MaxLinear at Oppenheimer Conference: Strategic Expansion in High-Growth Areas

On Tuesday, 12 August 2025, MaxLinear (NASDAQ:MXL) presented a promising outlook at the Oppenheimer 28th Annual Technology, Internet & Communications Conference. The company reported solid financials and increased guidance, signaling a recovery across all end markets. While MaxLinear is strategically focusing on high-growth areas like data centers, challenges such as the Silicon Motion arbitration remain.

Key Takeaways

• MaxLinear reported improved visibility and increased bookings over the past quarters.
• The company anticipates significant growth into 2026, driven by new product ramps and design wins.
• Data center revenue is expected to double this year, reaching $60-70 million.
• MaxLinear’s Panther storage accelerator is projected to generate over $40 million in revenue by 2026.
• The Silicon Motion arbitration is expected to be resolved in Q1 of the following year.

Financial Results

MaxLinear reported solid numbers and raised its guidance, indicating a positive trend across all end markets. The company highlighted improved visibility and increased bookings over the past two to three quarters, suggesting a return to normal ordering cycles from customers.

Operational Updates

MaxLinear is focusing on high-growth areas, particularly in the data center business. The company expects data center revenue to reach $60-70 million this year, doubling last year’s contribution. Additionally, the Panther storage accelerator is gaining traction, with revenue projected to exceed $40 million by 2026.

Future Outlook

The company anticipates continued growth into 2026, driven by newer product ramps, design wins, and share gains. MaxLinear is leveraging its intellectual property to expand into new markets, while also managing its balance sheet effectively.

Q&A Highlights

During the conference call, MaxLinear discussed its competitive edge in the PAM4 DSP market through lower power solutions and technical differentiation. The company is moving its next-generation solution to Samsung to further differentiate from an ecosystem standpoint. Additionally, MaxLinear is actively engaged with customers to address technical challenges in the CPO space, leveraging its SerDes capabilities.

The Silicon Motion arbitration was also addressed, with an expected resolution in Q1 of the following year. The company is focusing on improving cash flow generation and winning market share.

Readers are invited to refer to the full transcript for a detailed account of the conference.

Full transcript - Oppenheimer 28th Annual Technology, Internet & Communications Conference:

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Well, thanks, and good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for joining the discussion. I’m Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, and I’m joined today by MaxLinear, longtime CEO or CFO, I can say now, Steve Litchfield. You know, Steve’s, have a long tech resume. I think he got over to MaxLinear, correct me, but I think it’s it’s going on, like, seven or eight years ago, I think.

And prior to that, Steve, a lot of people still know you from from almost twenty years at Microsemi. So thanks thanks for being here, Steve. It’s always great to see you, man.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Good to see you. Thanks for having us, Rick.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: So if it’s cool, we’ll just dive in. I mean, you know, you know, you guys reported just a few weeks ago, but, you know, it was obviously solid numbers, solid upside being raised. You know, it looks like the company’s, you know, really turned the corner across all end markets, if I read that correctly and and from that from that call and and, you know, customer customer orders picking up and and backlog’s building, new product wins ramping. I mean, it just kind of checked a lot of boxes, I think, to everybody. So I was wondering if you could just give a kind of a quick recap of what you’re seeing out there today.

I know it’s only been a few weeks since you reported, but it has been noisier this year, I think, than usual for a lot of people for lots of reasons. So, anyway, if you could just level set us, that’d be great.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Sure. Yeah. Not a problem. Yeah. Agreed.

I mean, I think we had a we did have a good quarter. I agree with your last point there that it’s a bit noisy out there. But, I mean, I think we speak to Maxinger a little bit and talk about the industry as well. But do you feel like, you know, finally turned the corner, feel like business is picking up? Feels like it’s been a a long time coming.

I think there’s a few things. I mean, there’s certainly a kind of recovery underway, but I also am excited, and we can talk more about some of the newer products. We’ve got some newer products, new new products that are driving additional content in kind of existing applications with existing customers, but we’re also in some newer areas as well. And so I think definitely seeing visibility improve, bookings have have improved over the last two or three quarters. That that’s really encouraging.

