Vicor Corporation (VICR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Vicor Corporation Annual Stockholders' Meeting. Please note, today's meeting is being recorded. Also note, all parties will be able to listen only for the entirety of the meeting. During the meeting, we have 2 Q&A sessions, 1 after the formal business meeting and a second at the conclusion of the management presentation. Stockholders who have earlier registered for Computershare may ask questions at any time during the meeting by clicking on the message icon shown on the screen. Management reserves the right to consolidate certain questions and its sole discretion, if those questions cover similar or overlapping topics. Management also reserves the right not to respond to questions it considers also in its sole discretion, inappropriate for the purposes of annual stockholders meeting. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to James Schmidt, Chief Financial Officer of Vicor Corporation. Mr. Schmidt, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good morning. The Board of Directors of Vicor Corporation welcomes you to the 2021 Annual Shareholders Meeting. In response to the continued public health precautions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's meeting is being conducted over the Internet as a webcast of our presentation material accompanied by an audio feed. There is no live feed. Vicor expects to hold future stockholder meetings in person, absent extenuating circumstances, including the ongoing impact of COVID-19. I'm Jim Schmidt, Chief Financial Officer, Secretary and Treasurer of Vicor. As provided for under Article 1, Section 8 of the corporation's bylaws, I will serve as Chairman of this meeting as well as Recording Secretary. Proxy materials and invitation to attend today's meeting in person were mailed to stockholders of record as of April 30, 2021. Most proxy materials disclosed this meeting would be held in virtual format only. As set forth in the proxy materials, a stockholder, whether a direct holder of record or a beneficial holder through his or her broker, who intended to vote his or her shares change a previously submitted vote, review the stockholder list and/or ask questions should have followed the instructions therein to register for full access to the meeting via the Internet. Any stockholder proposals to be considered at this meeting should have been submitted earlier following the procedures set forth in our bylaws. At this time, I have not received any such proposal. We will be providing 2 opportunities for Q&A. The first opportunity will occur at the conclusion of the formal business meeting. Questions at that time should be limited to addressing topics related to the formal business purpose of the meeting. The second opportunity will occur at the conclusion of management's presentations. As the operator stated, submissions of questions by registered stockholders may be made by clicking on the message icon on your screen. Registered stockholders will be asked to identify themselves when submitting a question, and I will identify the stockholder when reading the questions received so that my colleagues may answer the question. On the screen before you -- all participants will see hyperlinks to our proxy materials and annual report on Form 10-K. On the screen is a comprehensive safe harbor statement comparable to the language we include in our other public statements regarding the company's financial or operational performance, such as our filings, press releases and our quarterly earnings calls. I will not recite the full text, but I remind you, various remarks we may make today may constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Also note, as shown on the screen, Vicor is in its quiet period for the second quarter of 2021. And as such, we will not comment on specific elements of financial or operational performance for the second quarter or any forward period. Second quarter performance will be addressed during our upcoming earnings call, which we anticipate will be taking place on Thursday, July 22. On the screen is the agenda for today's webcast. As shown, we'll conduct a formal business meeting reviewing the one proposal before stockholders. After we take care of formal business, Phil Davies will provide an overview on the company's growth strategy followed by Robert Gendron and Patrick Wadden, who will provide updates on our high-performance computing and automotive markets, respectively. The sales and marketing team will be followed by Mike McNamara, Head of Operations, who will briefly comment on the expansion progress of our Andover manufacturing facility. Finally, I will review our long-term financial model. After that, management will take your questions regarding the company's business and products. Again, we cannot answer questions regarding our financial or operational performance for the second quarter of 2021. As has been the case in the past, we'll be posting the audio portion of today's meeting on the Investor Relations page of our website. The slides also will be posted separately on that page. I'll now introduce the 8 members of the corporation's Board of Directors and 1 nominee. Our 5 independent directors and 1 nominee are in alphabetical order Sam Anderson, CEO of IceMOS Technology Limited, a supplier of high-quality thick film bonded silicon on insulator wafers, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Sam is the former CEO of Great Wall Semiconductor, an important component supplier to Vicor in which Vicor held an investment in nonvoting convertible preferred stock. Great Wall was acquired in September 2015 by Intersil Corporation. Michael Ansour, the nominee to the Board is a managing partner of March Partners LLC, an event-driven investment firm based in New York, New York. Michael is also a Director of the Hertz Foundation, a nonprofit organization that awards follow ships to PhD students in the applied physical, and biological engineering sciences, for which he also serves as Chairman of the Foundation's Investment Committee. Michael previously served on Vicor's Board of Directors from 1993 to 2007. Jason Carlson, CEO of congatec AG headquartered in Deggendorf, Germany. congatec AG, which he joined in 2015, is a leader in the industrial embedded computing field. He is the former President of Semtech Corporation, a leader in analog and mixed-signal semiconductors as well as holding other positions of leadership in the electronics industry. Jason chairs our -- both our Audit Committee and Compensation Committee. Andrew D’Amico, has been in the role of General Counsel for intellectual property matters for Vicor since 2006. Prior to his engagement with Vicor, Andrew have had 18 years of private practice experience in the file patent law, including patent litigation, patent licensing and patent