Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the second quarter 2026 Viacorp Corporation Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. And to ask a question during the session, you would need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advised and your hand is raised. and to withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Jim Schmidt, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Vicor Corporation's earnings call for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026. I'm Jim Schmidt, Chief Financial Officer, and I'm in Andover with Patricio Vinciarelli, Chief Executive Officer Sir and Phil Davies, Corporate Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release summarizing our financial results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2026. This press release has been posted on the Investor Relations page of our website, www.vicorpower.com. We also filed a Form 8-K today related to the issuance of this press release. I remind listeners this conference call is being recorded and is the copyrighted property of Vicor Corporation. I also remind you various remarks we make during this call may constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Except for historical information contained in this call, the matters discussed on this call, including any statements regarding current and planned products, current and potential customers, potential market opportunities, expected events and announcements, and our capacity expansion, as well as management's expectations for sales growth, spending, and profitability, our forward-looking statements involving risk and uncertainties. In light of these risk and uncertainties, we can offer no assurance that any forward-looking statement will, in fact, proved to be correct. Actual results may differ materially from those explicitly set forth in or implied by any of our remarks today. The risk and uncertainties we face are discussed in item 1A of our 2025 Form 10-K, which we filed with the SEC on March 2, 2026. This document is available via the EDGAR system on the SEC's website. Please note the information provided during this conference call is accurate only as of today, Tuesday, July 21, 2026. Vicor undertakes no obligation to update any statements, including forward-looking statements, made during this call, and you should not rely upon such statements after the conclusion of this call. A webcast replay of today's call will be available shortly on the Investor Relations page of our website. I'll now turn to a review of our Q2 financial performance, after which Phil will review recent market developments, and Patrizio, Phil, and I will take your questions. In my remarks, I will focus mostly on the sequential quarterly changes for P&L and balance sheet items and refer you to our press release or our upcoming Form 10-Q for additional information. As stated in today's press release, Vicor recorded product and royalty revenue for the second quarter of $143.4 million, up 26.9% sequentially from the first quarter of 2026 total of $113 million, and up 1.6% from the second quarter of 2025 total of $141 million, which included a $45 million patent litigation settlement. Advanced Product for Revenue increased 45% sequentially to $94.2 million, and BRIC products revenue increased 2.4 percent sequentially to $49.2 million. Schmitt's stocking distributors increased 4.2 percent sequentially and increased 38.8 percent year-over-year. Exports for the second quarter decreased sequentially as a percentage of total revenue to approximately 46 percent from the prior quarter's 48.9 percent. For Q2, advanced product share of total revenue increased to 65.7 percent compared to 57.5 percent for the first quarter of 2026, with BRIC products share correspondingly decreasing to 34.3 percent of total revenue. Royalty income from our most recent license agreement, which provides for four $5 million quarterly payments in its first year and $10 million quarterly payments in its second year, contributed $15 million to Q2 revenue. In view of its accounting treatment, this license agreement is expected to contribute $5 million in Q3 and $10 million per quarter for the following four quarters. Turning to gross margin, we recorded a consolidated gross profit margin of 58%, a 280 basis point increase from the prior quarter. Q1 gross margin decreased 730 basis points from the same quarter last year, which included the previously mentioned $45 million patent litigation settlement. I'll now turn to Q2 operating expenses. Total operating expense increased 6.1% sequentially from the first quarter of 2026 to $48.2 million. A substantial increase in operating expenses was due to a substantial increase in contingent legal expenses paid out to the law firms partnering with FICOR for the license deal reached in Q2. The amounts of total equity-based compensation expense for Q2 included in cost of goods, SG&A, and R&D was $897,000, $2,085,000, and $1,198,000, respectively, totaling approximately $4.2 million. Turning to income taxes, we recorded a tax benefit for Q2 of approximately $10.9 million, representing an effective tax rate for the quarter of minus 27.9%. The company's tax provision and effective tax rate