Earnings Call Transcript - MXL Q1 2024

Leslie Green, Investor Relations

Thank you, Paul, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss MaxLinear's First Quarter 2024 Financial Results. Today's call is being hosted by Dr. Kishore Seendripu, CEO; and Steve Litchfield, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer. After our prepared comments, we will take questions. Our comments today include forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements relating to our guidance for the second quarter of 2024, including revenue, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin, GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses, GAAP and non-GAAP interest and other expenses and GAAP and non-GAAP diluted share count. In addition, we will make forward-looking statements relating to trends, opportunities, execution of our business plan and potential growth and uncertainties in various product and geographic markets, including, without limitation, statements concerning future financial and operating results, opportunities for revenue and market share across our target markets, expected production ramps and timing for the launches of new products, our design win pipeline, demand for and adoption of certain technologies, our serviceable addressable market, the effects of cost reduction measures and product announcements. These forward-looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties, including risks outlined in our Risk Factor section of our SEC filings, including our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2024, which we intend to file later today. Any forward-looking statements are made as of today, and MaxLinear has no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. The first quarter 2024 earnings release is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at maxlinear.com. In addition, we report certain historical financial metrics, including, but not limited to, gross margin, operating margin, operating expenses and interest and other expenses on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. We encourage investors to review the detailed reconciliation of our GAAP and non-GAAP presentations and the press release available on our website. We do not provide reconciliation of non-GAAP guidance for future periods because of the inherent uncertainty associated with our ability to project certain future changes, including stock-based compensation and its related tax effects as well as potential impairments. Non-GAAP financial measures discussed today are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for comparable GAAP financial measures. We are providing this information because management believes it is useful to investors as it reflects how management measures our business. Lastly, this call is also being webcast, and a replay will be available on our website for 2 weeks. And now let me turn the call over to Dr. Kishore Seendripu, CEO of MaxLinear. Kishore?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