prosecution as well as counseling and diverse technological areas while with Fish & Richardson P.C. Estia Eichten is an original investor in the company and has been since 1989, a senior scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, outside of Chicago which he joined in 1981, the same year he joined our Board. Based on the assumed results of the shareholder vote to occur at this meeting at a meeting of the Board of Directors immediately following this Annual Meeting of Stockholders, our employee directors for the forward term will be Phil Davies, who has served as our Corporate Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing since February 2011. He was appointed to the Board in 2019. Mike McNamara, who has served as our Corporate Vice President, General Manager, Operations since 2015. He also was appointed to the Board in 2019. Claudio Tuozzolo, who has been with Vicor since 2001, serves in a leadership role spending R&D and sales and marketing. Claudio has been a director since 2007. Patrizio Vinciarelli, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO, who founded the company in 1981. And myself. I recently joined Vicor on June 1 of this year as Chief Financial Officer, Secretary and Treasurer and will be appointed as a Director at a meeting of the Board of Directors immediately following this annual meeting. Prior to joining Vicor, I had a 35-year career with Analog Devices, which started on a wafer fab and included leadership positions in finance, engineering, operations and sales. I have a BS in chemical engineering and an MBA. My areas of expertise include financial management, cost accounting and pricing, business processes, systems integration, semiconductor manufacturing and distribution. My initial focus areas will be scaling the business, cost and pricing, business models and go-to-market strategy and execution. We're joined today by our outside counsel, Gabor Garai, who chairs Foley & Lardner's private equity and venture capital practice, among other responsibilities with the firm. On the line is Harold Murphy, representing Computershare Trust Company, the corporation's transfer agent. Harold has been appointed to act as inspector of election, also known as the teller for the formal business portion of the meeting. Also attending by telephone is John Murphy, a partner from KPMG LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm. Thanks to everyone for attending. Turning to the formal portion of the agenda. I now call the 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to order. On the screen is the agenda for the official business portion of today's meeting. As stated, proxy materials and an invitation to the meeting were sent to all stockholders recorded as of the close of business on April 30, 2021, the record date. Only stockholders of record on that date are entitled to vote at this meeting either by proxy or by in-person ballot, subject to the registration process discussed earlier. The affidavit of mailing the notice of meeting has been delivered by the teller to me and will be filed with the minutes and records of today's meeting. Our proxy materials -- our proxy statement was filed with the SEC on April 30, 2021, and mailed to stockholders shortly thereafter and sets forth the proposal for one stockholder vote here today. The Board recommends stockholders vote in favor of the proposal. While Rule 14a-8 under the Exchange Act provides for the inclusion in our proxy statement of appropriately submitted proposals from eligible shareholders, in my capacity as Corporate Secretary, I confirm we did not receive any such proposals to be included in our proxy statement. This slide sets forth the number of shares of common stock and shares of Class B stock as of the prior 2 year ends and the record date. These figures are presented on a basic basis, reflecting only the shares outstanding eligible to vote. Said another way, the dilutive impact of any options exercisable within 60 days of the date shown has been excluded. As shown as of the record date, April 30, 2021, our outstanding shares consisted of 31,776,960 shares of common stock and 11,758,218 shares of Class B stock. I remind you our outstanding Class B shares posses 10 votes per share although they are exchangeable only on a one-for-one basis for shares of common stock. As shown, holders of our Class B shares, of which there are 13, posses as of the record date, 78.7% of the cumulative voting power of the 149,359,140 votes eligible as of the record date. Also as of the record date, on a basic share basis, Dr. Vinciarelli owns 31.4% of common stock shares outstanding and 93.8% of Class B shares outstanding, representing 80.4% of total voting power, giving him control over all governance matters. Assuming full conversion of Dr. Vinciarelli's Class B shares on a one-for-one basis, as of the record date, his holdings represented 49.3% of shares ownership on a basic share basis. Because of Dr. Vinciarelli's voting control under the corporate governance requirements of NASDAQ Rule 5600, we are considered a controlled company, which is defined as a listed entity for which more than 50% of the voting power for the election of directors is held by an individual or an identified group. As such, we rely on exemptions under Rule 5600 and do not have a Board consisting of a majority of independent directors nor is our nominating process the sole responsibility of independent directors. We do not utilize the available exemption from independent director oversight of executive compensation, but instead maintain a compensation committee comprised solely of independent directors. Of course, there is no exemption for maintaining an audit committee comprised solely of independent directors, which we do. Directors Anderson, Carlson and Eichten will be the sole members of our Board's Compensation and Audit Committees for the 2021 term. Returning to procedure. Our first order of business shall be determined whether the shares represented at the meeting, either by proxy or by those held by stockholders who have electronically indicated their intent to vote for the first time or to change a previously submitted vote, are sufficient to constitute a quorum for the purpose of transacting business. I earlier introduced Computershare's Harold Murphy, who has been appointed to serve as Inspector of Election, having pledged to perform those duties under Delaware law to support me in the conduct of this meeting. His pledge will be filed with the minutes and records of this meeting. According to information I see on the Computershare website at the present time and confirmed by Harold Murphy and his capacity as inspector of elections, It appears there are no stockholders seeking to submit a vote or change an existing vote. As such, I now ask the inspector of elections to inform us whether a quorum is present.

