EnSilica plc (ENSI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

February 14, 2025

London Stock Exchange GB Information Technology Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment earnings 53 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

operator
#1

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the EnSilica plc half year results investor presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself either the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, we would just like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the executive management team from EnSilica plc. Ian, good afternoon, sir.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#2

Good afternoon. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. Welcome to EnSilica's Half Year 2025 results. That's for financial year ended November 2024. So if we just go through and do the intros for the people that have not met us before. I'm Ian Lankshear, Co-Founder of EnSilica, electronics engineer by background. I started my career in the defense industry with Plessey and then moved into semiconductors in the mid-90s, working for Hitachi and Nokia. I set up EnSilica in 2001, originally as a semiconductor design consultancy and then pivoted the company to one of a fabless semiconductor company starting in 2016, and we'll cover the progress of that during the presentation. I'll let Kristoff to introduce himself.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#3

Hi there. Kristoff Rademan, Chief Financial Officer. Originally from South Africa, I began my career at KPMG in South Africa and then later in the U.K. I then spent some time working for a small niche pharmaceutical company called Archimedes Pharma and post that as Group Financial Controller at Oxford Biomedica plc, a company listed on the main market of the stock exchange. I've now been with EnSilica for just about a year and looking forward to take you through our half year results. So highlights for half year 1 financial year 2025. We think that the financial results masked what has really been a robust performance by the company, and I'm looking forward to taking you through that over the next few slides. So revenue was broadly flat at GBP 9.3 million, about 3% lower than the prior year, but that masks an underlying 164% increase in chip supply revenue, increasing from GBP 1.1 million in the first half to GBP 2.9 million at the end of this half year. That also gives us a lot of confidence in our ability to generate a GBP 6 million supply revenue for the full year financial year '25 and further increases in financial year '26. We've also had five new design and chip supply wins, generating additional future NRE of $38 million and future chip supply of $62 million, which gives us a lot of confidence about our second half revenue targets and also our targets for financial year 2026. We now have 4 chips in supply and 12 chips in design and a long-term value of chip supply of $241 million, so an increase of $62 million on what we had 6 months ago, which is very pleasing to us. We've also refinanced our debt with Lloyds Banking Group. We had just under GBP 4 million in debt across three providers which we refinanced into one GBP 6 million facility with Lloyds Banking Group with a possible additional GBP 3 million accordion option, which is subject to credit approval.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#4

I'll just talk through the 2025 highlights. As Kristoff said, that increase in supply revenue, the whole business model is really based on building that supply revenue, and we see that we have GBP 6 million of that locked in. We delivered a large part of that in the previous period, and we have orders and the chips going through the factory to deliver on that for 2025. As I said, we've won five new design and supply contracts delivering $38 million of NRE and that really secures our revenue for '25 and '26 and a little bit beyond when it comes to NRE and that's a large additive on our chip supply revenue. One of those is with Siemens. So we had a second design win with Siemens as we saw the first chip go into production. And we're able to name them in one of our RNS, which has been very positive having an endorsement from such a high-profile customer. And in terms of other high-profile customers, we had a GBP 2 million initially a design contract with a prestigious supplier of power and propulsion systems, and there's likelihood for follow-on work as we indicated in the RNS. And something I'll cover in more detail later is we secured GBP 10 million of funding with the U.K. Space Agency to improve our competitiveness within the satellite communications sector, a very exciting sector, and I've got a slide on that later. I mean this is an illustration of our revenue model. And the light blue there is the NRE. So when we talk about the NRE nonrecurring engineering costs, that's the fees we get for designing the chips that later go into to supply. As I said, we booked a large number of contracts securing that NRE revenue for the period ahead. And then they go into tape-out. And once we get the chips, the chips go to the customer, that's the gray area, and then we move into the supply phase, which is generating that valuable reoccurring revenue stream, which is really what the whole fabless model is based on. As I said, we've got 4 chips now in that production phase and 12 going through the design phase. Those five chips that we won this year, we'll be getting a big up step in the supply revenue from 2027 onwards associated with those chips. And we've got other ones coming online as they go out of the design phase into the tape-out phase.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#5

