SiTime Corporation (NASDAQ:SITM) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Rajesh Vashist: Well, it’s a good question. As you know, we have been very consistent that our acquisition, the first one would be in the clocking space. So, I’m deeply gratified that, we are living up to that promise over the last few years. And we’re doing it exactly, the clocking area and exactly in the networking comms, enterprise, AI space, which is the highest value part of the business. Sometimes the timing is just high 2G. The planets aligned. And in this case, we’ve been dealing with them for a while. As I said earlier, we have already launched the Cascade product line in 2020, and we saw the high-quality work that the guys at Aura Semiconductor did. We saw the level of technology, they brought to bear. And we think that, while we could do that, it would take us time.

And by connecting with these guys and bringing these products in, we’re accelerating by several years our revenue. And this just seemed to be the right time, because we were also done with bringing a lot of new oscillator products, see the Epoch launch to the market. So, it just seemed like almost the perfect time. And this is one of those times when the planets aligned and Aura themselves were more open to this. And we’ve built a great relationship with them, with a team in Bangalore, India, and we’re very pleased with what they have done.

Suji Desilva: Thanks guys.

Rajesh Vashist: Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Please standby for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Douglas O’Laughlin of Fabricated Knowledge. Your line is now open.

Doug O’Laughlin: Hi guys…

Rajesh Vashist: You’re sounding a little bit muffled Dough.

Doug O’Laughlin: Rajesh, hello, can you hear me?

Rajesh Vashist: Much better. Yes, much better.

Doug O’Laughlin: Okay. Well congrats Art and welcome to the team, Beth. I just had a question on the comms segment. You said 5-0 quarter-over-quarter. Does that imply gross margin is troughing this quarter given that historically, you said that comms, is your highest gross margin segment. And then I guess I have a follow-up on Aura?

Art Chadwick: Yes. So I did say that the comms enterprise revenue will increase approximately 50%, 5-0 percent sequentially. These are still not large dollars that generally is higher gross margin for us, but we also have some other offsets throughout the rest of the business, which is why I had to guide relatively flat gross margins from Q3 to Q4.

Doug O’Laughlin: Okay. Perfect. And then I guess this one is more for Rajesh. Could you kind of walk us through how a customer would get an attach rate for something like an Aura Semiconductor clock product with an oscillator? And I know these deals are going to take a long time, but just kind of walk us through the logic and the reason, of why together, this is a much better deal for you guys. Just I think it would be helpful for us, to understand and quantify and understand, the impact of how big Aura could be for you and maybe even some of your oscillator business?

Rajesh Vashist: Exactly. So our business in comms enterprise is the one that we believe, is a very important one for SiTime. And this offering of clock-based products, comes front and center into that. It takes us from a SAM of $50 million, to an additional $450 million. So really increases it tenfold. So, if you look at a remote radio unit, in that we today supply both the oscillators that goes into RRUs or RRHs. Now alongside that, are typically new clocks, which use either clock generators or network synchronizers, or buffers that go into the same box, which heretofore, we had – we did not possess. And while we’ve been building some of these internally, it just takes a lot longer. So with this product right away, we would have four slots in the RRU, ready to go.