Mr. Chairman, I can report as of the record date, April 30, 2021, 31,776,960 shares of common stock and 11,758,218 shares of Class B stock were outstanding, representing an eligible total of 149,359,140 possible votes as shown. Given our receipt of Dr. Vinciarelli's proxy, representing 80.4% of eligible votes, far more than the simple majority of eligible votes required for a quorum, are represented here today. As you have just indicated, we have received no new ballots nor any instructions to withdraw or change an existing proxy. So the numbers previously reported and shown on your slide are accurate. A complete list of stockholders as of the record date, compiled and certified by Computershare is open for examination at this meeting by a registered stockholder, who clicks on the designated hyperlink on the page by which registered stockholders access this meeting.

Thank you. I, therefore, declare a quorum. The polls are now open and will remain open until the matters before the meeting have been presented, and the inspector of elections confirms no additional votes have been cast electronically. We will now proceed with the discussion and voting on the proposals set forth in the proxy statement. Since the proposal was addressed in detail in the proxy statement, and since 93.1% of the shares eligible to vote are represented by proxy at this meeting, we will dispense with the formal motions and balloting for the proposal. Further, as mentioned, Dr. Vinciarelli's proxy, representing 80.4% of eligible votes has been received and voted in favor of each of the nominees and fixing the number of directors at 9. Therefore, the proposal received prior to today's meeting, more than enough votes for approval. Each stockholder was entitled to vote for a maximum of 9 nominees. Cumulative voting was not permitted. I now will offer a final opportunity for registered stockholders to electronically submit a question regarding the size of the Board and the election of the nominees. I see no questions regarding the size of the Board and the election of the nominees have been submitted by registered stockholders via the Computershare website. Accordingly, I now formally close the polls. Based on the vote totals previously provided by Computershare and seeing no additional votes reported by the Inspector of Elections, the next slide sets forth the voting results, indicating the passage of the proposal. As shown, all 9 directors standing for reelection or election received an affirmative vote of at least 95.4% of the total amount of votes cast, representing at least 93.1% of shares entitled to vote. Therefore, all 9 nominees are hereby elected. The final results of today's ballot will be reported in detail on or before Thursday, July 1, via filing of Form 8-K with the SEC. There being no other business to come before the formal business meeting. I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Thank you. Given the virtual nature of this meeting, the impracticality of an electronic voice vote of all registered stockholders listening and the presence of Dr. Vinciarelli, who holds 80.4% of voting control, I ask him if he is in favor of adjournment.

I am in favor.

Vote is in favor of adjournment. This concludes the formal portion of our meeting. At this time, I turn the virtual podium over to Phil Davies, who will offer remarks on strategy. Phil?

Thank you, Jim. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to add my welcome to our 2021 shareholders' meeting. And along with the team here, we will provide an update on our 5 layers of growth strategy. Before I get to that, let me say the following. For decades, we've been investing in a better way to deliver power, innovating way ahead of our competition recognizing that markets, applications and customers would finally reach an inflection point where the demand for more power and the available space and weight budget of the power delivery network would require Vicor's high-density modular power technology. That investment is now paying off, and several major markets are finally catching up to us. We are uniquely positioned in the high-performance computing and automotive markets with a combined available market of over $20 billion. Because of our proprietary technology focused on delivering high-density modular power systems, additional new growth markets are emerging and our entry into AC to DC applications later this year will continue to expand our SAM. At my first Vicor Annual Shareholders Meeting in 2012, I introduced a 5-layer growth strategy for the company that continues to drive the structure and processes for the front end of our business. Layer 1 and layer 2 are our broad market or standard products business. Layer 1 is made up of our existing 10,000-plus customers, who have been long-time loyal customers for our legacy Bricks. Layer 2 is our objective of adding 10,000 new customers to this global franchise. Layer 3 is entering new high-growth markets and developing long-term partnerships with major global OEMs. Layer 4 focused us on processes that are critical elements of our strategy and structure. And Layer 5 is our brand. And represented at that time, the major task of repositioning Vicor to be viewed as a high-performance power management, semiconductor company instead of a power supply company. We made good progress in each layer since this strategy was introduced, albeit at an initial slower pace than anticipated. But in the last 4 years, that pace has significantly increased. As major technology disruptions, such as broad AI adoption in data centers for high-performance computing and electrification of automobiles have driven significantly increased system power levels and created significant power delivery challenges, which, by the way, are also happening across a broad set of markets and new applications. Vicor's high-density modular power approach to power systems design is taking hold in increasing numbers of major OEMs and also importantly, within the broad industrial market and its large expanding global base of customers. The 5-layer strategy is the cornerstone of our sales and marketing efforts, and here's what we'll be looking to achieve over the next 5 years. Our Layer 1 Brick business and the over 10,000 customers worldwide that it represents is still an important contributor to our business and will remain so for the next 5 years. However, the contribution that it makes to our top and bottom line will significantly reduce as our advanced products begin to dominate our business. This transition has already begun. Many of the customers that have been using DC-DC Bricks over the past 30-plus years are being offered new solutions with higher density and performance. Many of them are already beginning to transition to our chip DCM DC to DC family and other advanced products that allow significant upgrades to their power delivery networks. Our Layer 2 strategy of adding 10,000 new customers has been supported by a major transition in our distribution channel strategy over the past 10 years. Once our large regional structure of almost 30 distributors, the channel now mainly consists of a global partner network consisting of Arrow, Future, DigiKey and Mouser. Arrow became a global franchise partner in September of 2020, and I expect them to become a significant force multiplier in our Layer 1 and 2 growth objectives in the coming years, which, as you can see here, is on a great trajectory. The gestation and time to revenue in the industrial, defense and aerospace markets alone but are important to our overall business growth. Growing a standard products business in Layer 1 and 2 will add important stability and higher margins to our overall business portfolio. A major part of our Layer 2 strategy is to also identify new growth markets. In that endeavor, we have excellent early positions for our high-performance power modules in several new markets, all of which require more efficient power delivery solutions. We estimate that these markets represent an expansion of SAM in the order of $1 billion in 5 years. Our Layer 3 has seen the expansion of our data center business into a major growth driver for Vicor. To discuss this Layer 3 growth market strategy in more detail, I'm going to hand off to Robert Gendron, our Corporate Vice President of Product Marketing. Robert?