Thank you, Leslie, and good afternoon, everyone. Our Q1 revenues were $95.3 million, posting a non-GAAP gross margin of 60.6%. Overall, we believe that our revenues have reached a bottom, and we are now poised for sequential growth in '24. Our conviction is a result of improving market conditions and exciting new product launches in high-growth markets, including optical data center interconnect, enterprise Ethernet and storage accelerators, 5G wireless, multi-gigabit PON broadband access and WiFi connectivity. All of these new products have been launched in the market today and will begin to reshape our revenue profile towards high-value data infrastructure applications. While this market recovery is driving improved revenues, our strong fiscal discipline will help us position to deliver highly favorable leverage in our business model. Highlighting our infrastructure business, which we believe is on track to become a $300 million to $500 million business over the next several years, led by solid traction in high-speed optical in the connect market. Coming into 2024, we expect to deliver revenue in the $10 million to $30 million range for the year; we now expect to exceed the high end of the revenue range in 2024. As we demonstrated and announced at the Optical Fiber Conference in San Diego, our 5-nanometer CMOS Keystone 800-gigabit PAM4 DSP is in several reference designs for virtually all of the leading module makers, including Jabil for silicon photonics-based pluggable modules and Optomind for LRO modules, which we announced last month. Collectively, we are building an exciting AI-related design win portfolio within the hyperscale and large enterprise markets. Early-stage revenues have already begun, and we expect new production ramps later in the second half of the year to drive meaningful run rate growth in 2025. The ongoing adoption of AI in the cloud is providing a strong catalyst for the transition to 800 gigabit and beyond speeds. During Q1, we were very pleased to announce the Rushmore family of 200 gigabit per lane, PAM4 SERDES and DSPs. Built on Samsung's leading-edge CMOS, it delivers best-in-class power consumption, double the data rates and significantly reduced latency across optical transceivers, active optical cables and active electrical cables. Industry estimates indicate that shipments of PAM4 DSPs are expected to grow at a CAGR of 50% through 2027, providing an exciting opportunity for us to significantly grow our revenue and market presence over the next several years. In 5G wireless infrastructure, the expanding global rollout of new millimeter-wave, microwave and hybrid backhaul technologies to upgrade the data rates of wireless transport links continues to drive our growth and our silicon content per platform. At Mobile World Congress in February, we announced our new and differentiated CRF family, a single-chip platform for 5G Open RAN radio units for both massive MIMO and macro-based station solutions. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. We expect our growing portfolio of wireless backhaul and access infrastructure products to drive significant revenue expansion over a multiyear cycle. Within our infrastructure revenues, our Panther III CDs, hardware storage accelerators for the enterprise all-flash array and hybrid storage enterprise appliance systems are providing exciting incremental growth opportunities, particularly with the growth in high-speed computing and AI. Our Panther III GPU is the only hardware-based solution in the market, delivering a 12:1 ratio data compression, ultra-reliable data protection, low latency and low power performance. This month, we were excited to announce a collaboration with Dell Technologies to integrate our Panther III storage accelerator into Dell's PowerMax storage platform to deliver unparalleled performance gains for mission-critical workloads. We are currently in production ramp with the solution and expect additional customer product ramps later this year. We are confident that we can double our storage-related revenues in '24 with continued strong growth through 2025 and beyond. In Ethernet connectivity with the recent launch of our new Octal 2.5 gigabit Ethernet PHY and switch products, we expanded our addressable market by $300 million to include both the enterprise and small and medium business switch markets in addition to our traditional gateway and router markets. Customers are expected to upgrade today's more than 2 billion copper 1-gigabit Ethernet ports to 2.5 gigabit Ethernet speeds over time using the existing standard CAT-5 cabling. We are seeing exciting design win activity for our solution, including a Tier 1 North American enterprise OEM customer that is expected to ramp to production in late 2024. As we look ahead, we believe our Ethernet business could reach $100 million over the next 18 to 24 months. Turning to broadband, we continue to gain traction in the fiber PON market with new design wins driving our growth. As many of you know, in 2023, we began ramping our single-chip integrated fiber PON plus 10-gigabit processor gateway SoC and connectivity solutions with the major Tier 1 North American service providers. We're now ramping a new opportunity with the second major Tier 1 North American service provider. Together, these wins confirm our competitive product offering and demonstrate significant growth opportunities for us in the coming years. Last year, our PON revenue was approximately $50 million. We expect to be able to more than double that over the next 2 years. In connectivity, our Wave700 single-chip tri-band, Quad MIMO WiFi 7 device continues to do extremely well in qualifications. We expect service providers to begin the initial rollout late this year with adoption peaking in 2 to 3 years. For MaxLinear, WiFi 7 has the exciting potential to drive significant ASP growth and higher attach rates in our broadband access platform versus previous generations. Overall, as we finally project a return to sequential revenue growth, it is both gratifying and exciting to see years of product development and business execution begin to culminate in our next stage of growth as a data-centric infrastructure company. Across our portfolio, we have the right solution production today to meet high-value market trends and drive significant revenue growth. With that, let me turn the call over to Steve Litchfield, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Corporate Strategy Officer. Steve?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Thanks, Kishore. Total revenue for the first quarter was $95.3 million, down from $125.4 million in the previous quarter, including both product and IP revenues. Broadband revenue for the quarter was $33 million, connectivity revenue was $10 million, infrastructure revenue was $33 million, and our industrial multi-market revenue was $20 million. GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin for the first quarter was approximately 51.7% and 60.6% of revenue. The delta between GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin in the first quarter was primarily driven by $8.2 million of acquisition-related intangible asset amortization. First-quarter GAAP operating expenses were $123.9 million, and non-GAAP operating expenses were $74.8 million. The delta between GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses was primarily due to stock-based compensation and performance-based equity accruals of $24.2 million combined and restructuring costs of $22.6 million related to the workforce reduction initiated in Q4. Non-GAAP loss for operations for Q1 2024 was 18% of net revenue. GAAP interest and other expenses during the quarter was $0.5 million; non-GAAP interest and other expenses during the quarter was $0.6 million. In Q1, cash flow generated in operating activities was $16 million. We exited Q1 of 2024 with approximately $193 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash. Our day sales outstanding for the first quarter was approximately 121 days. Our gross inventory was down versus the previous quarter, with inventory turns at 0.9x. This concludes the discussion of our Q1 financial results. With that, let's turn to our guidance for Q2 of 2024. We currently expect revenue in the second quarter of 2024 to be between $90 million and $110 million. Looking at Q2 by end market, we expect infrastructure, connectivity and industrial multi-market to be up, while broadband will be expected to be down. We expect second-quarter GAAP gross margin to be approximately 52.5% to 56.5% and non-GAAP gross margin to be in the range of 58.5% and 61.5% of revenue. Gross margin continues to be relatively stable with the expected range being driven by a combination of near-term product, customer and end market mix. We expect Q2 2024 GAAP operating expenses to be in the range of $103 million to $113 million. We expect Q2 2024 non-GAAP operating expenses to be in the range of $72 million to $78 million. We expect our Q2 GAAP and non-GAAP interest and other expenses to be in the range of approximately $0.5 million to $1 million each. We expect our Q2 GAAP and non-GAAP diluted share count to be approximately 83.5 million. We're pleased to show progress on our new products, expanding our position in these exciting new growth markets. Our customer traction and design win momentum are producing tangible results that will be increasingly evident in our business in the coming quarters and will reshape our future as a data infrastructure company. The world is undoubtedly moving towards accelerated data architectures, and MaxLinear's core competencies centering around seamless integration and low power efficiency are perfectly suited. Our optimism and sense of purpose within this new generation of technology is high, and we remain deeply committed to delivering strong value to our customers and our shareholders. With that, I'd like to open up the call for questions. Paul?

