Good afternoon, and welcome to the conference call to discuss Everspin Technologies' Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of today's conference call, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, Wednesday, 1 November 2023. Before we begin the call, I want to remind you that this conference call contains forward-looking statements regarding future events, including, but not limited to, our expectations for Everspin's future business, financial performance, and goals, customer and industry adoption of MRAM technology, successfully bringing to market and manufacturing products in Everspin's design pipeline, and executing on its business plan.
These forward-looking statements are based on estimates, judgments, current trends, and market conditions and involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. We would encourage you to review our SEC filings, including our quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which will be filed with the SEC on 2 November 2023, and other SEC filings made from time to time, in which we may discuss risk factors associated with investing in Everspin. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this call, and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement made on this call to update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
The financial results discussed today reflect our preliminary estimates, are based on the information available as of the date hereof, and are subject to further review by Everspin and its external auditors. Our actual results may differ materially from these estimates and as a result of the completion of our financial closing procedures, final adjustments and other developments arising between now and the time that our financial results for this period are finalized.
Additionally, the company's press release and statements made during this conference call will include discussions of certain measures and financial information in GAAP and non-GAAP terms. Included in the company's press release are definitions and reconciliations of GAAP net income to adjusted EBITDA, which provide additional details. A copy of the press release is posted on the investor relations section of Everspin's website at www.everspin.com. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Everspin's President and CEO, Sanjeev Aggarwal. Sanjeev, please go ahead.
Thank you, operator, and thanks everyone for joining us on the call today. Everspin delivered quarterly revenue of $16.5 million, above the high end of guidance and an 8% increase year-over-year. We were GAAP net income positive for the tenth quarter in a row, a strong focus for the company. A few highlights for quarter three, 2023. Cash flow from operations was $3.6 million, putting us at $11.1 million year to date. We continue to operate debt-free while increasing profitability. Q3 net income was $2.4 million. Everspin ended Q3 with a cash balance of $34.9 million. We announced the availability of the xSPI family of STT-MRAM products from eight Mb to 64 Mb density, with the extended temperature range of minus 40 degrees Celsius to 105 degrees Celsius for production orders.
We are sampling the 4 Mb density part in the smaller DFN package and the extended temperature range, with production planned for the first quarter of 2024. In Q3, we entered into an agreement to develop reliability models for strategic radiation-hardened Toggle MRAM. In October, we entered into a new contractual agreement to license our STT-MRAM technology to build a strategic radiation-hardened FPGA. Our business outlook. We continue to have a good visibility into our product backlog for the remainder of 2023 and into early 2024 as of 30 September 2023. We have alleviated our foundry supply chain constraints, which is helping us address our unfulfilled toggle demand. Products. We expanded our flagship industrial high-density STT-MRAM product family, the EMxxLX, to include a five millimeter by six millimeter DFN package, smaller by 37% compared to the current offering.
In addition to the area savings, we are delivering an extended temperature of minus 40 degrees Celsius to 105 degrees Celsius. This family of xSPI STT-MRAM devices delivers the highest combination of performance, endurance, and retention and are now available in densities from four to 64 Mb. It is the only commercially available persistent memory with full read and write bandwidth of 400 MB per second via 8 input-output signals with a clock frequency of 200 MHz. It is the highest performing persistent memory available today, ideal for electronic systems where data persistence and integrity, low power, low latency, and security are paramount.
Industrial IoT, network enterprise, infrastructure, process automation and control, aeronautics, avionics, medical, gaming, and FPGA configuration are examples where this family will simplify the system architecture and offer an alternative solution to legacy memories, such as ferroelectric memories, FRAM, Battery-Backed Random Access Memories, BBRAM, NOR flash, and non-volatile SRAM. A few comments about our radiation-hardened programs. Since its inception, Everspin has invested in maintaining its leadership in MRAM technology, as evidenced through its IP portfolio and successful licensing of its technologies. We are excited to report that we entered into two new radiation-hardened program agreements, one on Toggle MRAM, to develop reliability models for the strategic radiation-hardened Toggle MRAM products. The second agreement is to license our STT-MRAM technology to build a strategic radiation-hardened FPGA. These agreements are in addition to the existing radiation-hardened programs on STT-MRAM technologies that we have discussed in previous earnings calls.
One, a high-density memory array, and two, a distributed configuration memory for instant-on FPGAs with multiple time programmability. The R&D and design teams delivered on the milestones successfully to further the development of these STT-MRAM-based solutions for these projects. We believe our distributed MRAM, we are coining as DMRAM approach, is a revolutionary approach and will give us an edge on energy efficiency and scaling as we deploy the solution in FPGAs and AI inference engines. I will now turn it over to our CFO, Anuj Aggarwal, who will take you through our third quarter financials and fourth quarter 2023 guidance. Anuj?