Thank you, Phil. So let's begin by breaking down the market into its various segments. If we look at what we call the AI computing space today and where Vicor is focused, we begin with the e-commerce and cloud service providers. This would be Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft in the U.S.A. and Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent in China. AI is now clearly established in the cloud and is continuing to increase, consuming more merchant AI accelerators along with internally developed processors or what we call high-performance XPUs, tailored to their respective workflows for speech recognition, search, e-commerce, video streaming, image recognition, so on. Next, we have high-performance or supercomputing where companies such as Cray, HPE and IBM are creating leading-edge, high-performance systems. Their system installations typically set new benchmarks in computational power as seen in the top 500 listings. Then we have merchant AI accelerators, which are developed from either the traditional CPU, GPU houses like Intel, AMD and NVIDIA along with numerous AI startups, including, Cerebras, Graphcore, Preferred Networks, Esperanto [ San Venova ], Cambricon and the list goes on. Next, our AI pods, where companies are creating high-density dedicated AI systems. Recent public examples include the Cerebras CS-2 system and the NVIDIA DGX system. Last but not least, are the 5G systems that are creating edge computing, high-density cabinets placed in close proximity to the user for local inferencing. As the computing space continues on its trajectory of rapidly increasing power consumption with form factor constraints, Vicor is in a leadership position, providing innovative, high-performance solutions to our customers' significant challenges of higher power delivery to maximizing computational performance. We continue to advance our product power density, current density and efficiency performance across the entire power delivery chain from the grid to the point of load with a focus on what we call conversion, bridging and current delivery. This high-growth Layer 3 market has a projected SAM of $2.5 billion in 2025, with $1 billion in conversion, $500 million in bridging and $1 billion in current delivery. Let's look at these in further detail. For conversion, the traditional rack-mounted silver box AC converter no longer meets the needs of high-density supercomputing and AI pod systems. We are engaged with several customers on AC and high-voltage DC solutions. These new system designs require higher power density, higher operating performance and power module packaging technology adept to advanced cooling methods. Power delivery is also being decentralized or redistributed within systems. Our BCM6135 is enabling 380-volt power distribution within a supercomputer rack. By distributing 380 volts and converting to 40 volts closer to the server tray, supercomputers can deliver the needed levels of power to support leading-edge XPUs. Distributing power at a lower voltage is not feasible given the efficiency losses and increased cable sizes required in these 150-kilowatt systems. As an example of our continued product innovation, our BCM6135 also represents a 30% increase in power density versus its previous generation. Moving from conversion, we have what we call bridging, which is the need to have 48 volts coexist with 12-volt in rack systems today. Our NBM2317 provides bidirectional conversion, meaning either 48- to 12-volt conversion or 12-volt to 48-volt conversion in a high-density form factor, allowing it to be placed within the most space-constrained applications. Our most recent NBM2317 has a 70% increase in power density versus the previous generation, highlighting again our continued efforts on product innovation. Now moving to what we call current delivery, which is all about powering the high current processor or XPU. We have numerous design ins and wins with AI, networking and host XPU customers. All of these designs face space constraint challenges in addition to high current, low operating voltage needs and our proprietary Factorized Power architecture point-of-load solutions are meeting these challenges. Let's look at some of them. High point-of-load current delivery needs to place near the XPU to maximize efficiency and performance. There are an increasing number of new space constraints that limit this placement. For example, AI accelerator card form factors limit the available board area for current delivery. There are also connector keep outs and large onboard memory ICs that can block the path from the current delivery origin to the XPU. In another application, advanced network switch processors are utilizing high-speed transceivers that can surround the XPU, again blocking current delivery. And in AI-clustered computing applications where processes are placed adjacent to each other, there is literally no space for current delivery. Today's leading XPUs require over 600 amps of continuous current with peak currents approaching 2,000 amps. As XPUs move to the latest silicon technology nodes, their operating voltages are also decreasing. These higher current and lower voltage requirements call for the current delivery to be located as close to the XPU as possible. Voltage regulation, efficiency and performance will all degrade as the distance from the current delivery to the XPU increases. Most importantly, the XPU will not be able to operate at maximum performance. To summarize, the challenge for current delivery is delivering higher and higher currents in a space that is becoming smaller and smaller. Our factorized power solutions solve this problem better than any of our competitors. Our solutions support lateral current delivery, typical in current OEM car designs, lateral vertical and vertical current delivery supporting the highest density designs, including advanced XPU cluster applications. We are winning these designs because of a combination of density, efficiency, transient performance and low noise generation. A combination of performance attributes not found in competitive solutions. I have 2 public examples of some recent design-ins. The first is from China AI startup Cambricon, who introduced their MLU 290 AI accelerator in an OEM card format. Our MCD-MCM solution is visible adjacent to the XPU. The second example is also in China, a company called [ Elevator ]. Their big island training processor card in a PCIe format. In addition to our MCD-MCM solution, Elevator also uses our NBM2317 to support 12-volt to 48-volt conversion. Both of these AI accelerated designs exemplify space-constrained systems, pushing higher current and lower operating voltages. Both designs also show that our solutions are cost competitive on a global basis. In summary, we have a global effort targeting cloud, supercomputer, AI accelerator, AI pod and 5G systems. Our power delivery is focused on conversion, bridging and current delivery. We continue to innovate and advance our product power density and efficiency performance. We maintain a performance lead over our competition with our proprietary architectures, including factorized power, silicon integration, and proprietary high-density package technologies. Thank you. And Phil, I'll hand it back to you now.