I I think just lead times in general have extended a bit. Customers are kind of getting back into a what I’ll call a kind of a normal, you know, cycle of ordering product rather than, you know, having excess inventory. So we’re we’re well past that, it seems to me. And, so as we look into next year, I mean, ’25 still I’d describe it as a bit of a transition year because I feel like things are improving, but it doesn’t feel like CapEx has necessarily picked up that much. I mean, I know certainly there’s places in AI and the data center that you’ve seen some of those dynamics, but I would say broad based semis, and and I would say a lot of our end markets that we focus on.

It’s been a bit of a recovery, a little bit of a transition year. Really nice growth this year, but I think next year as we you know, that that’s likely to continue as visibility for newer product ramps, new, you know, design wins, share gains, things like that are happening that that we’ll see that continue into 2026.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Yeah. And you mentioned carrier CapEx and, you know, obviously, I think it’s a thirty year revenues. It looks like it was up over 30% last quarter, so it it sure seems like it’s firing. And some of that, like you say, maybe restock on inventory or something like that. And this is sort of a recovery.

But I don’t know if you spend a second on that, just just talking about between data center and wireless and storage, you know, what those relative contributions look like, what, you know, what lights at the end of the tunnel you’re seeing for those segments because they all I believe they all seem to be up impacting. So I just I just wanted to maybe see if you could, you know, give a little more color around that.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Yeah. I do. So we’re seeing, you know, 30 I mean, you you quoted the 30 plus percent growth year over year on the infrastructure side. I we we are seeing that there’s two or three drivers, as you mentioned. Data centers is the one that, you know, a lot of folks are talking about.

I mean, we had talked about doing 60 to 70% I’m sorry, sixty to seventy million dollars this year in revenue with our PAM4 DSP. And so that is exciting that, you know, on or about doubles what we did last year. We’re on track to do that. We reiterated that on the call. Excited about this space as, you know, 400 gig data centers transition to 800, and then, obviously, we got 1.6 kind of on the horizon that we demonstrated and talked a little bit about at OFC this year.

So that that is kind of the next one coming. But 800 gig is, I would say, happening in earnest. We’ve gotten through, you know, a fair amount of calls, moved to production on that product. So, you know, a little more back end weighted this year, although we had a really good first half as well. And so that’s going extremely I mean, I think we’re just pleased with the progress we’ve made, somewhat of a broad best broad based customer base, so seeing good traction on that front.

You mentioned storage. We have this Panther storage accelerator that we’ve had for a few years. Put developing a new product there. We actually announced last week at FMS and did a keynote presentation with AMD. AMD and us have been working closely together.

This is it’s an offload capability, and so, you know, so this enables the customers who have a lot of, you know, compute challenges to offload some of that, use less cores, be more efficient, be more cost effective, and we’ve got a lot of interest out of the enterprise storage players. But then we’re also seeing interest from data center, tier one, tier two data centers also on this particular product line. Smaller product line. You know, it’s probably million dollars this year, but I do think this, you know, upwards of maybe 40 plus million dollars next year. So can be a more meaningful contributor as we look on ’26 and beyond as this need continues to go up.

The competitive landscape really, Intel is kind of the main guy. They have a solution called QAT, more of a software solution. Ours is more of a hardware, firmware solution that, performance wise, is quite a bit above that level. And I think folks have been really interested in looking at an alternative. I think AMD is getting a little more traction, so some of those customers are coming our way via them.

And and then some general concerns around Intel maybe, you know, pushing people in our direction, but it’s a pretty exciting time for that product. And then the the last piece and, you know, wireless infrastructure has historically been close to half of this product line or or, I’m sorry, end market, and that that also is somewhat of a transition year. You know, 2024 was you know, CapEx spending was way down, particularly in access. You know, that five g deployment kinda happened, what, two years ago now. Starting we’re starting to see improvements, whether it be inventory easing or some additional spending, but I think that probably continues next year.

We’ve we’ve got a couple of new products here too. I mean, we participate in in backhaul as well as access. We’ve always had a modem. We’ve added a transceiver over the years, and now we have a DFE. And so between the DFE and even even, I would say, E band like, E band is is got more content.