for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, was positively impacted by stock options exercised in the quarter. Net income for Q2 totaled $49.8 million. Gap diluted income per share was $1.04, based on a fully diluted share count of 47,708,000 shares. Turning to our cash flow and balance sheet, cash-in-cash equivalents totaled $453.6 million at Q2, an increase of $49.4 million sequentially. And we're pleased to report that last Monday, July 13, we received a payment from the IRS relating to our application for CHIPS Act Investment Tax Credit in the amount of $14.3 million as a refund from our 2023 tax return. This amount and other tax credit amounts we expect from subsequent tax returns will add to our cash balance in Q3 and beyond. Accounts receivable net of reserves totaled $78.9 million at quarter end, with DSOs for trade receivables at 37 days. Inventory's net of reserves increased 10.2% sequentially to $104.5 million. Annualized inventory turns were 2.1. Cash flow provided by operating activities totaled $34 million for the quarter. Capital expenditures for Q2 totaled $11.2 million. We ended the quarter with a construction and progress balance primarily for manufacturing equipment of approximately $18.2 million, and with approximately $23.5 million remaining to be spent. I'll now address bookings and backlog. due to book-to-bill came at above one, and one-year backlog increased 26% from the prior quarter, closing at $379.7 million. 2026 is the year in which Vicor's innovative products and technology licensing practice came into focus within the industry. As we bring on incremental capacity, we expect a nearly 10% increase in Q3 revenue and over $600 million in 2026 revenue. To achieve these growth objectives, we are planning for double digit sequential increases in product revenue for advanced products. As we said last quarter, this guidance is based on conservative assumptions about our licensing practice. Specifically, that new licensing agreements may not result until our second ITC case gets to its final determination in 2027. Additional exclusion orders further restricting importation of infringing computing systems may provide motivation to close new licensing deals on favorable terms. Along with revenue growth, we expect margin expansion. Phil?
Thank you, Jim. At our recent annual shareholders meeting, I presented an update on our company strategy and objectives. Our financial objectives of $2.5 billion in revenues at 70% gross margins supersede the $1 billion and 65% gross margin targets set in 2023, which we are on our way to achieving. Our updated objectives are based on a two-pronged strategy, leveraging synergy between our power module sales and IP licensing practice. As discussed at the ASM, our power module business is focused on a set of 100 customers across four markets and four regions globally. Within each of the four markets of HPC, industrial, automotive, and aerospace and defense, we have customers who are on the cutting edge of high-growth applications with the most demanding requirements for power and current density, with high efficiency and signal integrity. A perfect example of this is vertical power delivery. AI data center hyperscalers and OEMs need vertical power delivery to meet compute density requirements and AI data center performance. The market opportunity is growing rapidly, and competitors are challenged to deliver on two key specifications, current gain and current density. With current gains greater than 40 and current density up to 5 amps per millimeter squared, Vico's second-generation VPD is way ahead of all Generation 1 competitive solutions. As discussed at the annual meeting, we will engage with selected customers with development systems and tools starting this quarter. Our objectives for our second-generation VPD solutions over the next few quarters will be to expand our business opportunities with OEMs and hyperscalers wanting to be long-term strategic partners. Major new product introductions are also underway in our industrial and aerospace and defense businesses, with market expansion now occurring outside of lead top 100 customer opportunities that drove initial module development. As stated at our ASM a few weeks ago, we are very focused on the successful execution of our business strategy, which leverages our vertically integrated CHIP fab in Andover as the first of a multiplicity of foundries supporting our new financial targets of $2.5 billion in revenues with 70% gross margins and 40% operating income. With that, we'll take your questions.
Operator
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. And to withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. And our first question is going to come from Quinn Bolton with Needham and Company. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys. Congratulations on the nice results and outlook. I guess I wanted to start with the second gen VPD and just maybe an update on how you're progressing with the lead customer, but But also, Phil mentioned starting to more broadly sample second-gen VBT to a broader customer base. Do you still feel like you're on track to secure ramp designs with either Hyperscaler or other OEM customers with second-gen VPD over, say, the next 12 to 18 months?