Quinn Bolton, Analyst

Congratulations on the infrastructure progress, especially on optical. I guess I wanted to start there. Can you give us some sense, the revenue ramp this year exceeding now $30 million? How concentrated or diversified is that $30 million? Is that over several module partners? Is it pretty concentrated with one or two? And I guess more importantly, as you start to get into volume production in the second half of the year, what kind of growth could you be looking at in calendar '25? Would that business double or more as you hit volume production for the full year on some of these design wins? And then I got a follow-up.

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

Quinn, yes, at our Optical Fiber Conference in San Diego, we demonstrated a number of top-tier OEM module makers and OEMs themselves whose products we had on demo, all for our 800-gigabit Keystone product line. As we speak, the design-in velocity is pretty strong, and the revenues we have described as shifting to the high end of the range for our forecast for this year is driven by more than one customer. And I would like to say that those are initial revenue ramps with some good confidence developing on the performance and stability of the solution. So I think that there's more to come. Actually, this is just the beginning, but it's not concentrated in one customer as we were inquiring about. Now heading into 2025, you can imagine that even many more of these customers will be launching into production while some will be maturing into a peak run rate based on how we exit Q4. So I expect that we should see a multiplier effect of the revenues of 2024, adding it to '25 and '26. And we hope to be in pretty much all the major platforms out there that are going to be pulling in the back end of the data be it AI or the front end with all the major data center players in the market.

Quinn Bolton, Analyst

So it sounds like certainly a line of sight towards a $100 million kind of run rate sometime in either '25 or '26 based on those comments?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

That's my expected optimism naturally, right? So based on these revenues, that would not be something that would be far out in projecting.

Quinn Bolton, Analyst

Got it. And then I just wanted to step back in the script, both I think sounded more confident that when it has reached the bottom that you'll see sequential growth through the year. And I guess I was just wondering if you could provide some more detail. What gives you confidence that revenue rebound sequentially or grow sequentially through the year? Is that based on design win ramps? Can you give us some sense of what you're seeing in terms of bookings activity? Is backlog starting to build? Is visibility into the second half starting to extend? Any of those types of comments would be helpful.