ASPs go up. So we’re seeing a nice pickup in revenues just from content increases or, you know, ASP increases in a particular application or in a particular system. So as CapEx starts to return next year, I think, you know, we can add, and hopefully, can even beat the the growth that hopefully that we’ll we’ll attain this year. I think we can maybe do that and maybe a little bit more next year.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Great. That’s a lot of great color. Thanks. And and so I might come back to wireless if But I’m curious on paying for this because it does get a lot of attention.

It’s a pretty attractive market. Curious if you can help level set us. Like, I know you said 60 to 70 this year, like can you level set versus like what is that versus last year’s contribution? And then the second and bigger part of my question is sort of how do you compete against the sort of there’s like two one is the true 800 pound gorilla in the space and one is an 800 pound gorilla in almost every space. You know?

So you’re competing against two kind of established guys. So how do you get in there and and and win against them?

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Sure. Yeah. So last year, you know, we we didn’t give an exact number, but let let’s call it between 35 and $40,000,000 last year. So a really nice improvement year over year, and, we can kinda do the same in the coming years.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: We’re doubling almost.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: That’s right. That’s right. And and maybe to your point, I mean, how are we winning? Look. We come to market with a lower power solution.

I mean, we hit all the performance metrics. I mean, if you’ve those of you who are familiar with MaxLinear, I mean, we’ve always kinda led with, you know, technical differentiation. So power performance, It really ends up has what’s allowed us to win share. I think it’s what ultimately will continue to differentiate us in future generations as well. Yeah.

There’s one big guy that’s kinda dominated space. Look. The market has gotten a lot bigger. I mean, I know when we started our development probably five or six years ago, you know, this was like a $3,400,000,000 market. We’re thinking it was gonna be a 100,000,000 product a $100,000,000 product line.

Now, clearly, that business is, you know, more than quadrupled. I mean, the SAM has quadrupled, right, which is pretty amazing. So that that’s exciting. I think what that’s driven is the, you know, customers wanna see alternatives. You know?

They don’t wanna be beholden to to those two big players, and they’ve been really pushing for alternatives. I think we’ve come in with something that’s very unique, very differentiated. To add to that differentiation, our next generation solution is being done at Samsung. Like, we’re currently at TSMC, but we’re gonna move to Samsung in the next generation. It’s another way for us to differentiate from an ecosystem standpoint.

They can they can come with something unique. I mean, all these guys are often worried about supply or you get into export control factors as well. So so being, you know, tied to a Samsung ends up being able to kinda help us to stand out even further on a on a go forward basis.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: When you say next gen, are you talking about 1.6 t, Rushmore? And I’m curious on that. You know, you know, do you stay on five nanometer? Do you need to be on three to be competitive with some of the other stuff that’s out there? I’m just kinda curious how you’re approaching that market.

I I know it’s not like you say, it’s

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: it’s it’s

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: not too heavy lifting this year. That’s 800 g. But as we move to next year and look to 20 Right? That’s gonna be a pretty big note. Yeah.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Yeah. Yeah. No. So it is a big lift. We we are moving, to Samsung.

So this so we’re at five now moving to, this is kind of Samsung’s equivalent. I don’t know. It’s somewhere between three and four, if you call it that. But, but it’s not the three at TSMC, but we think with the architecture differentiation that we have that we’re actually gonna come through at lower power levels. When you say it’s coming and it will be a heavy lift, look, the work’s been done.

Meaning, a lot of the heavy lift has been done. Right? We have silicon. We demoed this at OFC. We’re getting great feedback from customers.

And so I feel like we’re we’re in a good place right now. I mean, is there still work to be done? Is there, you know, tons of work to be done, honestly, from a firmware standpoint? I mean, will there continue to be more efficiencies to be gained here? Absolutely, there will be.

But I think we’ve made just incredible amount of progress. And and by the way, I mean, we’re even looking out further beyond that. I mean, it’s a typical question that you get. I mean, well, what do you do at 400 gig per lane? Right?

So so those are the things that we’re engaged with customers on right now, thinking through how to solve those problems. And that might be at the translator level, and it might go even beyond that. Right? Because in this domain, I guess, I mean, these guys really wanna work with partners that are able to solve a lot of the problems that they have. And and I would say our our at mixed signal capability, some of the analog capabilities that we have, is is very unique.

