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Date

Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

Call participants

  • President and Chief Executive Officer — Rahul Patel
  • Chief Financial Officer — Ken Rizvi
  • Vice President, Investor Relations — Munjal Shah

Takeaways

  • Total Revenue -- $294.2 million, up 10% year over year, exceeding the midpoint of company guidance, primarily from Core IoT strength.
  • Core IoT Revenue -- Grew 31% year over year, attributed to continued growth in wireless connectivity products.
  • Enterprise & Automotive Revenue -- Increased 9% year over year, reflecting recovery in enterprise portfolios.
  • Mobile Touch Revenue -- Decreased 16% year over year, explicitly stated as a segment decline.
  • Revenue Mix -- Core IoT: 30%, Enterprise & Automotive: 57%, Mobile Touch: 13% for the quarter.
  • Gross Margin (non-GAAP) -- 53.6%, above guidance midpoint.
  • Operating Expenses (non-GAAP) -- $104.6 million, below the midpoint of company guidance.
  • Operating Margin (non-GAAP) -- 18.1%, up 260 basis points year over year.
  • Net Income (non-GAAP) -- $44.1 million for the quarter.
  • Earnings per Share (non-GAAP) -- $1.09 per diluted share, up 21% year over year, at the high end of guidance.
  • Cash and Cash Equivalents -- $404 million at quarter end, after $39 million share repurchases in the quarter and $93 million completed fiscal year-to-date.
  • Cash Flow from Operations -- $21.8 million during the quarter.
  • Inventory -- $161.3 million ending balance, with 106 days of inventory (up from 101 days prior quarter).
  • Receivables -- $162.5 million, with days sales outstanding at 50 days (previously 39 days).
  • Q4 Revenue Guidance -- $305 million midpoint, plus or minus $10 million, with expected mix: Core IoT at 33%, Enterprise & Automotive at 54%, Mobile Touch at 13%.
  • Q4 Non-GAAP Gross Margin Guidance -- 53.5% midpoint, plus or minus 1%.
  • Q4 Non-GAAP Operating Expense Guidance -- $105 million midpoint, plus or minus $2 million.
  • Q4 Non-GAAP EPS Guidance -- Anticipated $1.20 per diluted share midpoint, plus or minus $0.15 on 40.4 million diluted shares.
  • Design Win Activity -- More than 35 customers in robotics pipeline, including a "leading generative AI OEM," with recent sampling to 3 additional OEMs.
  • Product Launch -- Next-generation Coralboard with Astra SL2610 processor and Google Coral NPU integration launched, described as a turnkey Edge AI platform.
  • Astra Product Roadmap -- Semi-custom AI-native SR-series microcontroller successfully taped out; sampling targeted for fall and initial deployment in major wearable platform expected first half of 2027.
  • Capital Expenditure -- $11.9 million for the quarter; Depreciation at $7.9 million.
  • Share Repurchase Activity -- $39 million in the quarter, cumulative $93 million this fiscal year through April 2026.

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Risks

  • Rahul Patel stated, "there could be headwinds in the second half of '26" for PC end markets, noting potential macro pressures may not spare premium segments.
  • Patel noted, "we don't know when the memory situation recovery happens for the China OEMs." in smartphone touch products, indicating ongoing impact from supply constraints.
  • Rizvi highlighted an increase in days sales outstanding to 50 days (from 39 days prior quarter) and days of inventory to 106 days (from 101).

Summary

Synaptics (SYNA +15.10%) reported continued double-digit revenue growth, led by Core IoT product expansion and growth in Enterprise & Automotive, while Mobile Touch declined. Management highlighted rapid customer adoption of Edge AI and physical AI solutions, particularly within robotics and wearables, with more than 35 customers engaged in robotics design activity. Launches such as Coralboard with Google's NPU and the tapeout of the AI-native SR-series microcontroller were emphasized as catalysts for future Edge AI revenue. The company provided guidance for Q4 showing ongoing revenue and earnings growth, supported by incremental product ramps and design wins that span consumer, industrial, and medical markets, shaping expectations for substantial Astra platform contributions starting in 2027.

  • Management underscored the differentiated dollar content opportunity in robotics platforms relative to prior markets, referencing that these "substantially higher" than other segments.
  • Patel explained customer ramp in Astra processors will be driven initially by consumer applications, followed by industrial and medical, with a semi-custom major OEM win anticipated to impact revenue profile beginning in calendar 2027.
  • Rizvi signaled that as processor mix grows within Core IoT, the segment margin profile should "have a margin profile greater than the corporate average," which may support corporate margin expansion over time.
  • The company affirmed sustained direct engineering engagements for advanced robotics customers, while also describing scale-up partnerships to access wider customers via third parties such as Grinn.
  • Patel detailed advantages of Synaptics' capacitive tactile sensing technology, citing customer preference for signal-to-noise, channel count, accuracy, and AI-enabled latency as key adoption factors in robotics.