So just taking you through our income statement for the half year. As I mentioned before, revenues broadly flat, but that is underpinned by a very good performance in our chip supply revenues, up by GBP 1.8 million to GBP 2.9 million. On the next slide, I'll provide further detail on the individual revenue streams. Gross profits slightly below target of 40% at 37%. However, with the increase in NRE expected in the second half of the year, we expect that to reverse and to be much closer to the 40% that we are targeting as overall for the full year. EBITDA dipped into a small loss, but with the increase in EBITDA -- in NRE revenues for the second half from those five contracts, we expect that to reverse and turn into a largish EBITDA profit for H2 2025. The same for operating profit, a small loss, which is -- which should turn into a profit for the second half as those revenues start coming through. So on the revenue split, we'd like to point you in the direction of the tab on the right and especially the chip supply, which has grown substantially. This is why we set up the business. This is why we floated and really seeing that traction is really heartening to us. And we can see that coming through in the full year 2025 and then also into 2026 and beyond. So just looking at the individual lines, chip supply, as we said, at GBP 2.9 million, a large increase, and we expect to see more in the second half. Consultancy revenues at GBP 4.2 million, slightly below where it was for the last year. We expect to do better in the second half and come closer to GBP 4.8 million, giving us that GBP 9 million for the full year. And then the NRE, we -- it was quite a bit lower than the prior year, mainly due to the completion of our existing contracts. We didn't see the benefit of the five new design and supply contracts. To be honest, in a perfect world, we would have had those contracts 5 months earlier, and we would have really seen them bring up the revenues for H1 2025, but we are seeing that in H2 2025, and that's really giving us confidence in our ability to achieve that large increase, which will get us to our overall target for the year. That will also be helped by a largish tape-out, which is planned for Q4 2025. Next slide. So on the balance sheet, we just try to extract some of the key movements. So one of them is our intangible assets, which is -- has increased by GBP 2.6 million. That is our investment in our own IP and know-how as well as our co-investment in customer chips, which we co-developed with the customer. That's offset by amortization of GBP 0.4 million, which is dependent on the chips that we sell. As the chip revenues go up, we would expect the amortization to go up in line with the increase in chip revenues. Cash has gone down to GBP 2.8 million. I'll talk through the detail of that in the next slide. So you'll have a clear picture of what the movements were. External loans, we had just under GBP 4 million of external debt when we refinanced the loans for the GBP 6 million facility, and that includes the GBP 5.7 million includes GBP 5.9 million of remaining debt with Lloyds and then GBP 0.2 million of capitalized cost of the refinancing. The GBP 6 million loan with Lloyds, GBP 3 million of that is a term loan, which we will repay over 36 months. So just working through the working capital. As you can see, there's a working capital outflow of GBP 1.4 million. That is largely because the way we structure our NRE contracts during the first 80% of the contract, we largely run it in the black, which means we receive payments and then the work is done. But when we get to the end of the contract, the customer expects us to first deliver the last parts of the chip design and then they make the final payment to us. So as I mentioned before, the NRE in the first half was lower due to the tail end of those contracts coming through at which we're running those in the red. So the accrued revenues are going up. We are now delivering on those last parts and those accrued revenues are being invoiced, and we expect those to all be invoiced by the end of the financial year. The tax credit that was received in Q3 of FY '25. So that has now been received. It is in line with what we provided for the full year at GBP 1.3 million, so in line with expectations. Intangibles and CapEx investment, that is the GBP 2.6 million investment in customer ASIC and internal IP, which I explained in the previous slide and then 0.4 million of CapEx investment in a right-of-use asset. Interest paid slightly above the prior year. That is due to interest costs and finance costs incurred as part of the refinancing. We expect that to drop down in the second half because we have a much lower interest rate on our refinanced loans with Lloyds Banking Group. Net proceeds from financing, that includes GBP 1.2 million net equity raised on the tail of the equity fundraising done in May and then GBP 2.7 million gross from the refinancing of the external loans.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#6