It does allow us to differentiate, and and we gotta continue to to to lead that effort, right, with some technical innovation.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: And are there any you know, I I know you said most of the work’s been done or the work’s been done, but you hear a lot of things about, particularly, about lasers, you know, as we start trying to push, 200 g lasers and stuff. So, you know, where do we sit with that? I mean, is is that sort of kind of the crux to to wider deployment one six? Is it is that too simple of a of a way to look at it?

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Yeah. No. I mean, I don’t think it’s too simple, but I I guess I’ll I’ll keep it simple and say that, look, there’s still a lot of technical challenges at the system level, lasers included as you pointed out, that need to be resolved. I mean, I think as you go forward, you know, you get into other CPO opportunities that have to be resolved. But then there’s lots of different alternatives as well that I think all of these guys are exploring in order to make the systems more efficient, cost effective, but also meet the performance criteria that they need to meet.

And so I don’t know that there’s a clear call it I’m not sure that there’s a clear winner today on those next generation solutions, but I think you’re gonna continue to see more and more innovation happen there. I think it’s important for us as I won’t say new because this is our third generation product today, but it’s important that we’re engaged at every level in in driving some of the thought leadership that’s needed in the space to differentiate and and solve problems for these guys. Right? In some of these cases, you know, the the two bigger guys, I mean, they’re kind of moving towards some custom silicon and and solving, you know, really, really big problems, but yet you recognize that some hyperscalers or even tier one and tier two data center guys, I mean, they have a lot of complex architectural challenges in the in the system itself that need to be resolved in. So, you know, we wanna be that partner that continues to to to work with them to solve those problems even when some of their other existing suppliers aren’t willing to, you know, take that on.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: That makes perfect sense. So, I mean, do you sort of engage on the go to market there? You know, is it is it the neos? Is it in the CSPs? Is it the ODMs?

Is it sort of it’s sort of all of the above? Or or Yeah. Just trying to think, you know, how you create that demand pull. You know?

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Yeah. I mean, look. Maybe just to to to focus a little bit on paying for DSPs. I mean, so, naturally, the the two big decision maker I mean, it’s the hyperscalers or the the data center guy himself that is is kinda making the call on the module and often the DSP as well. We’re also engaged very closely with the the module provider themselves.

That’s something that I think we have really beefed up over the last few years in in those relationships and strengthen those ties. And while they may not necessarily be the end decision maker by working closer with them, now you’re optimizing a product offering that really enables them to stand out, enables them to sell their product over the competition. And so so I think that’s something that we’ve really improved upon over the last couple of years anyway, and we think it can be a differentiator as well. I mean, if you if you haven’t done the work there, and I would say in our first gen solution, we we focus more on the hyperscaler rather than on the module guy and and knowing that the decision maker was the hyperscales scalars. But I think we learn in order to to optimize that system, in order for the the customer to really see the performance that, you know, it can be, you you gotta be tightly coupled on the firmware side on, you know, even getting into the entire system, including the lasers.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Yeah. It makes perfect sense. And and so as part of that, when you’re trying to kind of broaden your footprint, which it sounds like that sort of way you’re describing, you know, bay basically bringing more value, all that. I mean, you guys have the IP. You have the the know how to enter new markets like AEC or ACC or things that kind of broaden that reach.

So I’m curious how do you look at those markets? Is that strategic? Is that tactical? Is it like or is that not of interest? Is it spread to too thin?

Or, you know, I’m just curious your your approach.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s it’s a really I mean, it’s good to point out because, I mean, one, this market has gotten a lot bigger and kind of the derivations have also grown quite a bit. And, you know, public company investors are certainly familiar with different aspects of it. I mean, we look at the optical side.

We look at the electrical side. We we we feel like we’ve got the IP blocks to to differentiate and play in either side of that. ACs, AOCs, I mean, are are definitely something that we are working with lots of customers on now, expect to be in production this year as we look at I I mean, even different architectures. Right? I mean, LPO gets brought up quite a bit, LRO.

So so Right. You know, all the IP blocks to support that. So but all that kinda coming back, Rick, I we I I would say that we also stay really focused on the sweet spot of the market. Right? Where where is the biggest volume?