Industry glossary

  • Edge AI: On-device artificial intelligence processing, reducing latency and offloading tasks from centralized cloud infrastructure.
  • Astra: Synaptics' proprietary platform for Edge AI and processing, used in IoT, robotics, and wearable applications.
  • Coral NPU: Neural Processing Unit developed in partnership with Google, integrated into select Synaptics Edge AI products.
  • SR-series: Synaptics' semi-custom, AI-native microcontroller product line, with targeted applications in wearables and edge processing.
  • PMIC: Power Management Integrated Circuit, used in SoCs to optimize energy efficiency and battery life.
  • MCU: Microcontroller Unit, an integrated circuit that contains a processor, memory, and input/output peripherals for embedded applications.
  • SoC: System on Chip, an integrated circuit that consolidates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip.
  • UWB: Ultra-Wideband, a short-range wireless communication protocol especially relevant for location tracking and secure access applications.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Munjal Shah: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today on Synaptics' third quarter fiscal 2026 conference call. My name is Munjal Shah, and I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations. With me on today's call are Rahul Patel, our President and CEO; and Ken Rizvi, our CFO. This call is being broadcast live over the web and can be accessed from the Investor Relations section of the company's website at synaptics.com. In addition to a copy of our earnings press release detailing our quarterly results, a supplemental slide presentation and a copy of these prepared remarks have been posted on our Investor Relations website.

Today's discussion of financial results is presented on a GAAP financial basis, along with supplementary results on a non-GAAP basis, which excludes share-based compensation, acquisition-related costs and certain other noncash or recurring or nonrecurring items. All non-GAAP financial metrics discussed are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings press release and supplemental materials available on our Investor Relations website. As a reminder, the matters we are discussing today in our prepared remarks, in our supplemental materials and in response to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements give our current expectations and projections relating to our financial condition, results of operations, plans, objectives, future performance and business.

Although Synaptics believes the estimates and assumptions underlying these forward-looking statements to be reasonable, the statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties beyond our control. Synaptics cautions that actual results may differ materially from any future performance suggested in the company's forward-looking statements. Therefore, we refer you to the company's earnings release issued today and our current and periodic reports filed with the SEC, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements speak only as the date hereof.

Except as required by law, Synaptics expressly disclaims any obligation to update this forward-looking information. I will now turn the call over to Rahul.

Rahul Patel: Thank you, Munjal. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our fiscal third quarter 2026 earnings call. Fiscal third quarter marked our sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year revenue growth, driven by 31% year-over-year increase in our core IoT products. We are seeing improving momentum and delivering consistent performance across the business. Our non-GAAP gross margin was above the midpoint of our guidance range and non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.09 was at the high end of the guidance and increased 21% year-over-year. Let me start by highlighting the accelerating adoption we are seeing in physical AI and Edge AI with customer engagements continuing to expand.

Last quarter, we announced our first humanoid design with a leading OEM for our touch controller and interface solutions. Since then, we have sampled silicon to 3 additional OEMs and our robotics pipeline has grown to more than 35 customers globally, including a leading generative AI OEM. Customers are adopting our AI-enabled touch controllers for tactile sensing. Our capacitive sensing technology measures subtle changes in compressible layer to detect force, slip and proximity, enabling robots to handle objects, maintain grip and respond in real time. This capability extends beyond the hand to other contact surfaces, including the feet.

These tactile controllers can pair with our Astra processors to aggregate sensor inputs and run AI locally, enabling real-time decision-making, improving response time and reducing the load on the robot central compute. In addition, our wireless portfolio, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS GNSS, supports reliable connectivity as robots move and coordinate with one another and the network. Further, our interface technology enables high bandwidth transport within a robotic system. For example, one of our customers is using it to interconnect multiple displays in a humanoid. Our content opportunity in robotics is substantially higher than in our other markets. Synaptics' broad and differentiated portfolio across processing, connectivity, sensing and interface solutions uniquely positions us to address this opportunity.

New use cases continue to emerge and our engagements are expanding with a growing set of customers. While still early, I am excited about this promising growth vector for Synaptics. This quarter, we also made solid progress in our partnership with Google, which continues to be a key driver of our Edge AI strategy. We launched next-generation Coralboard powered by our Astra SL2610 processor and featuring the industry's first implementation of Google's Coral NPU integrated with Synaptics' Torq NPU architecture. The Coralboard provides developers with a turnkey platform to move quickly from prototyping to production and bring generative AI directly onto the device.