Thank you, Robert. In 2018, we recognized the large emerging opportunity for Vicor in the automotive market as electrification began to take hold and the need for power dense and lightweight DC-DC converter solutions became critical to new vehicle performance. Patrick Wadden leads our global business development efforts and will now provide an update on our progress in this new Layer 3 business. Patrick?

Thank you, Phil. Good morning. My name is Patrick Wadden, and welcome. This image would have -- would not have been dreamed of 3 years ago. For many years, electric vehicle production volumes were less than 1% of the overall vehicle production output worldwide. While emissions compliance and government incentives started this ball rolling, It is consumer desire that is really building the steep demand as OEMs are moving the electric vehicle from niche to mainstream. These OEMs are now making gold commitments and gearing up for a very exciting decade of new high-performance EV vehicle platforms. OEMs are now electrifying some of the most popular and favorite vehicles. We are seeing the GM Hummer, Ford's new Mach-E, the electrified Mustang, and now their flagship F-150 light duty truck, the Lightning being electrified. These models are drawing attention from the masses because of the impressive performance enhancements and sleek designs. OEMs have shifted to not only meet environmental standards, but are introducing electric vehicle platforms that offer high performance and functionality never seen with combustion vehicles, making them even more attractive to consumers. New high-performance stylish vehicles with improved fast-charging technology, lower maintenance costs and repair costs are the catalysts, driving consumer demand and increasing the development and adoption of electric vehicles. Consumers see the value and the momentum is growing. We have a very exciting decade ahead of us with an expanding global opportunity forecasted now to be even higher than it was just a year ago. Consumer demand and the need to meet lower CO2 emission standards are accelerating the market, and competition to be first is heating up. The number of vehicles, consumer options, varying powertrain architectures and choice of battery and charging configurations all add to the complexity designers have to address as they work to electrify their fleets in a short amount of time. According to Credit Suisse Global Auto research team, analysts now predict electric vehicle production to exceed 10 million units by 2025 and close to 29 million units by 2030. The combination of all-electrified vehicles will soar from 11% in 2020 to as high as 62% in 2030, topping out at 63 million vehicles. Combustion vehicle production, according to some market experts, could fall from 97% in 2020 to as low as 10% in 2040 as new environmental-friendly platforms are expected to grow. CO2 emissions compliance standards are driving OEMs to reconsider how to power the automobile. Internal combustion engine cars typically operate with power levels of 600 watts to 3,000 watts of electric power, whereas new electrified xEV platforms require electrification levels of 3,000 watts to over 60,000 watts, more than 5 to 20x the power. In its basic form, electrification is about changing the power source in a vehicle from a mechanical belt-driven system to an electrical power delivery network. This major shift, not only refers to electric vehicles, but also includes mild hybrids, hybrids and plug-in hybrids, all very rich in product content for Vicor, ranging from $50 to $720 per vehicle. And in some cases, as high as $1,600 per vehicle, all based on the vehicle power delivery network and architecture. We entered the automotive market in late 2018 with a 3-pronged strategy based on our highly differentiated modular power solutions that enable OEMs, to not only significantly reduce the size and weight of their vehicles, but also reap the added benefits of reusability, flexibility and scalability brought about by the inherent benefits of designing power systems with modular power-building blocks. We believe that this value proposition would resonate first with the OEMs themselves and what we call a directed supplier model, where we work closely with the OEMs engineering teams to define, develop and build the power system. The second prong in our strategy is to partner with Tier 1 suppliers to OEMs, to leverage an existing manufacturing and supply chain model that has worked for generations. The third prong is to target Tier 1 auxiliary subsystem suppliers to help facilitate their adoption of higher power delivery voltages for air conditioning condensers, engine fuel pumps, heated windshields, actuators and high-power comfort systems in the vehicle. This high-level strategy has launched us deep into the automotive industry with a robust pipeline of design wins and opportunities to solve complex challenges associated with 800-volt, 400-volt and 48-volt power delivery. To achieve their aggressive electrification goals, OEMs have to reconsider their approach to power delivery architectures. Vicor's modular power system design approach offers 3 compelling advantages. Power density is critical