Yes. So we've completed development with respect to a baseline of 3 amps per square millimeter current density with initial chipset for lead customer. we are now completing demo systems including a dedicated VPD demo system to showcase with other customers and we're on our way to raising the bar path for apps per square millimeter late this year, beginning of next year so I'm delighted with the progress we've made within the last several months in terms of reaching initial targets, and we have a roadmap to expand on that.
And beyond the lead customer, Patricio, would you expect DesignWinds to sort of ramp maybe, at this point, second half of 27 for vertical power delivery?
I'm not going to make commitments with respect to specific days. I will say that I was in the Valley for visits just last week, but there is a good deal of interest in our capabilities. We've been approached by two companies wishing us to provide a building block that is critical to deployment of IVRs. We look at that as an incremental opportunity. The reality of these capabilities, competitive capabilities, that is, as you look at the migration of VRs from 12 volt to 6 volt to 1.8 volt inputs, is that they're barely capable of delivering the real world slightly over one-hundred square millimeter. That's the message we're getting consistently from people in the know. When you look at all the factors at play, thermal delaying, other factors, the competitive capability is quite limited, barely above one-hundred per square millimeter. And the market need, particularly with respect to, you know, where for scale engines, other advanced HPC system is already above those levels and projected to become much higher in a matter of a few years. And frankly, the industry has no solution for these requirements.
Got it. And then, Patrice, any updates on securing a site with or without building for your second chip fab?
So we have several options at this point. We made some offers. None of them was taken up yet. But we have the embarrassment of choice at this point, and we'll probably be making decisions in the last few weeks. Thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. And the next question will come from Richard Shannon with Craig Hallam. Your line is now open.
Great, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess the first one is, Jim, I'd love for you to repeat the numbers regarding royalties with, I think it was a new licensee or something. Those went by pretty quickly here. And if you could follow up with just kind of general expectations of how to think about royalties in the current quarter as you, within the context of the guidance you just gave us of revenues up 10%, please.
Okay, I'm going to, Richard, I'll reread that paragraph for everyone. So royalty income from our most recent license agreement, which provides for four $5 million quarterly payments in its first year and $10 million quarterly payments in its second year, so that's a total of $60 million, contributed $15 million in Q2 revenue. In view of its accounting treatment, this license agreement is expected to contribute $5 million in Q3 and $10 million per quarter for the following four quarters. So the revenue is different than the cash collections, Richard, because of the gap accounting treatment. The $15 million recognized in Q2 was a result of the termination clauses in the agreement. So we could account for $15 million of the deal in this quarter. and because of the accounting treatment, that will drop to $5 million of revenue recognition in Q3 and then back up to $10 million for the balance of the agreement per quarter.
Okay. I think that answered my question also about the implied guidance there. And maybe I'll just ask Patricia following up on this on characterizing this customer here, OEM, hyperscaler, et cetera, and whether this has been a past customer as well, please.
I can't comment with respect to the identity of licensees, but I think what we have published in this course, which I can reiterate here, is that we have a multiplicity of OEM licensees, one hyperscaler as of now.
Okay, fair enough. And my follow-on question is partially based on what I see in the press release and then also, Tritio, I think in response to one of the past questions here about IVRs, the statement here in the press release about feeding IVRs with a criminal supplier is an incremental opportunity for Vicor. Would love for you to help me understand that a little bit better here. It seems like you could interpret it as an incremental opportunity or it could be displacing a full, you know, second-gen VPT solution here. So I'd love for you to help us understand that a little bit better for this.
So our technology lends itself to supporting either alternative. Without question, a pure factorized power system is capable of considerably more current density, several times more, with considerably better efficiency. But that doesn't mean that all applications would go in that direction for a variety of reasons. One thing that IVRs do have, to be fair, is that they have flexibility. So in applications with a large multiplicity of nodes, a highly fragmented set of nodes, there's something to be said for IVRs in that they do provide a great deal of flexibility, configurability. But that comes a significant expense in terms of insertion loss, 15%, maybe 10%. But then if you try to get it down to a 10% loss, they need to run at a lower frequency, and they still have transient undershoots, which our factorized power system no longer has. So we have a huge efficiency advantage relative to these competitive alternatives, but that doesn't mean we can't play a support role for those alternatives and capture significant business.
