software.
Today, they need higher speed. They have to redo the complete system. And that's a nightmare. Right.
Now I'll add one interest, like a dynamic to it that I've been seeing evolve. And this is more of a very long-term kind of statement here. But historically, as you guys have heard about Microchip Technology, we talk about our anchor lanes being microcontrollers where, you know, the engineer starts their activity there, and then we can build around that with our analog products and so on and so forth. Most recently, we're now starting to see a couple of new pillars emerge, right?
One in the data center, in the connectivity piece, one in the compute side and AI/ML where conversations with customers are starting with that as the core application and then spreading into other attach areas to say, well, how can microcontrollers help with that and so on and so forth? So I think that's a different dynamic that historically we haven't seen in Microchip and we're starting to see that emerge. It'll play out over time, but you know, I think it's definitely real and happening as we kind of think about the future of Microchip.
Right. I mean, maybe it's a segue into, you know, the microcontroller market itself too. And, you know, one of the trends that you folks have called out post-pandemic has been, you know, the migration finally to 32-bit. And, for years and years of covering Microchip, I've been corrected oftentimes by certain Microchip people about why there are certain applications which are just fine for 8-bit, will stay with 8-bit. Are we seeing that migration? And I know that migration is happening more broadly now. Are we seeing that migration happening within the auto market as well?
I think if you look at microcontrollers, it's not so much about the core anymore. In the more advanced process technology nodes, the cost of a silicon transistor has come down quite a bit. So it doesn't really matter whether it's an 8-bit core or a 32-bit core. Customers also really don't care that much about it because the microcontroller, including all the analog peripherals, needs to have the right interfaces, the right ADC converters, etc., etc., because the cost of transistors came down so much, it doesn't make a big difference anymore whether it's a low-end 32-bit core like a Cortex-M0 or an 8-bit core. That's why we do the transition to be more in a uniform architecture to help our customers support that. We'll continue to support and sell our 8-bit microcontrollers for many, many years.
There's no plan to end the life of them, etc. There are many customers that are happy with them and use them, continue to use them also in new applications. But going forward, the bulk of the development activities are on the 32-bit side.
Right. But does it matter to Microchip if, and, understand the core of it's an 8-bit core, a 32-bit core probably doesn't mean as much to the customer. The cost isn't a lot different now. But the underlying architecture is different. Your, your 8-bit core is proprietary PIC where 32-bit is going more towards ARM. So, so how do you deal with that? And does it, does it affect Microchip's historic competitive advantage, by, by, by that migration occurring?
I wouldn't say so. Because, you know, in fact, the microchip architecture that you mentioned, the PIC is not the only one. I mean, to the Atmel acquisition, I personally joined more than 10 years ago from Atmel's side. We had the AVR architecture. So we have already two architectures. And I think we're pretty well versed how to integrate both architectures. And now we are already at ARM cores. It's not new for us if we're using ARM cores into our tool suite that we give to our customers to develop their solutions, using our microcontrollers and our tools. So from that, it's not such a big change because it's not new to us. It's just a shift where we put the focus. But I don't expect that our competitive advantage and situation will change because of that.
Okay. We got about a little under 10 minutes left. Is there any other questions from the audience? Because I can keep going. Raise hand. Anyway, I'll keep going. Maybe we could talk about China a bit. You know, the China market has been volatile, to say the least. Maybe you could speak about what you're seeing in China now and how your approach to the China market may have changed as a result of tariffs and, you know, some of the trade uncertainty now.
I think China is a volatile market. They're trying to build their own semiconductor industry and pushing that. But we learned that most Chinese customers are pragmatic. They're happy to buy our products, even where we are a U.S. semiconductor company, if the price is okay and if the features are the ones they need. There is competition, especially on the low-end side, on the microcontroller side, some of the analog side. But we have tremendous design momentum on the automotive side where features, complex features like a car access system are not available from local competition. This may come and evolve over time, but we don't have big restrictions in selling into China. Also, the total of our revenue that stays within China is not getting re-exported out is relatively low. It's a high single digit. That's it.