In the coming weeks, we and our partner will showcase Astra processor technology powering Google Gemma and other leading AI models at a high-profile industry event. At this event, we will also make the platform available to developers, system architects and OEMs looking to build real-world edge AI applications. Next, let me update you on the next generation of our Astra SR series microcontrollers, a semi-custom AI native platform targeting emerging wearable applications. We successfully taped out the SoC last month and expect to begin sampling in the fall. The platform includes Synaptics' PMIC and a microcontroller that integrates advanced power management, Google's Coral NPU, our Torq NPU and a flexible memory architecture to deliver high-performance, low-power Edge AI processing.

For the initial variable application, our solution delivers up to 2 times battery life and reduces bill-of-materials by roughly 50%. Beyond this initial design, the SR-series represents a new class of AI-native microcontrollers that can extend across wearable platforms and into a broad range of Edge AI applications. Turning to design traction, we are securing Astra processor wins across multiple applications in various end markets. Notably, our processors are designed into a new class of medical devices that bring diagnostic imaging to a patient's home, extending access to healthcare in rural and underserved regions.

This customer selected Astra for its price performance, design flexibility, ease of software and hardware integration, and for the ability to run AI models locally on the device. We also secured a win in industrial with a leading North American fleet management OEM, where our ultra-low power vision platform provides intelligent asset monitoring. Our pipeline continues to expand across consumer and industrial markets, with increasing traction in IoT hubs, gesture-driven streaming devices, industrial gateways, UAV navigation and positioning, and smart home systems. Our key differentiation lies in tightly integrating compute and connectivity into a solution-oriented, software developer friendly platform, designed to reduce system complexity while enabling scalable and high-performance Edge AI deployments.

Finally, we had a successful launch of our Astra-enabled Connected MCU at Embedded World, where it received a Best in Show award in the Microcontrollers, Microprocessors & IP category. This device is the industry's first to integrate Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity with Edge AI compute in a monolithic SoC, delivering a highly differentiated solution. Customers are particularly attracted to its ability to concurrently host Bluetooth and Wi-Fi stacks, as well as the host application, enabling greater integration and efficiency. In addition, the integrated NPU in this SoC allows customers to develop and deploy differentiated AI features. We are currently sampling the product with multiple customers across a range of applications, including industrial power, home appliances, and security cameras.

Turning to Enterprise and Mobile Touch, demand from our enterprise customers continues to improve steadily. We remain focused on the premium tier of the market and will continue to closely monitor demand trends. In Mobile Touch, while some customers are navigating near-term challenges related to memory supply, we believe that we remain well positioned with some leading OEMs that are gaining share. We are currently shipping into the majority of flagship phones at a leading Korean OEM. We are also encouraged by our design wins in foldable smartphones and expect customers to launch new products in the second half of the calendar year.

While still early, broader adoption of foldable smartphones by major OEMs has the potential to drive overall market growth. To summarize, we are gaining strong traction in Physical AI and expanding our presence across a broad set of Edge AI markets. We are executing on our product roadmap, delivering highly differentiated products and solutions, and deepening our engagement with customers and ecosystem partners. These efforts position Synaptics for long-term growth and value creation. I will now turn the call over to Ken to review our third quarter financial results and outlook for our fiscal 2026 fourth quarter.

Ken Rizvi: Thank you, Rahul, and good afternoon, everyone. I will focus my remarks on our non-GAAP results which are reconciled to GAAP financial measures in the earnings release tables found in the investor relations section of our website. Now let me turn to our financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2026. Revenue for fiscal Q3 was $294.2 million, above the midpoint of our guidance and up 10% on a year-over-year basis driven by strength in our Core IoT products. The revenue mix in the third quarter was 30% Core IoT, 57% Enterprise and Automotive and 13% Mobile Touch products. Core IoT product revenues increased 31% year-over-year, driven primarily by continued strength in our wireless connectivity products.

Enterprise & Automotive product revenues were up 9% year-over-year as we are seeing a recovery in our enterprise portfolio. And Mobile Touch product revenues decreased 16% year-over year. Third quarter non-GAAP gross margin was 53.6%, slightly ahead of the mid-point of our guidance. Third quarter non-GAAP operating expenses were $104.6 million, better than the midpoint of our guidance. Our non-GAAP operating margin was 18.1%, up approximately 260 basis points year-over-year and non-GAAP net income in Q3 was $44.1 million. Non-GAAP EPS per diluted share came in toward the higher-end of our guidance at $1.09 per share, an increase of 21% on a year-over-year basis. Now let me turn to the balance sheet.