Thank you, Sanjeev, and good afternoon, everyone. As part of our third quarter 2023 financial results, we are pleased to announce our 10th consecutive quarter of positive net income. In addition, we generated positive cash flow from operations of $3.6 million during the quarter. We delivered solid quarterly results above the high end of guidance, with revenue of $16.5 million, compared to $15.7 million last quarter and $15.2 million in the third quarter of 2022. We also had positive net income of $2.4 million and positive cash flow from operations of $3.6 million for the third quarter of 2023.
MRAM product sales in the third quarter, which includes both Toggle and STT MRAM revenue, was $13.5 million, compared to $13.4 million the prior quarter and $14.6 million in Q3 2022. Licensing, royalties, patents, and other revenue in the third quarter increased to $2.9 million, compared to $2.3 million last quarter and $0.7 million in Q3 2022. Shipments to suppliers for our high-density STT product for the data center applications represented 11% of revenue in the third quarter, versus 7% of revenue in Q2 and 19% in Q3 last year. Turning to gross margin, GAAP gross margin for the third quarter of 2023 was 60.2%, versus 58.4% in the prior quarter and 58.8% in Q3 2022.
The increase in gross margin is primarily attributable to the increase in licensing revenue. GAAP operating expenses for the third quarter of 2023 were $7.9 million, versus $7.6 million in the prior quarter and $7.1 million in the third quarter of 2022. The increase in operating expenses in the quarter compared to Q3 2022, was primarily driven by an increase in professional service costs. We are pleased to report third quarter 2023 positive net income of $2.4 million, or $0.11 per share, based on 21.8 million weighted average, fully diluted shares outstanding.
This compares to a GAAP net income of $3.9 million, or $0.18 per diluted share in the prior quarter, and net income of $1.9 million, or $0.09 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2022. Diluted EPS of $0.11 was better than the high point of our guidance range, reflecting our strategic operational discipline and ability to drive profitability despite macroeconomic uncertainties. Adjusted EBITDA continues to remain positive. For Q3 2023, adjusted EBITDA was $4 million, compared to $5.4 million in the prior quarter and $3.4 million in Q3 of last year. We ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $34.9 million, compared to $30.8 million at the end of the prior quarter and $23.4 million as of Q3 2022.
The increase in cash quarter over quarter is a result of Everspin's continued focus on strong cash management while growing cash flow from operations as the company continues to operate debt-free. Cash flow from operations was healthy at $3.6 million for the current quarter. Turning to our fourth quarter 2023 guidance. Everspin is cautiously optimistic. Demand for our Toggle products remains strong, and we continue to see increased demand of our xSPI family of STT products. We expect total revenue in the range of $15.4 million-$16.4 million, and GAAP net income per diluted share to be between $0.01 and $0.06. I will now turn it back over to Sanjeev for some brief additional commentary before we open it up for questions.
Thanks, Anuj. In summary, we reported another profitable quarter, now tenth in a row, which remains a strong focus for the company. We are excited that our Toggle MRAM and STT-MRAM technologies are being selected for radiation-hard programs, taking advantage of our leading-edge capabilities. We believe the extended temperature range capability of minus 40 degrees Celsius to 105 degrees Celsius of our STT-MRAM xSPI family positions us well to address the fast-growing industrial IoT and embedded systems markets. We have good visibility into our Toggle MRAM backlog through 2023 and early 2024, giving us confidence in our business. Thank you for joining us today. Operator, you may now open the line for questions.
Thank you so much. To ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw the question, simply press star one one again. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our first question. That comes from Shadi Mitwalli with Craig-Hallum. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Congrats on another solid quarter. I just got a question on revenues being on the upper end of guidance. It looks to be mainly coming from licensing. So with that, is most of the increase in licensing revenues coming solely from the RadHard programs, or are we seeing any meaningful royalties from past licenses contributing to the increase in licensing revenues?
Hi, Shadi, this is Anuj. Thanks for the question. Yeah, for Q3, the goodness came from the licensing and royalties side. We had some strong revenue from the QuickLogic deal, and then we had a third Rad-Hard deal that Sanjeev mentioned related to Toggle reliability, and so we were able to get some work done there and account for that revenue as well. I will say also, though, product sales were strong, and so Toggle sales continued to be strong in Q3.