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

I'll address this question first and then pass it to Steve for further details. There are two key points to note. Firstly, we have been falling short of the market demand for some time. Currently, the rate at which we are shipping is not keeping pace with the sell-through rate in the channel. We are optimistic that we have begun a process that will allow us to increase our shipping rates, which should lead to a better balance between sell-through and sell-in revenues. This applies to our existing designs that have been shipping for the past few years. Additionally, we are also anticipating revenue growth from new products, such as optical systems, infrastructure products, Ethernet, and storage accelerators, which will also be ramping up. While we cannot predict the trajectory for the second half of the year, we are confident that we have entered a phase of sequential growth in 2024. Steve, would you like to provide insights on bookings or related topics?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Yes. I think, Kishore, you covered it. I think we're definitely feeling a lot better about bookings. That's kind of been over multiple quarters. We've seen improvement on that front. And I think the other aspect is some of the new products that Kishore mentioned that are going to be ramping in the second half of the year, including some of the optical products. Those orders have already been placed. So we've got visibility, and we're starting to see those improvements.

Christopher Rolland, Analyst

The long-term infrastructure guide, the $300 million to $500 million was pretty interesting. When we get there, what does this look like in terms of components? Is the majority DSP in your estimate? Or how does it break down?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

So Chris, we have been talking about a $500 million revenue for infrastructure for quite some time now. And really, there are three major legs of growth vectors for our infrastructure revenue. And firstly, today, the revenue is about, give and take, let's say, it's at a $200 million run rate for the infrastructure revenues, and it comprises primarily of our wireless infrastructure revenue and a little bit of infrastructure and Ethernet. And then if you now layer on top of that the optical products, which we talked about could be in the next 3 to 5 years, somewhere between $100 million to $300 million, depending on our market share. And then about that, you layer in a storage accelerator, which we've been very confident that we will do somewhere between $50 million to $75 million of revenue over the next 2 years. Then the recent activity and design wins for our Ethernet on the enterprise side, we have a number of legs of growth drivers. So I do not expect it to be DSP, PAM4 dominated. However, I would conclude that the DSP PAM4 if it's not the #1, it would be #2, next to our wireless infrastructure, followed by storage accelerators and Ethernet enterprise solutions. So I think there are a few more components to those revenues, but I think I just want to highlight to the big chunks of revenues for infrastructure. And we feel really excited that all these years of dredging on the development in the last several years is now fully in the marketplace and will gather traction.

Christopher Rolland, Analyst

Secondly, do you now believe you have a good view of the inventory at various levels in the supply chain? Where do you think inventory in terms of subsegments are normalized or close to normal? And where do you think there's still work to be done?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Yes, Chris, I'll take that one. So look, I think we continue to see improvements on the inventory side. I mean, particularly in the channel. We're making progress on our own majorities. But specifically, your question is around channel inventory. I think we've seen a lot of improvement. Our biggest headwind has been broadband and connectivity. As we've stated, I think this is playing out more or less where we expected that we would still see some headwinds kind of through the first half of this year. I think that's still the case, but I think we're making good progress. We're really seeing channel inventory come down. Industrial multi-market is probably the other area that we definitely saw softness last quarter; we'd expect to see some continued headwind, particularly in some of the China markets. But that being said, it doesn't feel quite as bad as some of the challenges that we've had on the broadband and connectivity side.

Tore Svanberg, Analyst

Congratulations on the progress on the infrastructure side. So I do have questions there. But I want to start with the DSOs. So they're still quite elevated. Is this just purely linearity where customers are basically ordering really last minute or anything else going on there, Steve?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

The simple answer is yes. I mean, I think we continue to see linearity to be a challenge. And as much as that's a bad thing, you're also starting to see some encouraging signs there that I mentioned last quarter about some last-minute shipments and your customers don't have great visibility. And at the very end, they recognize that they don't have the right products to be shipping. So we definitely continue to see that. And those are some of the signs that I think give us confidence that we're now on track to kind of work our way out of this, right, that the inventory levels are getting down to lower levels; the bookings have improved. And those are the encouraging signs, albeit the quarter was definitely still back-end loaded.