Operator
Thank you. And the next question is going to come from Justin Clare with Roth Capital. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions here. So I wanted to touch on the guidance. So I updated your 2026 guide to over $600 million here. It looks like that's the update is primarily related to the additional royalty payments that you had laid out. But wondering if there are any other notable changes relative to the initial guide related to shipment expectations or related demand. And then just on the new licensing agreement, wondering if you'd share just how that's structured. Is that only royalty payments that you're anticipating from that, or could you also see greater demand from your FAB as a result of that licensing agreement?
So the total revenue growth comes, to your point, from a combination of new licensing deals, the ones we closed on, specifically the one that was closed in the second quarter, and product revenue growth. The initial license agreement that was closed in Q2 does not, for the first couple of years, provide for a sourcing relationship, but that's understood to be part of the relationship going forward in conjunction with our second gen VPD capability. and that's going to be the natural of these relationships going forward with OEMs and hyperscalers.
Got it. Great. Thanks. And then just wanted to touch on the expansion underway at your first fab here. Just wondering if you could share an update on the progress, you know, when you anticipate the expansion being completed, and then you had previously talked about being able to reach $1.5 billion in revenue after that, or at least $1.5 billion in revenue could be supported by the expansion. But I think that's sensitive to product mix. So just wondering if you could also share just, you know, how product mix might affect, you know, whether or not you could deliver either above or below, you know, that $1.5 billion?
Well, so as reported, we are expanding capacity, but also absorbing that expanded capacity. And as time progresses, we're inevitably getting close to full capacity recession. with the first chip fab, and that's why we're working to close on a second facility. The specific number at which the first fab will top out is, I think, yet TBD. To your point, that target as of a year ago was a lot lower than it has been. And our operations team is continuing to work to expand it to the extent possible. But we are in a position that with limited capacity, we have the opportunity to select those engagements that make sense strategically for the long term. And that's what we're doing. We're not sold out, but we're approaching capacity utilization. And as we get closer, at least through the time frame, before the second FAB comes up, we're going to be very selective in our engagements.
Got it. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. And the next question comes from John. Dylan with D&B Capital. Your line's open.
Hi. Thank you very much. And guys, congratulations on a great quarter. I've got a follow-up to the last question. And that's that you've stayed your goals of $2.5 billion in revenue coming up here. And I'm wondering, are you planning on getting there with your existing factory, or is it going to take a second fab to get there, along with revenue plus the royalty income? Can you get to 2.5 with your existing facility?
That's a definite no. It's going to take a second fab to get there.
Okay. Well, that kind of leads into my follow-up. My channel checks are saying that you guys have Avago, Google, and AMD, and AMD, we've seen pictures of gold bars and their new processor. So how big are these going to be in the next year and how are you going to have the capacity to serve them?
I'm not going to comment about sightings of gold bars anywhere. So we have a very distinctive product. but it's distinctive in that it's manufactured uniquely in a fab with three-dimensional interconnect processes that give it its golden look. But to be clear, while it's got a golden look, it doesn't carry the cost of gold with it. To the contrary, among other things, we are going to have the lowest cost card. So I think we got exciting years ahead with respect to raising the bar on the revenue line, on the profitability along the lines of what Phil was suggesting earlier. But it's going to take a second FAB to get to those levels.
And how big will that second FAB be? Will it be able to do $1.5 billion, or do you expect it to be able to do more in revenue?
We are down-selecting two sites that have the way we're told to support a considerable expansion, as much as 2X, potentially 3X, the first file.
Thank you very much. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. And our next question will come from Richard Shannon with Craig Hallam Capital. Your line is open.
Great, guys. Thanks for taking a follow-up here. I'm going to follow up on the last answer here, Patricia, just to make sure I understand it here. So your first model of $1 billion was just with the first FAB, and as we just heard from your answers here, the $2.5 requires a second FAB here, and if I heard you correctly, the second FAB is going to be two to three times the first FAB. It seems like you'd have the ability to do a lot more than $2.5 billion with both those fabs plus any licensing here. So I'm wondering if you could rationalize the disconnect here, please.