Okay. I'll now run you through some of the markets. I mean as a reminder, sort of focus markets that are communication, automotive, industrial and health care. I mean the communication market, particular focus for us within that is that of the satellite communications market. And I mean, it's worth referring to an article in the Financial Times on Sunday where they spoke about the amount of money going into this market. And it's not all about just covering coverage gaps in there sort of -- it's around giving sovereign control over Internet -- sovereign control over Internet connectivity. So you have your cellular network and if your cellular network is taken out by either a storm or a drone attack, you've still got connectivity there. So it's something of natural importance. It's not all about just, covering in gaps. I mean it's an area where we've been working since 2018, and we've been funded in this area with the European Space Agency to develop a number of chips, including an RF chip and a beamformer chip. And we have a lot of interest and lead customers for those chips. We've had further funding from the U.K. Space Agency to improve our competitiveness within this -- within the space communications market for developing a full chipset to address this market. And just to give you a sort of feel for the size of it, I mean Starlink have really proven the necessity and the capability of a LEO-based satellite communications network. And their user terminals, which consider to be like a set-top box that every subscriber has, there's roughly 4 million subscribers, and there's about 600 chips in each one of those box. So a huge requirement for chips, and there's sort of three main types of chips in there, the RF chips, the beamformer chips and the modem chips to make up the chipset. So a very exciting area, one where we've had recognition and funding from the U.K. Space Agency to address that. The other area where chips are used within the space communication sector is that in the payload or that's in the satellite. Those chips need to be very high performance, very low power because they run off solar panels and batteries when the satellite isn't in the Sun. And we've been developing the chip for AST SpaceMobile satellite payload. And I mean AST SpaceMobile, they were featured in that FT Times in-depth article as well as being in a recent BBC article with Vodafone, making calls from sort of video calls from remote places. So we're very active in this area, and it's an area where there's lots of investment and lots of growth. We're also working in the terrestrial area in terms of communications on standard cellular networks. We have a contract with SIAE Microelettronica, who are a supplier of microwave backhauls used in 5G networks. They've received funding from the European Union to support the development of new chips, and we have a large contract with them for the development of their next-generation chip for their product. So really excited there, great growth area. So the automotive sector, so there's more and more chips going in cars. There's about 3,000 chips in a Tesla. 1,000 chips in a standard goal. And this is around electrification, enhanced safety features, infotainment and improved cybersecurity. And it won't be long before you'll find one of these satellite user terminals on top of high-end cars, giving them constant connectivity. So our niches in this area around motor controllers, actuators, sensor interfaces, radar and LiDAR. We have one of our chips that we talked about before, one is in ramping in volumes. We shipped 5 million of those already. That contract is worth over $40 million over 6 years. One of those five awards we had was another automotive chip for an actuator motor controller, $31 million over 7 years, very much biased towards the supply. So those two contracts will run along generating nice reoccurring revenue. The new automotive market, it's a bit like a club. It's very difficult to get in. But once you're in there, you get a lot of interest and with some of the big customers we're able to name, we've got further RFQs from automotive Tier 1 suppliers. So it's an area where there's still innovation going on and more and more silicon content in each vehicle. So cover the industrial area. So the industrial market, there's, again, disruption going on there. I mean people would have heard of industrial IoT or Industry 4.0. So there's more and more chips going into production lines and equipment to increase efficiency, precision, improve safety. And this includes things like AI at the edge, which includes the semiconductor content and also changes in cybersecurity requirements, which means the redesign of chips that may have been running for a decade or more, and they need to improve their cyber resilience driven by the things like the EU Cyber Resilience Act. So we announced a second contract with Siemens Industrial Automation. The first one has now gone into production. And again, that will be generating good revenue. That all works like hard work and as per the original schedule. We've had other design wins in this area, including a precision timing controller ASIC, which is worth $30 million over 10 years for high-end industrial test equipment. So it's very much been very positive getting that -- being able to name Siemens as a customer, and that's really helped us uncover further customers, and we have a lot of interest and further opportunities with industrial -- other industrial OEMs. So, I mean, the health care sector, I mean, again, that's a fast-growing sector using more and more semiconductors because of a lack of capital on our side and also because of the longer time to market, although the chip still takes the same time to design as the other markets, it needs to go into a product that then needs to go through its medical certification. So I mean, our focus has been on the other markets, which are shorter time to revenue. We're very much focused on driving our near-term supply revenue as high as we can. So this has been sort of put on hold for the short period until we get into the cash generation phase, which is end of '26, '27, we've become self-sufficient in cash generation.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#7