Tore Svanberg, Analyst

Very good. And I thought connectivity had bottomed, but I guess it came in at $10 million this quarter. Could you talk a little bit about what's going on there? I mean are they still really that much excess inventory? Or would you say that $10 million is sort of like a firm bottom in that part of the business?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

I completely understand your point. We are currently discussing both inventory issues that are present in the channel, which remains a challenge. However, we are seeing promising developments in broadband and specifically in WiFi connectivity. Kishore mentioned WiFi 7 in his remarks, but we expect WiFi 6 to continue to ship in significant quantities over the next few years. Most of our ongoing design efforts are focused on WiFi 7. It's also important to highlight Ethernet, which is gaining significant traction in our gateway products as we upgrade from 1 gig to 2.5 gig. This growth is evident in both the enterprise and industrial sectors. We have an excellent product that is ramping up at the right time, which should lead to substantial revenue growth by 2025, particularly as a few new customers are set to start ramping up.

Tore Svanberg, Analyst

Great. If I could just finish up, a question for you, Kishore. So obviously, Keystone is finally seeing some good traction. Now you announced the Rushmore last month, 200 gig per lane. I mean it sounds like this product is going to be much more, let's say, targeted more segments of the market, right? So I think you mentioned going after the AEC market, potentially LRO. Help us understand the difference between those two product offerings and how broad you can become in 200 gig?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

So Tore, I just want to clarify that even our Keystone product is a pretty broad application. I think in my part of the script, I was trying to refer that even the 200 gig will be pretty broad. At the OFC conference, we demonstrated active electrical cables. We demonstrated the Y Junction copper cables. And we have also demonstrated a number of other configurations and use cases. And we also demonstrated LROs, right, in the conference. So in fact, we may be one of the first ones who have demonstrated a fully functional LRO for the market. So what I was trying to get towards the 200 gig per lane is that we are going to do the same thing for the Rushmore product line as well. So yes, the spread is now pretty broad. And those tertiary markets by themselves are large in a dollar way, but as a percentage share of the market, even though they're smaller, so we'll be playing in all of those markets.

David Williams, Analyst

Kishore, could you discuss your focus on data infrastructure? Should we consider that there might be other segments of the business that are not performing as well or may not align with this direction in the future? Or should we view everything as growing and fitting into the data infrastructure category moving forward?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

No, I think the buckets we're talking about are pretty pure and clean. There is no part of the data center infrastructure that is not directly a PAM4 DSP related product in our portfolio. Typically, it is a PAM4 DSP, along with the TIA, we have the laser drivers fully integrated in our solutions. So it is a very clean fit to the PAM4 DSP addressable market.

David Williams, Analyst

Great. And then maybe, Steve, just how the bookings trended over the last few months? And if there's any way to kind of disaggregate maybe some of the legacy products relative to the new products just to get an idea of how the older products are, the demand is picking up there?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Yes, David, regarding the bookings, we have definitely observed multiple quarters of improvement in this area. Some of the newer products have been mentioned in our prepared remarks, as they are now in the market to varying degrees, with some at earlier stages than others. For instance, the optical product I mentioned earlier is expected to ramp up in the second half of the year, and we need to secure orders now. We are definitely seeing that progress. Additionally, for our broader market offerings, we have noticed an increase in recent bookings despite existing inventory in the channel, which boosts our confidence for continued improvement in the third and fourth quarters of this year.

Ross Seymore, Analyst

Congrats on returning to growth. First, wanted to ask about the cyclical side of things. You talked even in the prior question, Steve, about some better visibility as bookings come up, and I know you're still working through inventory on the broadband and connectivity side. But now that the bookings have improved. Do you have any better idea as to kind of what a normalized revenue run rate is for those businesses? Because they're down so much was the prior high artificial or is the current low artificial? Where do we meet in the middle? Any sort of color on that would be helpful.