So with the second site and the second fab, there's going to be a series of steps. This is not all going to be built out on day one. Needless to say, we don't want to create unnecessary or premature depreciation. We're going to have a couple of steps to begin with. We're looking to essentially double capacity. But we are selecting sites that have the requisite expansion flexibility so that without having to go to a third site, we can further increase capacity.
That is helpful. Thanks for that. And my follow-on question is on product gross margins. I'm assuming all the royalty revenues are 100% here. And if I back that out, calculate a product gross margin. It's actually down a couple hundred basis points from the last couple of quarters here. I wonder if you could help us understand the dynamics there and whether that's that trend will reverse itself here in the future.
I think Jim commented expectations of increasing margins. Yeah.
And and so we there was a there was a there was a there will be lift in the GM, product GM going forward, Richard, as we get utilization to go higher and absorption to go higher. I will say that there was sort of a maybe one time, but an important event here in the second quarter relative to moving equipment around in the first fab to make space for the equipment that's coming in. So that was incremental expense and cost of sales in the period that did not get capitalized and cannot be capitalized. So that did weigh on product gross margins as well. So you can imagine what had to happen in the factory to make the space really optimized for the new equipment coming in. It wasn't cheap to do that.
Okay. Thanks for that explanation. That's all for me.
Operator
Thank you. And the next question will come from Neil Gore, stockholder. Your line is open.
Your goal of $2.5 billion, within that goal, will royalties be at 50% of revenue at that time?
I don't think we're in a position to make a specific prediction with respect to the mix. I think there's a lot to happen on the AP front Evigor is in every technology on all of the areas where the industry has needs for increased current density or increased power density so this will play itself out over a number of years and the outcome of this campaign is still to undergo the steps we're going to need to take and the effect of those steps. So I think all that I can say is that we see a significant expansion in licensing income in years to come. We do expect a crossing of the chasm within the industry by hyperscalers, bars, OEMs, recognizing that playing a game of cashmere if you can will result in significant issues in terms of the supply chain. If they're using our technology, the only ethical, legal thing to do is to pay for it by way of a license. And that, before too long, may apply to the industry as a whole.
Operator
Thank you. And our next question is going to come from Quinn Bolton with Needham & Company. Your line's open.
Thanks for taking my follow-up. Patricia, I wanted to come to the licensing side of the business. I think the second license with your first licensee as well as your most recent license looks like those were, I think, just a couple of years in duration, which probably means you need to re-sign licenses as you get close to the end of 2027. Can you just, from a big-picture level, talk about your strategy with sort of new licenses? Would you look to expand to include more of the vertical power delivery content or sourcing agreements? But can you provide any high-level thoughts on resigning those licenses as the current licenses come due? Yeah.
So we have a well-defined, mature licensing practice. It's got flexibility where needed. It is not up for grabs in terms of flexibilities that don't make sense. So it does involve any OEM, any hyperscaler. It does not involve competitors. Competitors can participate in terms of without infringing our IP, you know, by sourcing their products, otherwise infringing products into OEMs or hyperscalers that have a license from Vigo. The licensing model has involved already two kinds of licenses. One, you might call a proportional license, which provides for royalties, unit royalties in direct proportion to actual usage. We also, in more recent years, have done two-year deals that are, in effect, all-inclusive. With these deals, we understand, given the limited timeframe, what the current usage by the licensee is going to be. But needs to say, given the rate of expansion with hyperscalers and OEMs in the AI market in particular, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to predict their level of business five, ten years down the road. So with all-inclusive licenses, by necessity, we have to have a short time frame and then negotiate the new license depending on how the business by the licensee evolves during the two-year period. Thank you, Patricio. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. And the next question comes from John Dillon with DMB Capital. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking my follow-up. So, hey, Phil, I just wanted to check with you. How are the bookings looking for this quarter?