Optical transceivers is where the biggest I mean, it’s 80% of the DSB market. Yep. And so that is where our focus has been and where it’ll continue to be. But can we and will we continue to diversify as our customers kind of pull us in that direction? Hey.

I wanna go I mean, we’ve got customers using LRO today, and, hey. We wanna go in that direction. Okay. No problem. We can support that.

Hey. We wanna do LPO. Hey. We wanna do whatever. I mean, we we can we can certainly manage because we have these IP blocks.

And, really, I mean, coming from a CFO standpoint, I mean, you really want us to leverage this IP the best that we can, and and you wanna broaden it and address as many markets as you can based off of that same core IP. And I think that’s something that we’ve done well, and we will continue to focus on.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Yeah. Yeah. R and D reuse. Right? That’s that’s

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: something Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s really it is really important. And even if you look even further out, you talk about the SerDes capability that we have is very unique. We build our own SerDes.

I mean, this is something that we can kinda take to the next level. I mean, even going all the way to CPO, I mean, you need these SerDes blocks there, and it’s something that we have that others don’t.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Right. No. That that’s perfect segue to my CPO question, which is just seems like the more you know, we wrote a white paper on this last summer. You know, I went into a deep dive because I was trying to figure it out. You know, everybody’s talking about CPO.

When you you get down to the nitty gritty and the rubber meets the road, it seems like even the biggest future players in this space are saying we’re years away. Like like, not in the next twelve months or eighteen months, but more like three years down the road or something before we see wider adoption. So I’m curious about your MaxLinear CPO road map. I’m curious what you see as the hurdles there. I mean, is it we all know cost is out of whack

We all know reliability, the specs that just don’t seem to be there yet. Nobody likes catastrophic failures. Yes, I’m just curious sort of where do you think we stand with some of the issues that we have to tackle? And where do you guys position yourselves? Or how do you position yourselves there?

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Look. I I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it is far out. But I also think that it’s really important that I mean, look. Customers are working on this today, and they’re gonna continue to work on it.

Right? They’re gonna continue to get closer. I mean, we’ve kind of been through these cycles. I know you’ve written a lot of white papers on, you know, the last time on LPO. That’s not coming.

I mean, each one of these it doesn’t mean it never comes. It may not come right when they think it’s gonna come. Right? So so but but, again, I I guess I don’t wanna downplay it from the standpoint that this is where you’ve gotta be engaged with the customer to solve those problems. Right?

And then and then the system kinda gets taken care of over the next few years. I also think that the industry has gotten so big, so complex that there there’s no one answer. You know? I mean, the investment community often kinda gets bought into, like, there is only one big answer. But this industry, I think, is getting so big that, you know, there’s a lot of slivers.

I mean, CPO can do this in a closed loop system sooner rather than later. Maybe it doesn’t take ten years. Right? But but there’s there’s a whole lot of in between. They could carve out a closed end system to address it today.

And then in the interim, they’ll start to move towards something that is more mainstream, but it might be four or five years away. And I think LPO kinda falls in a similar category. The other thing about the the CPO point, and I I think you made it to some degree, but it’s that, you know, there’s gonna be these certies blocks around it. So it’s not as if, you know, a player like ourselves or some of the other players either that just because you’re you’re a DSP player today doesn’t mean you get left out of this entirely. Right?

There is certainly, you know, capabilities and and blocks that are needed, and so I don’t I don’t think that changes. Now are are we looking to be a full on optical guy, you know, and change the entire business model? No. We’re not. But but I do think that there’s a place for us to continue to differentiate and provide value to our customer base.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Well, that’s clear. So I might pivot a little bit, talk about wireless for a second. You you you mentioned it earlier. You highlighted it. I mean, you you know, carrier CapEx, I mean, for my whole career is notoriously lumpy.

Right? It’s just sort of an inside joke on carrier CapEx. But it seems like we’re in an uptick on carrier spend. And I don’t know if you agreed with that, but I was curious if you agree. And I’m curious what your thoughts are.

I mean, possible this is an impossible question. Like, what your thoughts on duration might be on on this good cycle, you know, kind of the setup for 2026. And and if there’s any regions, you know, are there any regions that that stick out to you as either on the plus or minus side, you know, you know, that that you see.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Yeah. I I think well, there’s a couple of different I mean, when you say carrier CapEx spend, I mean, it’s a even broader, but I agree with that completely. I do feel like, you know, we’re we’re starting to get as I pointed out earlier about the kind of transition year, I don’t feel like it’s I think it’s improving. It’s not great, but it’s improving. I think it’ll be better next year.