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Yes, Ross, we've been discussing this extensively. We're closely monitoring how customers use up the remaining channel inventory and what that means for the revenue run rate. There are several factors that could impact this. Specifically, in broadband, we've talked about the PON business, which will affect things. The introduction of WiFi 7 is expected to increase the content per box. In terms of market share, it hasn't changed significantly, as there are few customers in this sector, and the competitive landscape on the WiFi side is also limited. While our revenues from WiFi and connectivity were weaker this quarter, I believe that with our new products and higher average selling prices, we will see strong revenue growth in those areas over the next few years as WiFi 7 gains traction in the market.

Ross Seymore, Analyst

I guess as my follow-up then on the OpEx side of things, you guys run a tight ship on that you always have. But with all the opportunities that Kishore talked about. Are those things where the predominance of the OpEx has already been spent? Or is that something that you think you need to ramp the OpEx to take advantage of all these data center infrastructure opportunities?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

Look, there are one or two product areas, Ross, where we still will be at a pace of investment where we need to catch up and leapfrog the market, right? That's especially the new markets we entered. However, most of the initiatives that we started in the 5 to 6 years ago, be it wireless infrastructure, optical data center, the big TAM defining products have already been launched now. They're showing good healthy momentum. So it would be normal sustaining R&D work to get to the next generation of products. And the time cycles of these markets outside of the data centers are pretty, what I call, nothing aggressive. So I would say also the data center, our investment pace is going to be quite moderated. And so I don't see an extraordinary step-up just to keep up with the next product outside of the optical data center markets.

Ross Seymore, Analyst

Got it. If I could sneak in one more. I think I know the answer, but any update on the arbitration process either in timing or any other news?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Yes, really nothing meaningful to update as expected, Ross.

Timothy Savageaux, Analyst

I wanted to revisit the optical data center market opportunity and gain more insight into what has prompted you to raise your guidance range for the year. I understand you performed well at the OFC show, but how recent is this renewed confidence? What factors do you attribute this to, such as a larger-than-expected market opportunity or a stronger competitive position? Given these considerations, how would you explain the increase in your estimate?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

So Tim, it seems that starting in the fourth quarter of last year, there has been a growing sense of optimism and a positive outlook. Looking back, we had a backlog that supported this optimism. Our concern was whether it would come from one, two, or three customers, or if we would build a broader base of customers entering production. At this point, we did not expect that by Q4 we would reach the stage where we had shipped products that clearly indicated we were on track for the projected growth and even have confidence that it would surpass that. The backlog is a key indicator showing that we have enough to meet our original forecasts. Additionally, more sockets are converting, and those that have converted are ramping up quickly while also inquiring about lead times and bookings. This reflects the reality of our situation. In Q4, we had enough backlog to support this developing optimism, and as a result, we have strengthened our confidence with each quarter as we began shipping larger quantities.

Timothy Savageaux, Analyst

Great. And maybe somewhat along those lines. As you look at your guidance for Q2, to the extent you're looking for some sequential growth in the middle of the range, should we assume that that's new product driven? And you've mentioned a number, whether it's storage, Ethernet or data center, or are there other factors at work? Obviously, you got broadband coming down. And then as you look toward the higher and lower end of your ranges, kind of what are the swing factors driving that range?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Yes, Tim. So you're right. I mean we kind of highlighted where we thought the end market growth would be from; it's certainly some of these newer products that we've been talking about will definitely have an impact on Q2. But I'd say, overall, it's probably the recovery itself that's probably helping a little bit more in Q2 and some of the newer products kind of have a layering impact throughout the year.

Ananda Baruah, Analyst

I have a couple of questions. Could you discuss the new products being introduced this year? Specifically, can you focus on Ethernet, optical, and storage, which are the most significant? When should we expect each of these to start having an impact during the year, in the first half or the second half? I understand you mentioned that together they will contribute to sequential growth, but do you believe that one or two will have a more substantial effect, or will they all contribute collectively throughout the year? I also have a brief follow-up question.