As I mentioned, I think it mentioned in the press release, John, the bookings are great. I mean, our bookings tend to be, can be lumpy. So sometimes, you know, we've reported, booked the bills of close to two. This one was a little bit lower, but I don't see any weakness at all going forward. Aerospace and defense is strong. Industrial is very strong. High-performance compute is strong. So, yeah, no, things look good.
And in the last press release, you talked about an OEM, and you said they had a capability of being a second source. My question is, will they be a second source? And if not, how's a second source coming along for you guys?
So, as commented on the show this meeting, And our strategy in the short term has evolved with a focus on bringing on additional capacity through a second facility, a second chip fab that we can tolerate control. We've had discussions with respect to potential alternate sources. There will likely be more discussions. But the nature of these engagements, both in terms of profitability timeline, is such that it would not put us in the position we need to be in terms of expanding capacity for key customers in the next couple of years. So a shift with respect to the relative focus, not a change with respect to long-term strategy. I expect there's going to be alternate sources, not just in support of applications in AI, but potentially in other markets. and that's consistent with, in fact, making the most out of a very comprehensive P portfolio that spans across a number of key power system technologies.
Excellent. And do you still expect 25% to 30% of your business from Cerebrus next year?
I'm not going to make specific comments with respect to customers for obvious reasons. But we enjoy a very strong relationship, and I think these and other customers are doing very well in their own space. Thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. And the next question comes from Richard Shannon with Craig Hollum Capital. Your line is open.
Thanks, Pastor. Take my follow-up again here. At the risk of asking a very similar question to the last one here, instead of asking about Cerebris going forward here, can you tell us whether Cerebris is a 10% customer in the second quarter?
I think we'll disclose that in the queue, but I don't know that it would have been, Richard. So I don't know that I can comment right now, but let's take a look at the queue.
Okay. I'll look forward to reading that. My follow-on question here is looking at the next customers for second-gen VPD here, and I'd love to get a sense of how you expect the sales cycle to go. And Patricia, also, if you could comment on the degree to which any changes in architectures in whatever way that you would deem important to convey to us here, how those will affect, you know, kind of that sales cycle here, just kind of generally speaking, please?
Let me take the second part first, and then Phil will address the first part of your question. So as suggested earlier, we see the industry with its usual traits of looking over each other's shoulder and parroting each other's initiative. to keep going down a path that is characterized by continued tall dependency on a voltage regular engine at the point of load. That's fundamentally a flow strategy. It's not going to work. As suggested in the earlier comments, it's a strategy where you can only get some incremental of current density well below what's going to be needed before too long at the expense of giving up on current gain, and that doesn't solve the problem, a problem which requires a combination of high enough current density with overall high enough current gain. Now, if you don't have the current gain, as suggested earlier, and that's been the catalyst for being approached by a couple of companies, you can use AVRs to stretch somewhat the current density capability, but still short of what's going to be needed. A dispenser requiring a still very high current bus converter of 1.5 volt. So that's a strategy that's got trade-offs, as suggested earlier. It's got some good redeeming features, you know, flexibility in terms of partitioning domains. It's great at that, but not far from ideal in terms of overall power system figures. are made. So we see a different approach. It's reflected in the power system technology that we developed parented. It's reflected in a chip as in converter housing packaging technology that can only be made in chip fabs that are heavily protected by Viagra IP. And that's the strategy we're pursuing.
So, Richard, this is Phil. So, with regards to the cycle, the development cycle, if you like, if you go back just a few months to the APEC conference in San Antonio, Texas, you had a number of big OEMs and a few hyperscalers almost sort of lobbying the semiconductor audience on their AI product development. in terms of saying, you know, here's what we need from you guys with regards to current density, which they were asking for something around 3 amps per millimeter squared, and package heights, you know, in terms of thermal management and just assembly and yield issues of less than 3 millimeters. And you look at what's being developed and delivered to these OEMs and hyperscalers today is Generation 1 VPD that comes nowhere near that request. And so you can imagine the excitement that's out there to engage with Vicor that has 3 amps per millimeter squared now moving to 5 amps per millimeter squared next year, early next year, and a 1.5 millimeter package with very easy thermal management techniques. So there's a lot of companies that want to engage because they're sort of making do with the current Gen 1 VPD solution. So what we expect is engagement with a hyperscaler and a couple of OEMs now this rest of this year. And I believe that those programs will start to, if you like, evolve into production systems sort of, I would say, late third quarter, fourth quarter of next year in terms of the ramps that are needed, which then, as Patricio mentioned, allows us to move into our first fab. And then as we bring on the second fab in late 27, 28, you've now got the ramp that that follows through into that new facility with this expanded capacity. So that's what we expect to see.