in reducing size and weight for lower CO2 for higher-performing vehicles to go faster, lighter and further. Density is especially important in 800-volt and 400-volt vehicle systems to further extend range and acceleration or allow for larger battery packs. Whether it's a fast sports car, a light-duty truck or a family car, OEMs need to pack as much power as possible in a constrained space. Reusability with Vicor's modular solutions can save time and development costs. The qualification of a component could take up to 2 to 3 years for a single device. With Vicor's modular approach, automakers can achieve over 300 combinations of power delivery for using just 3 to 4 scalable building block type modules and reconfiguring them differently. OEMs need to be able to reuse designs across different platforms to speed time to market. Automakers look for ways to reuse what they have, to save deployment -- and to save development and qualification time, conserving valuable resources. The third advantage is flexibility and scalability. The unique Vicor modular approach allows automakers to implement standardized solutions across a wide variety of powertrain platforms such as SUV, minivan or light-duty truck with the same family of products. Engineers can easily add or remove prequalified parts to the array to scale power delivery up or down. OEMs are working aggressively to reduce the size and weight of their power electronics in an effort to go further faster and deliver higher-performing vehicles, eliminating the 12-volt or 48-volt battery and downsizing in wire harness, the vehicle has an estimated weight savings of up to 25 kilograms. This has an enormous value for an OEM, and it's achievable when implementing a Vicor modular power approach. Our new BCM6135, for example, converts high-voltage from 800 volts or 400 volts down to 48 volts, delivering 2.5 kilowatts of power at 98% efficient in a package that only weighs 62 grams. We have made significant progress this past year and are actively engaged with 20 customers. These range from OEM design wins with confirmed start-up production dates to collaboration projects with OEMs and Tier 1s that we expect to convert to design wins this year. Automotive is the biggest market opportunity for Vicor and to see the trend of electrification accelerating and our value proposition of high-density modular power systems gaining momentum is very exciting. I am pleased to say that our development time line is on track with our directed OEM strategy leading to design wins with 2 OEMs based in Europe and Japan. These 2 key OEM partners have worked closely with us as teaching customers in a reciprocal relationship while being first to market with Vicor's advanced automotive products. We will be shipping our first automotive modules with auto grade material later this year while developing our internal automotive manufacturing quality management system. We expect continued growth with customer engagements, completing design validation and PPAP qualification in late 2022, followed with production ramps for Vicor before the end of 2022 for OEMs who are starting production in mid-2023. In closing, we strive to advance our technology and continually improve our products, processes and services by reviewing performance metrics, implementing appropriate actions and empowering our employees for continuous improvement. Vicor is an ISO 9000 2015 certified manufacturer. We are implementing an APQP automotive quality management system with expectations to ship auto grade material in 2021 and complete PPAP qualifications on several automotive products by the end of 2022. We expect to be IATF 16949 certified by the end of this year and are driving the company towards a 0 defect mindset. Thank you for your time today. I look forward to updating you in person at next year's shareholder meeting. Back to you, Phil.

Thanks, Patrick. I think it's safe to say that our brand Layer 5 has undergone a major change. We are no longer recognized as a power supply company. Our competition now comes from ADI, TI, Renesas and other semiconductor companies. Over the next 5 years, the Vicor brand will be firmly established as the high-performance power module company. Vicor is also at an inflection point where we have to transition from not just being known for innovation, but also achieving the operational excellence that our customers demand. Our focus on operational excellence must happen across the entire company and fully encompass all aspects of our 5 layers of growth strategy. Patrizio has made this a top priority, and we are now embarking on a company-wide set of initiatives to make that happen. The next 5 years will be exciting. We have the right place at the right time as many high-growth markets and customers seek out the highest performance power delivery solutions to achieve a competitive advantage. And that road leads to Vicor. I'd like to thank you for your continued support, and I hope you enjoy the journey with us over the coming years. I will now hand over to Mike McNamara, who leads our operations team and he will discuss the progress being made in expanding capacity to meet our highly anticipated demand. Mike?