So just taking you through our objectives and ambitions. As supply revenues grow, we will start to move into the phase where supply revenue starts to support future investment as well as overhead before noncash charges. I think as I mentioned, we expect supply -- chip supply revenues to go from GBP 2.9 million to GBP 6 million for the full year and then expecting that to really grow substantially and double in financial year 2026, which allows us to become cash flow positive during financial year 2026, probably towards the end of the year. So we become self-sustainable. And after that, we see positive cash flow generation going forward. Our ambitions in the medium term, 3 to 5 years are for annual revenues in excess of GBP 60 million. And from the contracts, the 12 contracts in design for future supply and the 4 in supply, we currently see that assuming our NRE and our design revenues remain at the same level, we see that achieving that target or 85% of the supply revenues required to get to that GBP 60 million overall revenues, we will meet through our existing contracts. So we have a clear view of how we get to that GBP 60 million from what we've done currently, and we just need to execute on these contracts that are currently in process. Longer term, 6 to 10 years, we have aspirations based on our order book and opportunities to get to GBP 100 million of revenues. If we win one of these large satellite opportunities, we would expect that to be in the 6- to 7-year time frame. Otherwise, it might take longer, but we definitely see ourselves achieving those high levels of revenues and especially if we continue to win three to four contracts over the next 12 months and beyond every 12 months, which is really what we are now targeting to do. We see the global chip cycle moving ahead positively in '25, '26. Although certain global events will create uncertainty, we've seen some uncertain messages coming from the U.S. in the last few weeks. But really, we believe that our specialist niches will allow us to win three to four contracts every year going forward. And so we're quite confident that we can continue to build those annual recurring revenues, which is really why we started on this journey to become a fabless semiconductor company. Our biggest challenge with winning these contracts is to recruit the additional qualified engineers that we need, but we are working hard on that, and the team is really focused on delivering. So we are super excited about where we can get to for the rest of the financial '25 year and then beyond.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#8

I mean I'll just summarize before we go into questions. We had an excellent start to the financial year 2025 with some really high-quality design wins. I mean that's given us good visibility of revenues for the rest of '25 into '26 and beyond. And we still have a strong pipeline of RFQs and opportunities. That chip supply is building that valuables strong recurring revenue stream, which will improve our cash generation. And on the right there, you see the lifetime value of the chip supply of those 16 projects we have either in production now or coming through the design phase is worth $241 million. I mean that's great. Great visibility to have. And we still have a strong pipeline of opportunities of $431 million. So we expect other design wins to be coming in soon as well. We've had accreditation from well-renowned customers, which has put us in a good situation to attract new [Technical Difficulty]

Operator

operator
#9

Ladies and gentlemen, please do just start with us. We will reconnect Ian very shortly 1 second. Ladies and gentlemen, please just be with us just a few moments just while we reconnect Ian. Thank you very much indeed. Please just to bear with us. Thank you very much indeed for your patience. Ian, we can now hear you, sir. I do apologize if we did lose you momentarily, but you are back with us, sir.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#10

Okay. I'm not sure.

Operator

operator
#11

We'll just turn the camera back off. And thank you very much, sir. I could hand back to you just to carry on with those closing comments. Thank you. Please do carry on.

Operator

operator
#12

So if you finish on that summary slide. Yes, just give us 30 seconds. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue just to submit your questions on the right-hand side of the screen. I just want to take a couple of moments for Ian and Kristoff just to review those questions. I'd just like to remind you the recording of this presentation will be available on the Investor Meet Company. And Kristoff, if I may just ask you to read out the questions where it's appropriate to do so, and then we'll pick up from you at the end. Thank you.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#13

So first question, during this reported 6-month interim period as cash flow improved? And do you think that the additional cost of employing staff from April '25 will impact your cash flow adversely? So I think we went through the cash flow for the half year in detail. How we see the full year progressing is because of those five signed ASIC contracts, we really see the NRE activity taking off, and this will allow us to invoice those, those milestone payments, which we expect to cover our outgoings over the next 6-month period. We, therefore, only expect a smallish outflow of GBP 0.8 million, and we expect to end the year with cash of GBP 2 million. In financial year 2026, I think as we mentioned, we start really seeing that increase in supply revenue as well as the existing contracts. And therefore, we -- for most of the year, we expect to be more or less cash flow neutral and then slowly start building cash in the last quarter of the financial year 2026.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#14

Okay. So how much will the full chipset costs for the proposed ground terminal receivers for LEO and the IRIS 2 satellite. And the other -- there's another question that talks about the volume. I mean for commercial reasons, I won't go into sort of specific cost of the chipsets. But I mean it's worth saying if you use the sort of Starlink example, the Starlink terminal as an example, I mean that has around 600 RF chips in there, and a dozen or so beamformer chips and a modem chip. And our estimates are that, that is $300 to $400 worth of semiconductors, and they have 4 million subscribers. So there's a huge semiconductor content within those user terminals. And we would expect any other constellation like IRIS 2 to have many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of subscribers to make it worthwhile putting up such a constellation.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#15

So next question, what were the staff numbers in H1 2024, 2025 divided by technical and nontechnical? What [indiscernible] staff numbers were 175 of which approximately 150 were technical and engineering and 25 was administration and SG&A. [Technical Difficulty]

Operator

operator
#16

I do apologize. I think we do have a VPN...