Awesome, awesome. And then I just got actually a question on the product sales. With products being down Q over Q, has there been any unusual activity with the backlog, such as pushouts or even cancellations regarding the backlog?
Yeah, the interesting thing with backlog, Shadi, so there's definitely some macroeconomic uncertainty and industry trends that are happening, right? So, the supply constraints are loosening, the lead times are reducing, like we had mentioned last couple of quarters. And so we are seeing customers booking within the lead time, but they're kind of waiting to book outside the lead time, right? And so, we are seeing some impact in APAC, for example, within the industrial automation section.
So would the industrial automation sector or segment be one of your guys' more weaker end markets you're experiencing?
No. Actually, for Q3, we had good results in the industrial segment. I was just making a comment that, the industrial segment, has some uncertainty in China, and so there are some challenges there.
Okay.
But it's been strong
Okay, makes sense.
Uh, quarters.
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Then just one more question on end markets. Were there any particular end markets you guys are seeing a little more strength or weakness in?
Not particularly right now. I think just overall, there's some macroeconomic uncertainty, right, as things are happening. So you're just seeing customers waiting to place orders, right? And just wanting to see what's happening in China and what's happening in the economy in general. But overall, the segments look good, except for what I mentioned, some risk in industrial.
Awesome. Yeah, it makes sense. That's all for me, and congrats on another solid quarter.
Thanks, Shadi.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. It comes from the line of Quinn Bolton with Needham. Please proceed.
Hey, guys, this is Nick Doyle on for Quinn. Wanted to focus on Rad-Hard. It's doing really well, claiming these new wins, new licensing. Can you just talk a little bit about the applications, the end applications that are actually using that? And then the new licensing deal, is that a one-time item, or are we stepping up the kind of baseline of licensing revenue? And then if we could also, if you could also touch on the products, are we still on track to enter production by the end of next year and customers shipping in 2025? Thanks.
Hey, thanks, Nick. This is Sanjeev. So I guess I'll try to remember all your questions, but if I forget something, please, remind me. As far as the goodness of the radiation-hard deals, you're right. I mean, we were really excited that we were picked by the government contractors to actually have one project on Toggle MRAM and another one on STT-MRAM as well. The licensing deal that you talked about or that we talked about for STT-MRAM, that is actually targeted towards an instant-on FPGA, similar to the one that we announced, I believe, two or three quarters ago. So this is a new project with a different vendor, although the subcontractor is still, it's still through QuickLogic, but they have a different CMOS provider.
These licensing deals are obviously very lumpy and they, you know, they're opportunistic. I would not say that this is the last licensing deal that we'll come across. We hope to get even more going forward. I'm not giving any guidance, but, you know, we are hopeful that our technology keeps getting recognized, and we get you know, we keep getting picked up for other projects.
Just as a reminder, I think a year ago, we had talked about a deal with Honeywell, where we are actually building a 64-Mb array, and there obviously, it's more of a persistent memory type solution for a radiation-hard environments. As far as our 64-Mb, you know, and the 16-Mb parts that we taped out and brought to production this year, they are on schedule. People are looking at our parts and are qualifying them, so we are on schedule to getting them hopefully qualified and into early production towards the end of 2024. If I missed anything, please remind me, Nick.
No, got it all. Thank you.
Thank you.
We've seen weakness with the FPGA guys that were reported, AMD, Intel, Lattice, and maybe we're seeing that in your products, like, slightly declining next quarter. Would you say that's an accurate, you know, that I noticed that correctly?
So I don't know if it is specifically the FPGA or not, but like Anuj mentioned, we are cognizant of the macroeconomic conditions in Asia Pacific. As we said, as Anuj said, you know, we are, you know, we have been strong for the first three quarters, but we are starting to see some movement in Q4 and also in early 2024. But that is also convoluted by the data, that now that the supply chain constraints are removed, our lead times have actually dropped. So our customers' behavior has also changed with their ordering within the lead times. So it's not quite clear if it's because of the macroeconomic conditions or just because our lead times have changed.
But the two combined together has changed the behavior and the backlog over the last couple of quarters.
So just kind of confirming here that your lead times have gotten even lower, compared to last quarter, and that's kind of impacting the outlook. Just related to, and the reason I ask is, kind of last quarter, we were saying that the backlog is really strong and it gives a visibility into the near-term quarters, but now because lead times are coming down, that isn't as accurate today?