I think all that’s good. I I mean but it’s never been a huge growth driver, which is why our strategy has always been to grow content. Right? I mean, how do we continue to add, you know, another block next to you know, that’s why we have the modem, and then we added the transceiver. Right?

So you double that share. You know, after the transceiver, we added the DFE. Right? So each one of those can get a little bit bigger. We have more of an influence and, frankly, just more dollar content.

And we’ve continued to be able to do that, and that’s how we can, that’s why, you know, that’s how we can kinda control our own destiny and then and navigate some of those ups and downs of CapEx spending altogether. So I think it is improving. It’s, it’s not robust, I wouldn’t say. There are places I mean, when you say carrier CapEx spend, I mean, pond falls in that category as well. I think you are seeing, a lot more dollars flow in that direction than, say, wireless base stations.

Right? Wireless base stations don’t feel like there’s a whole lot going on. But even there, I think it’s improving geographically. I mean, we’re exposed globally everywhere, but it is, you know, just the the bigger the bigger markets. I mean, maybe one most folks are familiar with that wireless infrastructure market.

Maybe the one unique play that we have is backhaul where it it’s a little you could argue it’s a little niche here, but at the same time, it allows us to, you know, bring a level of differentiation. I don’t think it’s as exposed to, you know, some of these downturns. I mean, where they’re, you know, running a microwave backhaul system versus fiber or something like that is something that’s somewhat unique, and it is driven by different geographies. I mean, we’ve seen some pickups in some greenfield applications like in India. But then also, it it applies very much to, like, Europe where, you know, they’re not rolling fiber necessarily between, you know, base stations as well.

So so that’s something else that I think we can bring that’s somewhat unique. So maybe we can yeah. That probably covers your question. If you want me to kinda go into pawn a little bit, maybe talk about that off of the carrier spend maybe.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Oh, for for sure. I mean, I have one more follow-up on why Oh, yeah. Go for it. More about PON too. But, I mean, like, we’re we kinda look at this as, year seven, and these are typically ten year build cycles for five g, you know, by year seven or so.

So by my math and the stuff we’re reading and looking at it and forecasting, it’s sort of roughly a million macros still going up a year for the next two, three years. And I don’t know if you agree with that assessment, but but the tan there seems pretty legit for you guys. I mean, if I again, just do a loose math between DFE and baseband and and the the components you guys I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever sort of given a rough idea of what you your, you know, maxing your content is at a macro base station, but I would I would assume it’s sort of up in that $2,000 range or something like that. I don’t know. You could you could not watch that or talk about that if you don’t want to, but I’m I am curious.

It just seems like a legit a legit SAM for you.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Oh, it it so it is a sizable SAM for us. And, again, I I think one we’ve made a big step, call it five years ago, and did the transceiver. It was a very sizable market specifically for access. We’ve now taken another big step in bringing a DFE. And as you know, Rick, I mean, the the real I think the unique aspect of the DFE is a couple of things.

I mean, the transceiver guys, the two big guys that the whole world knows, aren’t necessarily inclined to move in the digital direction. And I think as a real mixed signal provider, I think we’re uniquely qualified to kinda have that analog capability as well as that digital capability build out that DFE. And the importance there is that the alternative is a big FPGA that’s super expensive and super power hungry. Right? And so by replacing that, I add significantly more content.

Now this you know, whether this is in a macro or a small cell, whatever it is, I mean, there there’s a big opportunity for us. The market, you know, not as dynamic as data centers, but as long as we continue to grow content in that application with that customer and and in a space, you know, against the competitive landscape that I think we can win against.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Yep. No. Great great color. So so back to PON just because you you mentioned it, and I think it’s pretty interesting to people. I mean, I think your broadband business, correct me, bottomed, I think, a year ago.