Thank you, Phil. at this time, I'd like to provide an update on our factory expansion. With this being integrated into and over operation, we'll realize significant -- sorry, -- the facility expansion at our Andover location was brought about to enable vertical integration of our critical packaging step needed for our advanced products. With this being integrated into our Andover operations, we will realize significant reduction in manufacturing cycle times, address the need to increase capacity to catch up and meet long-term capacity needs. Additionally, by bringing it in-house, we will benefit by leveraging our operation's existing overhead and infrastructure in Andover. Overall, this will provide Vicor the needed scalability and operational efficiency to satisfy our growing customer demand. The completion of the facility's new 90,000 square feet manufacturing space will support the increasing product capacity. The upper floor of the new wing will house the processes for vertical integration. The remaining 45,000 square feet on the ground floor is reserved for additional advanced product capacity. The construction scheduled to be completed in October of this year remains on schedule and on budget. All equipment for the vertical integration is on order. In fact, some equipment to support the infrastructure of the vertical integration is now being installed in parallel with the construction activity. The operations team has a transition plan to move key work cells into Andover starting in early Q4 and completing 100% integration in the first half of 2022. In summary, Vicor has and will continue to make the needed investments in equipment to meet capacity ramps of our advanced products. The strategy to vertically integrate will enable Vicor to catch up with the demand and provide the needed capacity for future growth. And leveraging the existing operational overhead in infrastructure in Andover, we expect gross margins to further improve. As we complete the factory expansion at our 400 Federal Street, we are now shifting focus on selecting an additional campus to support ongoing growth. In conclusion, we are at an inflection point where advanced products revenues will be greater than Brick products starting in Q3. And with this investment made, our factory is ready for the transition to high volume, low mix from low volume, high mix. Thank you, and I'll turn it back over to Jim.

Thanks, Mike. Now we'll turn to our long-term financial model. Our long-term model is to grow sales at double-digit rates while managing the shift in product mix from Brick to advanced products. Additionally, we intend to expand gross margin to approximately 65%, hold the high rate of R&D investment at approximately 15% of sales and grow SG&A expense lower than sales and thereby reduce SG&A to approximately 15% of sales. We expect our long-term model to yield operating profits of approximately 35% of sales.

At this time, management will take your questions. I again remind everyone, we are in our Q2 quiet period and accordingly, we will not be commenting on current operational or financial performance. Please keep in mind, Vicor is targeting Thursday, July 22, for releasing its Q2 results and holding our quarterly conference call with investors. During the Q&A portion of that call, investors will have direct access to management for asking questions. As stated by the operator at the beginning of the meeting, management reserves the right to consolidate certain questions in its sole discretion, if those questions cover similar or overlapping topics. Management also reserves the right to not respond to questions or comments it considers, also in its sole discretion, inappropriate for the purposes of the Annual Stockholders' Meeting. We have already received several questions, so I'll proceed with reading these questions to my colleagues while monitoring the Computershare website for others as they are submitted. So here's a question for Patrizio from [ John Dillon ]. Can you give us an update as to how the GCM is progressing? And are you developing building block solutions for a variety of high current processors? And there's a follow-up question as well.

So GCM is an example of a vertical power delivery component. We're working closely with one of the customers that was referenced earlier by Robert Gendron, Cerebras, another potentially larger customer with a similar vertical power delivery system requirement. These are wafer scale type applications that will become more leveraged as computing takes on the next set of challenges. The GCM itself is a building block for a solution, not on a wafer scale basis, but at the level of a chip consuming cars in the realm of 800 and 900 amps. With all vertical part products, including the ones he referenced earlier and the GCM itself and the ones he referenced earlier are for wafer scale applications through vertical power delivery in the sense that the power path in 3-dimensional space involves delivery of power up 48-volt from the phase opposing a wafer scale sealing a wafer. In the case of GCM, it's vertical power delivery, but not in effect, as extreme as the wafer scale example. These advances are progressing. We're at different stages with different customers. The number of customers involved is still relatively small, but expanding. We have recently embarked on a bridging initiative where GCMs or DCMs that are, in effect, building blocks of a complete vertical power delivery system can be simplified for uses where the car demands are in a range somewhere in between the realm of lateral power delivery and vertical power delivery. And as mentioned by Robert in his prepared remarks, we're focusing on what we call a lateral, vertical methodology that, in fact, combines the simplicity of lateral power with a vertical element that captures about 70% of the benefits of vertical power delivery for applications that are not quite wafer scale. So as you can surmise from those comments, it's a complex landscape, and we're progressing on a number of different fronts to address different current requirements at different levels, ranging from what had become relatively mundane lateral power delivery solutions, the ones that you've seen, again, referenced and shown by Robert earlier to, at one extreme, full vertical power delivery involving again, a multiplicity of devices that can individually supply the better part of 1,000 amps to radical within a wafer, to intermediate in between type of solutions. And I would say, we're making good progress. stacking chips, which is an essential element of a complete vertical power delivery system is a complex task that's engaged our packaging team for now a significant time frame. But I would say that in the appropriate perspective, which is in the semiconductor industry, the stacking of silicon chips, I think in a shorter time frame, we made considerably more progress. And we're getting close to having the level of process maturity and capability that we need to scale these capabilities into high-volume manufacturing.

There's a follow-up on that, Patrizio, from John. As a follow-up question, with the patents and the technology that you have, is it possible for a competitor to come up with a competing solution?

Well, this is a very significant question. I will answer it this way. We believe we have a very comprehensive, special property coverage for vertical -- lateral, vertical power delivery. We also have a comprehensive IP coverage for packaged solutions, such as the golden power components that have been shown in a number of customer engagements. So we think we have a unique position, having been there 5, 10 years ahead of any competitor. And we believe our IP position will continue to provide an effective barrier moat against [ a school of ] competitors.