I guess, yeah, this is Anuj. I guess the way I would describe it. So what's happened is the lead times were 52 weeks. They came down to about 30-something weeks, and then we reduced them further to about 27, 26 weeks. So we saw lead times come down. And then in addition to that, one of the things you'll see industry-wide that you might have noticed is that the supply constraints loosened up as well, right? And so what that did was that created what we're observing to be a customer behavioral change. And so they're mostly, they're mostly booking within the lead time, and then they're booking some outside the lead time as well, so that's really nice, but it's not as much as they were doing historically.
And so now it's kind of come back to, let's call it, the backlog, you know, pre-pandemic levels. And so even though it, it looks relatively normal from that perspective, it has declined from, you know, the really rich, you know, backlog from a year ago, where there was 52-week lead time, not enough capacity, and people were getting worried about getting capacity, right? So they were just booking well in advance. So that's the observation that we've seen.
That makes sense. Thanks. And, I'll wait to ask another.
Thank you, and as a reminder, if you have a question, press star one one. Glenn, if you have additional question, go ahead.
Yes, I'll ask one more just on that, staying on the backlog. Typically takes 12 to 18 months to convert. Can you give any detail on how much of your backlog is expected to convert near term versus long term? I know that we're talking some strong growth or some growth in the second half 2024 based on the backlog last quarter.
Nick, are you talking about 12 to 18 months of qualification time, or did you mean?
Right. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah, so that, the qualification time for that new STT product that we brought out is still, you know, 12-18 months, and we expect the early, production to be in late 2024, early 2025. So nothing is quote, unquote, changed or delayed in that, in that process?
Yeah, I think, I think the way I would explain the pipeline, if you look at the design wins, they're still healthy, and they continue to gain traction, right? I think that's part of where you're going. So there is a strong pipeline, and we are seeing backlog outside of the lead time, just not as much as before.
Thanks for the clarification.
Thank you. We do have a question from another line. One moment, please. We have a question from Orin Hirschman with AIG. Please proceed.
Hi. Let's see, just one more qualification question on that last topic. In terms of the guidance that you put out for Q4, does that assume product increases sequentially? Without being too much more specific unless you want to be.
Yeah. Hi, Orin, this is Anuj. I would say we're looking at guidance for Q4 relatively flat to Q3 with a similar mix.
Okay. And you've never mentioned AI before. You know, where does the product fit in the overall scheme of AI? Is it only if it becomes the actual, you know, a piece of IP within an FPGA? Can you go through that a little bit more, and are you mentioning it because there are customers that have interest?
Yeah. So, Hi, Orin, this is Sanjeev. So the solution that we developed for the FPGA market for the instant-on FPGAs, the requirements for the AI inference engines are very similar to the requirements for that instant-on FPGA. Namely, you want it to be low standby or zero standby current, and you want it to be non-volatile, and then you need it to be extremely fast so that you're comparing an image, for example, with something that the GPU processed and brought to the edge for comparison. So this solution basically applies to both, and we've had some early discussions with some of the R&D folks looking at some AI solutions, and there seems to be good compatibility.
Again, it's only in the early stages, but it's something that we are hoping to focus on and over the next year and a half as a new focus for the company.
Is there enough density in these parts to be able to do anything practical on the AI side? Do they have to be chained together? And how would it work?
It's mostly targeted towards edge AI, Orin, where they don't require very high density.
Yeah.
It's not for the servers, where they would require gigabits and much higher densities. But for the edge AI, we have plenty of density. I mean, we meet the density requirements for the edge AI applications.
Okay. Just one more follow-up. Just, you'd mentioned a second instant-on FPGA development. What's going on with the first one, and is the timing, what is the timing like on both of these?
So both the programs are active as of Q4 of 2023. So the original one with QuickLogic and SkyWater that is progressing just fine. We are making progress on the deliverables and continuing forth with that. And then this is a new program that QuickLogic has been awarded with from the U.S. government, where it actually uses CMOS from a different vendor, but has a similar requirement as far as solutions are concerned, as the FPGA solutions are concerned. So these two programs are going to run in parallel, at least for the next couple of quarters.
Which one is the second one, though, for commercial use or for governmental use?
They're both for government use, Orin.
I know you'd mentioned before, you're working with some of the commercial FPGA vendors on commercial products. Any, you know, progress there on the instant-on application?
So, the other solutions that we're looking at for the FPGA was basically to replace the traditional NOR Flash memory-
Yeah
with this ST-MRAM, 64 meg and 16 meg that we brought out, and that work is ongoing.
Okay. Thanks so much.
Sure.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star 1 1 to get in the queue. Yeah, I don't see any further questions in the queue. I will pass it back to Anuj Aggarwal for his final comments.
With that said, we conclude today's call. Thank you all for joining us, and we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for participating, and you may now disconnect.