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Yes, Ananda, I'll try to address that. The storage accelerator business has been something we’ve been involved with for some time. We have a new product launching this year, starting around mid-year, and it’s expected to grow throughout this year and into the next. Many customers tend to take longer to ramp up due to the presence of various product families, but we're seeing promising signs with increasing design wins and traction. Regarding the optical front, one significant driver is the 800 gig, which is set to begin this year, with larger volumes anticipated in 2025. The critical work associated with this is happening now, as the qualification cycles are lengthy, and many opportunities are currently being awarded. We will see some revenue contributions in the latter half of this year, and it's also projected to be a major driver in 2025. On the Ethernet side, there's a recovering existing 2.5-gig business in the gateway area due to inventory improvements, and newer products, particularly in the industrial and enterprise Ethernet markets, are experiencing greater adoption. We have several large customers who will likely ramp up more significantly in 2025 than in 2024. Each customer has its timeline, but we feel confident regarding all of them.

Ananda Baruah, Analyst

That's really helpful context, Steve. Could you elaborate on your long-term 35% operating margin target? What needs to occur over the next couple of years for you to reach that? The last time you were close, the quarterly revenue run rate was around 280 million. With the new products, do you still need to return to that revenue level to approach mid-30s operating margins? Any additional context would be appreciated.

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

So Ananda, first and foremost, we have been making significant investments in new areas we've entered over the past five years, even when we were nearing the 35% operating margin. Additionally, with the acquisition of our connected home business, we inherited many outdated products that required upgrades, which in the silicon industry often leads to increased operational expenses. As a result, the operational expenses you observed reflected the burden of these extensive endeavors, both from our own organic efforts and those brought about by the acquisition. Now, we are bringing our operational expenses under control, adjusting them for a more normal investment cadence. This is one of the key benefits of the current downturn. As revenue continues to grow, we begin to leverage our existing product portfolio more effectively, which I believe will propel us towards achieving the 30% to 35% operating margin. If Steve has any additional insights on this, I'd encourage him to share.

Steven Litchfield, CFO

No, I think that's right. I mean maybe I'd refresh some history here, but we also had a pretty clear path getting to that number to that over 30% number long before we saw $1 billion worth of revenue. So I'm confident that we can get back at a much lower revenue run rate than the $1 billion you referenced.

Karl Ackerman, Analyst

Steve, I think you said broadband will be down on revenue in F Q2, but you're starting to see an improvement in bookings. Are those bookings on the cable side or more on fiber? I ask because you've been more weighted toward cable or broadband. And some of the investors have worried that the declines in broadband are more secular than cyclical in nature. And so I guess as you address that question, could you discuss your design engagements with customers on PON that can help drive a much larger recovery in broadband as we think of not just the second half of this year, but also going into '25?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Yes, Karl. Great question. And you're exactly right; we've been more exposed on the cable side, but we're certainly seeing a recovery on both PON and cable. I mentioned earlier the excitement around the PON side. But we're seeing plenty of activity on the cable side, and there's lots of hype around some of the upgrades that are happening in that market. I mean I don't think we really carry one way or the other where that growth comes from in broadband. And there are certainly tons of investments happening out there that we'll be able to benefit from.

Karl Ackerman, Analyst

Yes. Okay. For my follow-up, you introduced several new optical products leveraging your existing 5-nanometer 800-gig DSP technology, including half retimed and full retimed DSPs really for, well, AEC and AOC products. I guess given the confidence that you have on this ramp this year and next year, is most of that coming from half retimer DSPs and AEC products? Will that be the strongest growth that you see this year?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

I don't think anybody would volunteer that half retimer would be any meaningful revenue in this category of products. I would say it's fully driven by full-rate retimer products, if you will, the 800-gig PAM4 or 400-gig PAM4 single lane 100 gigabits, right? So that would be it. It's pretty simple other than the customer designing with the various optics they use becomes a pretty challenging problem, right? So the DSPs need to be versatile to manage all the various optics every customer uses and then the yield management of that. So I don't see a half retimer being a big revenue generator at least through 2025.

Sujeeva De Silva, Analyst

I wanted to follow up on some recent questions. While broadband is declining, connectivity is increasing. I previously thought of these as interconnected within the broadband category, but perhaps that's not the correct perspective. Can you explain the potential disconnect in the guidance?