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#17

We've won mainly will be in the technical category with very limited in terms of general and admin staff. What are the new order flows looking like by sector? What confidence do you have in making targets? So basically, we have, as we mentioned, $431 million in the sales pipeline. That's a number of opportunities across the various sectors. So it does vary. Short term, we are looking at one or two additional contract wins over the next 6 to 9 months, and these are mainly around the automotive and industrial sectors, although things could change very quickly as we're in a fast-moving industry.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#18

Yes. And it's worth saying those five, five design wins really talking about the targets there really underpin the targets for sort of '25 and '26. So they're already booked.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#19

So what is the target margin for the back-end supply of chips in contracts? We're targeting average margins of around 40% to 50%, although that does vary depending on the chip. We've recently won contracts where we're expecting a margin of as good as 90%, but there could be other more competitive areas where we will accept a lower margin of down to 30%. So it does vary. But overall, we're targeting 40% to 50%. What we are seeing is as our IP and know-how improves and we design more chips, that allows us to be more competitive in terms of our pricing and also achieving higher margins over time in the contracts that we sign.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#20

Okay. There's one here. There seems to be a lot of players in the satellite beamforming technology sector. Can you provide more details of what gives you -- gives EnSilica the competitive edge? I mean this is an area where we've been working on since 2018. We've developed a lot of unique ID in this area. And I mean, we're very much looking to put together a full solution. So there's more than just the RF chip, the RF chip, the beamformer chip and other chips in there. So we're looking to put a highly integrated solution together, which minimizes power, minimizes cost by using standard CMOS processes. So we believe we've got competitive advantages and key know-how in this area that we can get those design slots.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#21

So next question, how are gross margins developing within the new supply contracts you have won? And also how are you seeing those developing? So I think this is covered by the previous question in that we said that it's anywhere from 90% down to 30%. But on average, we're targeting 40% to 50% and really because our IP and know-how is improving, this allows us to target higher margins and to slowly over time, improve our margins. As we see supply becoming a much larger part of our revenues, that should improve our overall margins and these will start going above the 40% mark and more towards the 50% mark over time. So another question. Clearly, timing of orders and revenue that flows from them is difficult to be precise on, but can you give me more detail on your confidence for H2? So we feel very confident about H2, and that is really underpinned by the strong performance in the supply revenues which gives us confidence about achieving the GBP 6 million there. Also the five ASIC contracts that we won in the first half, unfortunately, there is a lag from when we sign the contract to it -- until it really ramps up in terms of the level of revenues, which is why we haven't seen the uplift yet in H1, but we're really expecting to see that in H2. So we feel very confident about achieving our full year forecast. What is the average length of the supply phase of your existing contract? Do they have committed numbers of chips to be delivered during the period? Can the customer reduce this number at any point? So the average length of the supply phase of the contract is 7 to 10 years, although it could be longer and in a small number of instances, it could also be as low as 5 years, but generally 7 to 10 years. The customer doesn't have a committed number of chips to be delivered during the period. They do provide us with forecast during the development phase of what they expect. And then during the supply phase, they provide orders due to the lead time and also give us detailed forecast for the later period. So we have quite a good view of how much we're going to sell in the next 6 to 12 months in terms of our chip contracts. We also have customers like Siemens, which are very, very precise in terms of their forecasting and these run like software. So we -- that gives us additional confidence over the longer period.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#22

I mean it's worth saying there's a portfolio effect as well. So some of them will over deliver, some of them will under deliver. But we see one example with the automotive one. We'd assume that, that was a $25 million contracts, and that's been built into additional models, and it's now up to $40 million. So there's possible upside on these contracts as well.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#23

Do all NRE contracts always have a supply phase? Ian, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the answer is yes, unless it's manufacturing services.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#24

Yes. I mean we would describe -- if it was -- if it didn't have a sort of supply phase, we would put that in the consultancy area where we're just doing the design and not the supply. So the answer is yes.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#25

Where -- how will you find more qualified engineers? What is the attrition rate of your current engineers?