It’s been sort of been recovered since. And, obviously, PON is a standout. But is there any like, I I’d love to hear more about PON, but also anything else sticking out, you know, Wi Fi, Ethernet, Doxas, any of the a few because that’s a pretty decent sized basket for for you guys in broadband.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, look, broadband is is really made up of PON and cable, but to your point, we’ve got Ethernet products. We’ve got Wi Fi products that really complement that.

Right? And so we’re gonna talk about them all together. If you look at us, like, most recent win, and I’ll talk about all the things that you highlighted there, Rick, It’s a it’s a new win with the you know, we we’ve won at the top two service providers in North America with our PON solution. It’s a space that we didn’t have any revenues in three years ago, and so, you know, this year, we’ll probably do, you know, 50 to $70,000,000 in this business. And I think it, you know, it’s on a good trajectory.

We’re doing a gateway that is running, call it, 40 to $50. And it’s multiple chips. It’s like six chips. And so it it hits on exactly what you said. I mean, there’s a Wi Fi chip in there.

There’s an Ethernet chip in there. In some cases, there’s a mocha chip in there. In some cases but there’s a big SOC, which is, you know, in that gateway. And so, look, PON is twice as big as cable market, and and so this this is now PON is very there’s a variety of PON throughout the world as I I know you know very well. There’s some high end stuff in North America and Europe where we’ve won a lot of business, and then there’s other places in the world, China, for example, that’s a much lower end solution.

And some of that stuff we don’t chase, like Huawei, for example, does a lot of that business, very low end, low cost, not very differentiated. So we would typically shy away from that. But where we can lever our capability with the processing, the horsepower that we get there, and then, of course, the distribution within the home, that that Wi Fi distribution that we talk about. There’s an upgrade cycle going on in Wi Fi right now to Wi Fi seven. Started on the client side last year or this year, last year, whenever it was.

And and the access points are really starting to move more in earnest going forward. We’ll see a big part of that start in the 2026. Nice thing about that, I’m not dissimilar. You can kinda see a a thread through all of these product lines, but there’s a content increase. Right?

So now you’ve got, you know, 11 or $12 worth of Wi Fi six content going up to $14.15 dollars worth of Wi Fi content. So it’s something that we wanna continue to find markets where we can provide more value, more, you know, higher ASPs in a particular application, you know, with more differentiation, of course.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: And I’ll sneak in just because everybody’s gonna ask, but, you know, on on and I know you’re limited in what you can say about this topic. You’ve been asked many times, but on SIMO, you know, kind of any status update on arbitration, you know, timing resolution. Yeah.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Yeah. Real quick. I mean, nothing’s changed on this front. Arbitration in q four of this year in Singapore, And, you know, hopefully, we’ll get some resolution q one of next year. And once we get that resolution, then, you know, most folks I mean, it’s this is maybe for clarity for everyone.

Yeah. We’ve, you know, terminating the deal with Silicon Motion. We terminate based on MAE. We don’t think we owe anything. We’ve stated that They have said that they that we owe the break fee as well as legal fees and damages, which we don’t think there’s any precedent for.

It goes to arbitration panel in Singapore. You know, a lot of folks will think through that. Even if we were to have, you know, if there was a judgment against us, you know, arbitrators are well known for split splitting the baby, I say. You know, so that wouldn’t even, there wouldn’t that piece wouldn’t get transacted probably until ’27 or ’28. It’s kind of the way the dynamics work between Singapore between Singapore and The US.

Yes. But, yeah, looking forward to getting that behind us. Balance sheet, since we’re here, Rick, I’ll take advantage. You know, balance sheet, look. We two quarters ahead of plan on getting operating cash flows back to positive, so we’re pleased with that.

We’ve done a lot of cuts on the OpEx front, so I think cash flow generation improves from here. We do have a $100,000,000 revolver. Done some acquisitions over the years. Hopefully, we’ll get the Silicon Motion thing behind us, and then we can, you know, start to look at some things down the road. Not in immediate term.

I think right now, our heads are really focused heads down, winning more business, getting more market share.

Rick Schafer, Oppenheimer Semiconductor Analyst, Oppenheimer: Great. Well, good luck to you. And and, like I said, it’s always great seeing you and great catching up. So thanks a lot for the time.

Steve Litchfield, CEO/CFO, MaxLinear: Thank you, Rick. Yeah. It’s good to see you, and thanks for everybody

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