Steven Litchfield, CFO

Yes, you're correct that they are quite interconnected. Many of the gateways incorporate our Ethernet or WiFi products, so they usually move together, although there are some variations. We definitely have opportunities to capture more connectivity business. I previously mentioned growth in the Ethernet market, particularly with the adoption of 2 gig and 2.5 gig in both the enterprise and industrial sectors. So, while they often align, they don't always move in tandem.

Sujeeva De Silva, Analyst

Okay. That's helpful, Steve. And then my other question is on the optical side. I'm just trying to draw path from the prior effort, 400 gig and now 800 gig. Is that lead customer continuing and kind of building on the traction you had with that customer? Do you have additional customers or different customers just to understand how the customer base and traction is developing here?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

I just want to clarify that the end customers driving 400 gigabit versus 800 gigabit are now in a completely different situation. They are not the leaders anymore in terms of aggressively pursuing the higher speeds at this time. I would say that a different set of customers is now responsible for the 800-gigabit PAM4 revenues and for the 400-gigabit PAM4 revenues, which utilize 100 gigabit per lane. It is a totally different group of customers, and only a few of them are present in the marketplace, making it a very small group.

Sujeeva De Silva, Analyst

Kishore, can you just remind us of the competitive landscape and your advantage quickly? I know we talked about OFC, but a refresh would be helpful.

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

We are the only solution currently in production that features a 5-nanometer CMOS, PAM4 DSP with integrated laser drivers, which is being increasingly recognized by others. We weren't the first to enter the 800-gig PAM4 space, as our competitors are utilizing 7-nanometer technology, giving them certain advantages in timing for product sampling. However, outside of the NVIDIA customer market, other data centers are adopting 800-gigabit PAM4 at a regular pace, indicating we are not late to the market. We are currently in the beta phases of trials and qualifications, and we believe we have maintained our timing advantage with our 5-nanometer solution, even though we have been behind our competition by several months. The main drawback is the lack of incumbency, but our product's superiority stands out as it consumes nearly 30% less power than the competition. Power consumption varies between 20% and 30% reductions at both the module and chip levels, which is a significant advantage. Meeting performance requirements and undergoing the qualification process remains a significant challenge, yet we are successfully recording revenue as we make progress in shipping these products.

Richard Shannon, Analyst

Maybe I'll throw one out here in the storage space. You reiterated your comments about kind of revenues doubling this year getting to $50 million to $75 million. And I think you've said in the past and today that this is largely based on single customer. I guess a couple of interlocking questions here. First of all, as the announcement with Dell last week, is that the single customer? And then maybe you can talk about building new customers to help maybe provide upside to those numbers over time, how that's going?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

I believe it's fair to conclude that the current shipments of Panther III are primarily from a single customer, as indicated in the press release. However, we have always emphasized our intention to expand our accelerated products beyond the enterprise market and gradually form data partnerships with other players. So when we mention revenue projections of $50 million to $75 million, it's important to note that this forecast is mainly focused on the enterprise storage appliance market rather than revenue from the data center-based market.

Richard Shannon, Analyst

Okay. Fair enough. Second question is in wireless infrastructure. You talked about, I think, for at least a couple of quarters now talking about calendar '25 being a strong year. Obviously, you've had some inventory burn here on both sides of that business. I guess my question, just from a modeling perspective, is, can calendar '25 be a record year for wireless infrastructure? It seems like you're down fairly strongly in revenue run rates would seem like a big bar to jump, but just curious whether you think that's possible?

Kishore Seendripu, CEO

I believe that 2025 will not be a record year, but rather a year of growth. We expect to increase our wireless revenues significantly, potentially doubling them based on our roadmap and the products we are launching. From an infrastructure perspective, if we project $500 million in revenue, approximately 80% to 90% of that will come from wireless infrastructure and optical solutions, while the remaining 20% will come from Ethernet, which we've already discussed. However, I believe each of those segments has greater potential. So while the $500 million revenue target for infrastructure exists, there may be timing imbalances and variations in how the total addressable market develops. Ultimately, 2025 will not be a record year, but it will set the foundation for future growth.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.