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#26

Yes. I mean the attrition rate is very low. I mean maybe as low as 5%. So we give our engineers very interesting work and very low attrition rate. We've got multiple locations, including three sites in the U.K. as well as two sites in Brazil and one in India. So we look across there for the best talent. And we've got extremely good engineers and good people attract with new people. So we're confident we can recruit to meet our needs.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#27

How is the $241 million split between supply versus developed versus design in the [ 4 to 12 ] in terms of chips? Unfortunately, we don't have that detail to hand. What I would say is that it's generally spread reasonably evenly across the 16 chips. Most of our supply is anything between $15 million to $40 million, and we have quite a good spread, which gives us a nice portfolio effect on these.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#28

Yes. I mean I think on that point, the $241 million is the supply revenue from the chip. It excludes the design revenue.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#29

What steps can we expect the team to take in order to get gross margins closely to that stated 40% target? So it really is continuing to win those ASIC contracts. So the fact that we won the five already and the fact that we are going to be extremely busy in the second half of the year is really going to help us achieve that. So we need to continue winning a certain level of contracts in order to keep that up. And then on the supply side, as that grows, it will be important to win work, which gives us supply margins above the 40%. The fact that, for example, the one contract that where we expect 90% margins is going to really assist us in slowly driving those supply margins up once that comes into supply. Of the pipeline opportunities, can you help us better understand the breakout between follow-on contracts compared to new initial contracts?

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#30

So on the consultancy side, there's follow-on contracts in terms of on the design and supply side, this is an area we've moved into recently. And the repeat business we've got there is with Siemens and all the others where we're just doing the first ASIC for them.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#31

Do you need to raise cash through a placing? The answer is no. We expect our current contracts won will cover our outflows. And therefore, we expect to have cash of GBP 2 million at the end of the financial year. And then we expect our contracts to further cover our outflows together with our supply revenues until we slowly start seeing positive cash flows and we slowly start building those cash balances up. So the answer is no, we do not need to do a fund raise. The contract win momentum looks very strong. Would you characterize this as exceptional? Or do you think a similar rate can be sustained? The answer is no. We had a very good period in the last 6 months, winning five. I think if we would like to win five every 6 months, but it's probably not realistic. We are looking to achieve three to four in a 12-month period, although we would like to win five at least.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#32

Okay. I mean I would just say that the fact is that we've got very strong customers. We get trade references and endorsement from those. So it's actually making it much, much easier when we first started with this model in 2016, I mean, it was a lot tougher to win customers. So as one Australian golfer said, the more I practice, the luckier I get. So I think our hit rate is going up a lot now. So -- but we don't have the capacity to do 10 a year. If Starlink already have a working ground terminal, why is there a need for new chip designed by us? So those Starlink chips were designed by Starlink, actually manufactured by ST. They're not available on the open market specific to Starlink systems.

Kristoff Rademan

executive
#33

What are the gross margins on the chip production and how the tape one-off compare with the prior two halves? As we said, it differs, but generally between 40% and 50%. That should be the same in the second half as it's generally the same supply products. And we would hope and expect that to increase over time as the new chips go from being in the design phase into the supply phase.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#34

Is your beamforming chip meter meant for large ground stations, small terminals or the satellite itself? So, I mean, as mentioned, we are working on customer-specific products for the satellite -- the user terminals rather than the sort of the ground terminal gateway terminal, which is the terminal that each subscriber has. Given the specialist technical nature of your business, who are your major competitors? And do you consider you have key competitive advantage? So I mean, in the semiconductor industry, you have niches and certain companies would have niches in different areas. So depending on whether we're targeting industrial or automotive or the SATCOMs, we would have a different set of competitors. And also really volumes depend if we have very large volume opportunities, we then see the sort of the large semiconductor companies get interested in those.

Operator

operator
#35

Ian, Kristoff, thank you very much indeed. I think that's pretty much addressed most of the questions you've had from investors this afternoon. Of course, any further questions, we'll make those available to you. Ian, I wonder before doing so, before redirecting investors to give you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to you, whether or not I could ask you for a couple of closing comments.

Ian Ernest Lankshear

executive
#36

Okay. Thanks very much. I mean thanks, everyone, for joining the presentation and your interest in EnSilica. I mean certainly a very exciting time ahead. I mean we've been very fortunate to win those five design wins and really seeing the supply revenue playing in. So very exciting times ahead for us. And thanks again.

Operator

operator
#37

That's great. Ian, Kristoff, thank you once again. Thank you. And thank you, guys, for your time this afternoon. If I could please ask investors not to close this session as we will now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the company can better understand your views and expectations. This only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of EnSilica plc, I would like to thank you for attending today's presentation and wish you all a very good weekend. Thank you.

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