So our exposure to the local Chinese market is not as big as some may think. We do see some restrictions for the more advanced products that go to companies who are closer to the government related to infrastructure like the Chinese telecoms. They get told by the government, "You cannot buy foreign semiconductor. You need to use a local one." There are a few products where the U.S. administration's telling us, "You cannot sell to customer A, B, or C in China." But the impact on our business hasn't been dramatic because of that. So it's a pragmatic approach that we're taking, to China. We keep our sales momentum. We have good design interaction in China with Chinese local companies. But it depends a lot on interpretation there. Those perceived rules that Chinese customers or Chinese companies need to have a minimum local content.
I think it's more pronounced with those who are closer to the government or partially owned by the government. So they have some preemptive obedience. That's not unique to microchips. So if you feel they need to buy Chinese, not to lose subsidies in the future. But it's not a major, major impact to our business today.
Right.
We break down China as what's roughly 18% of total revenue, and roughly half of it goes into China for manufacturing and it gets shipped out globally. The other half of 9% or so is more complex microchip content so difficult to replicate. So really kind of leaving with a sub-5% exposure that potentially over the long term is at risk. But we'll continue to innovate with new features and new areas.
Have you seen any changes? I mean, obviously, from a trade standpoint, things have changed. But you've always competed with China local competition. Has there been any appreciable change in the capabilities of the local companies, of the scale that, you know, you didn't see five, 10 years ago?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, not only for our product range, but if you look at advanced SOCs, companies like Horizon, for example, in Beijing, others, there are viable competitors to the large SOC vendors. So they increased their capabilities quite a bit. And the Chinese government and the authorities, they're pushing. So many, many startup companies doing semiconductors in China. Trend that we all have to deal with, right? It's not unique to Microchip.
Right. Yeah. The world going forward, yeah.
We, we see it. In some cases, or some Western customers see also an accelerated deglobalization, right? They said, "We want semiconductors that are not coming out of Greater China and are pushing very hard for that." So, we have dual-source strategies. We have process technologies installed in Taiwan that we own. We have run the same process technologies in our own fab in Gresham. We have this dual-source, geopolitically safe, combination, that our customers are asking for. This is additional effort, additional effort for everybody. Wafers that we source from outside Taiwan are not necessarily cheaper than those that are coming from Taiwan.
We got a couple minutes left. Maybe I'll finish up on with some of the financials, which is something that I know has been important to Steve, your CEO, in terms of the cash return to investors and the debt levels. And as when Steve originally stepped down as the CEO, still his project within Microchip was the cash return project. So maybe you could talk a little bit about that and how the company's thinking has changed on that, you know, since we've gone through this downturn.
Yeah, yeah. I think definitely it, it did weigh in on our recent kind of experience, right? So as the market turned, turned south and, we experienced the significant peak to trough, that triggered, obviously, that dropped EBITDA quite a bit. And so our net debt to EBITDA ratio skyrocketed, right? And just to a point where if we hadn't taken any actions, it would, we could have potentially been in junk category. And so that's what triggered the $1.5 billion mandatory convertible offering that we did. And so based on that experience, I think the near-term focus here for us is really debt reduction. So as I think, of our, net debt to EBITDA was 4.18 last quarter, coming down from 4.69. And then obviously, as the business strengthens here, EBITDA is going to get stronger. So it'll come down pretty substantially.
Back in November 2021, we'd laid out a target of 1.5x . I think anything sub-2 is really; we're far from it, but that's really where we're going to kind of trend towards. Over the near term, given our experience and how that kind of almost tested some covenants and stuff, our focus is going to be to pay down debt. Last quarter, after multiple quarters, was the first quarter where our cash flow covered our dividend in some. So we weren't borrowing for that. Historically, folks that have been following the company know we're very strong cash flow generators. We get back into that. Over the near term, priority would be to pay down debt. And then, you know, we'll address it. But I could say, I could probably, you know, say probably no buyback over the near term.
Dividend is intact, with what we are today.
Right. And so, you know, I guess, the longer-term strategy of returning cash isn't changed, but in the shorter term.
Priority hierarchy is changed, yeah.
Dividend first.
Debt payback second.
Yeah.
Cash treated good.
It looks like we're just about out of time. So, I think I'll, I think I'll pause it there. Gentlemen, thanks for attending. And, thanks everyone for listening today. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.