Thank you. Here's a question from Rich Shannon of Craig-Hallum. Can you detail the content opportunities in auto by EV type and battery size? And which ones are you seeing earlier demand and engagement on?

Patrick?

Yes. Thank you. What we're seeing, and I posted some estimates on what we see as a range. It really is difficult to put an exact number on it because a lot of the vehicles are different. We're seeing a couple of areas, especially that are very strong, high voltage 800 volts down to 48 has been a very, very strong leading trend, especially with the cost of 800-volt batteries coming down. We're seeing quite a few significant opportunities in the charging area, where we're able to provide compatibility between the vehicle and the roadside charger based on a 400- to 800-volt bidirectional converter. We're now working directly with customers on solutions that are up to 30 kilowatts in a single device. So we're getting a lot of attention out there. We're getting a lot of interest in partnering. To put an exact number on each individual vehicle is difficult because of the -- because every vehicle is different with different requirements. And -- but I can say that in extreme cases, like in a Class 8 truck architecture or in some vehicle architectures with power levels of 10 kilowatts up to 20 kilowatts to see content north of $1,000 per vehicle is not unheard of.

Okay. Here's a question maybe for Mike, [ Greg Wilson ], investor. Is their confidence to bring plating engineering capability in-house to vertically integrate manufacturing. It appears some plating job openings have been difficult to fill.

Well, actually, we have staffed the plating organization, and they are at or on-site subcontractor being trained on the equipment and they will be transitioned down with the equipment starting in early Q4. We will additionally be hiring other talent as well. So we've been very fortunate to be able to secure the needed talent and the resources that support this process.

Okay. I'm going to read one from [ Quinn Bolton ]. I believe [ Quinn ] is with Needham. Competitors -- this is fairly technical question. Competitors addressing the 48-volt AI processor XPU market are proposing a 2-stage approach. Using a bus converter to convert the 48-volt bus to a 5-volt, 6-volt bus and then using high-frequency POL switches up to 5 megahertz to reduce the size of the acquired capacitors and power inductors and allowing for placement closer to the processor. What does Vicor think of this approach? Will it be a lower-cost solution than Vicor's current multipliers. I think Quinn might be an engineer.

Okay. So the approach that has been described is not a new approach. It's an old approach. It's being fine-tuned as a 2-stage approach, it involves what's called an intermediate stage. Once upon a time, the intermediate stage was typically 12 volts. In some of the comps, it has been trimmed down to 9.6 volts. More recently, there's been initiative to further bring it down to 5 volts. But to be clear, without getting too technical, the intermediate bus voltage is -- or presents an immediate conflict between 2 laws of physics, each 1 of which, in effect, needs to be expected for the solution, to have the requisite performance attributes and fundamentally, lowering the intermediate bus voltage to 5 volts in order to facilitate higher switching frequency and smaller component size next to, let's say, AI chips, comes at the dispense of power losses related to Ohm's law or the power distribution network to the 5-volt node. And when we're looking at it, there is no free lunch to be had in resolving the conflict between these 2 competing requirements. Efficient power distribution requires high voltage, which is what we have when we distribute 48 volts or 54 volts, small regulation or high-density regulation close to the point of load has its own implications that with the 2-stage approach suggested require a low-voltage power delivery to facilitate the last conversion step close to the load. With factorized power, we can have the best of both worlds in that we can make power distribution very efficient, 16x more efficient than it can be at 12-volt and another 4x more efficient than it can be at 5 volts. While at the same time, able to, in effect, multiply the current very close to the point of load, either laterally or laterally vertically or fully vertically with current density far beyond that which can be supported by multiphase regulator using its 2-stage approach. So 2-stage can be summarized to be the only viable competitive alternative. It is a common denominator, competitive alternative that every competitor is availing itself of that competitive alternative. Over the years, it has been refined, but it's really up against some fundamental barriers that relate to those physics and I think are fundamentally insurmountable in competing with a current multiplier solution.

Thanks, Patrizio. And one more here for Phil from John Dillon. In the last conference call, you referenced something about how the auto industry is changing regarding their supply chain, and this should benefit Vicor. Can you elaborate on this? And how will this help Vicor?

Sure. Maybe Patrick can help me a little bit here. But what I was referring to there was the fact that the traditional Tier 1 suppliers to the industry don't really have the technology with regards to power density performance basically that are needed by the OEMs to meet their new electrified platform requirements. And so the OEMs are actually looking to different suppliers to provide that level of density that they -- and low weight that they actually need. So that's where Vicor -- when we talk to OEMs, we're getting a great reception because we've got the technology to meet their needs. And Patrick outlined a 3-pronged strategy where some of the OEMs can design with Vicor, their own power systems. And we have 2 early customers doing that. But there are also Tier 1s that see the fact that they're going to start to be challenged, maybe lose some market share that are also looking to work with Vicor to use our modules in their package -- with their packaging technology, and we're working closely with those guys as well. So I think it's a very much a changing landscape, but it's clear the density and low weight is paramount in these high-power electrified vehicles, as Patrick covered.

Thanks, Phil. As it appears, there are no more questions. I will adjourn the 2021 Annual Stockholders Meeting. Thank you for attending.

Thank you. This does conclude today's meeting. You may now disconnect.