Great. Thanks for all that detail, guys.
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Don McKenna with DB McKenna. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. Congratulations. And my question deals with the backlog. I was wondering how much of the significant increase there is attributed to the new licensing agreement, if any?
Relatively little. So we have, as Phil pointed out, strengths coming from a number of different tech markets. Take as an example, the ADE market. Our level of business with key customers there is a large multiple of what it has been in past years. And that's the result of the build-out with respect to AI. So that's just one example of growing demand coming from a multiplicity of end markets. which we need to address.
Yeah, just a comment on the automatic test equipment market. That's a great story because it's also a factorized power architecture that relies on low noise performance and thin package technology. We've had a number of competitors come up to us in different shows saying, We just can't get Vico out of there because of the signal, low performance, low signal-to-noise ratios that we are able to deliver, and also the thinness of the packages. We can't get anywhere near that. So it's a great market for us, and we're firmly entrenched in some of the biggest ATE companies. And that market is also growing with new entrants in overseas markets that we're also designing in our FPA solutions into. So that's going to continue to be a good growth story for us going forward.
Great. So I think what I'm hearing you say is it's existing customers with increased needs. And that's where the bulk of this is coming from. But do you also see any of it being just the fact that as you're nearing capacity, people are putting in their orders for farther out delivery?
Yes. Early times have stretched out a little bit, but they're generally speaking consistent with industry friends. Nowadays, whether it's semiconductors, PC boards, You know, some of the key components within the industry have lead times that have had to reflect, you know, the realities of demand exceeding capacity in a number of key areas, not just ours.
Good. Thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. And as a reminder to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone. The next question comes from Joe Dababny with Individual Investor. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question.
I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit about how the next generation advanced packaging architectures are going to help proliferate Gen 2 VPD across the industry.
It's just got by far the biggest current density, the lowest thermal resistance, the lowest noise. As Phil pointed out earlier, that in the ATE arena, we've had longstanding, well, I say longstanding, I mean, 40 years track record of domains because of the unique signal integrity capabilities of our product. Those are also differentiators, believe it or not, in AI, in computing capabilities that more and more are relying on nodes with final lithography operating at lower and lower voltages, where signal integrity becomes more and more of a critical differentiator. So we are unique in these capabilities, and again, that uniqueness is not limited to one facet of the overall challenge. It involves many different facets, all of which are heavily protected in terms of the AP we've been developing over the last 10 years. So we feel very good about our opportunities going forward for all those reasons.
Great. Thanks. And then one more about the recent licensee that signed in May.
Can you kind of speak on what would have happened to the supply chain if that license was not negotiated by them?
Well, so we have a well-tought-out strategy with respect to protecting international property, enforcing RIP. As you know, in the U.S., a patent holder has a monopolistic right to the IP that is protected by patents. And that right is a right to exclude, among other things, importation or infringing products. And infringing products are now limited to power modules copied by unscrupulous competitors. It does involve the competitors' customers, the contract manufacturers, and those customers' customers, OEMs, hyperscalers. It's incumbent on them to make sure in the supply chain that intellectual property is respected. Inventors deserve to have their IP respected in the marketplace. And we've been very focused on a very comprehensive strategy to make sure that RIP gets the respect it deserves. And I think we have made slides in that direction. There's more slides coming. And as I mentioned earlier, I believe there's going to be a crossing of the chasps in the industry taking place in the next couple of years.
I appreciate that, Patrizio.
Operator
Thank you. this does conclude today's question and answer session and this will also conclude today's conference call thank you so much for your participation and you may now disconnect