We ended the fiscal third quarter with approximately $404 million in cash and cash equivalents, reflecting $39 million of share repurchases in Q3. Through April of 2026, we have completed $93 million of share repurchases this fiscal year. Cash flow from operations was $21.8 million in the third fiscal quarter. Capital expenditures for the third quarter were $11.9 million and depreciation for the quarter was $7.9 million. Receivables at the end of March were $162.5 million and the days of sales outstanding were 50 days, up from 39 days last quarter. Our ending inventory balance was $161.3 million and days of inventory were 106 days, compared to 101 days at the end of the last quarter.

Now, turning to our fiscal 2026 fourth quarter guidance. For Q4, we expect revenues to be approximately $305 million at the mid-point, plus or minus $10 million. Our guidance for the fourth quarter reflects an expected revenue mix from Core IoT, Enterprise & Automotive, and Mobile Touch products of approximately 33%, 54%, and 13%, respectively. We expect our non-GAAP gross margin to be 53.5% at the mid-point, plus or minus 1% and non-GAAP operating expenses in the June quarter are expected to be $105 million at the midpoint of our guidance, plus or minus $2 million.

We expect non-GAAP net interest and other expenses to be approximately $2 million and our non-GAAP tax rate to be in the range of 13% to 15% for the fourth quarter. Non-GAAP net income per diluted share is anticipated to be $1.20 per share at the mid-point plus or minus $0.15, on an estimated 40.4 million fully diluted shares. This wraps up our prepared remarks. I would like to turn the call over to the operator to start the Q&A session. Operator?

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ross Seymore with Deutsche Bank.

Ross Seymore: A couple of questions. I guess the first one on the core IoT side of things. In the near term, it looked like it was a little weaker than you expected in the March quarter, but seems to be gaining that back in June. So in the near-term side, what's causing that volatility? And then perhaps more importantly, longer term, you rattled off a whole bunch of good wins and traction in the Astra platform. How should we think about the revenue contribution of that folding in into the second half of this year and into calendar year and into calendar '27 as well? Has that become a meaningful tailwind? And if so, when?

Ken Rizvi: So Ross, maybe I'll take -- this is Ken. Thanks for the question. I'll take that first part, and then I'll turn it over to Rahul on the second piece. But on the first piece, if you look -- and if I just step back, Ross, right, for the year and for -- based on our guidance for Q4 for Core IoT, we're going to do north of $385 million for Core IoT at the midpoint. That grows by north of 40% on a year-over-year basis. And so there are always some movements quarter-to-quarter.

But if I just step back, look at the business from a 30,000-foot view standpoint, we're seeing still very, very solid performance here throughout 2026 for Core IoT. And there will always be some movements here and there quarter-to-quarter. But in general, really very excited about the performance this year by the team.

Rahul Patel: Ross, this is Rahul. Regarding the IoT ramp on Astra processors. Well, I think we have stated in the past that we anticipate meaningful ramp in calendar 2027, and that remains. A couple of things. I indicated on the prepared remarks that we have taped out our semi-custom solution targeted towards end product, that's with a very large OEM. That is anticipated to go into production in the first half of calendar '27 and in the end products sometime about now next year and ramp up very nicely in the second half of '27 as well. And regarding some of the design wins in robotics and physical AI, as you probably know, there's a lot of activity.

There's a lot of market forecast. At this point, we are being very cautious in including those numbers in our plan for '27, largely because it's openly talked about as well. I think various research puts the numbers at very large quantities. However, in my opinion, it's still a greenfield. And so we're not taking a lot of that into our '27 plan. What I will reiterate something that was in the remarks as well, that the dollar content is substantially different, materially higher than what we have seen in end products like Synaptics in the past. And so I remain excited about the opportunity in physical AI.

I am seeing the conviction in the larger customer base around the capabilities, IP, product and technology that Synaptics brings to some of these platforms by virtue of the acceleration that we are seeing in our engagement and design activity with our customers and how quickly some of these engagements are turning into us shipping silicon. I mean, in one situation, in that case, pilot runs in a couple of other situations, I would be specific, maybe 3, we've shipped samples. And so all of that is TBD in terms of material revenue, but Astra family of products and connectivity, definitely looking on track for '27.

Ross Seymore: Perfect. And for my follow-up, just touching on kind of the PC-related and mobile-related side of things. Given the headwinds from the memory costs and all of that, and I fully realize you guys are at the premium end, so you might not be hit as hard. But how are you seeing your customers react to those pressures? Do you think that the market can still grow if we look kind of out over the next few quarters? Or is that something where they're going to eventually feel that pain as well and maybe it's a meaningful headwind?

Rahul Patel: Well, I think let me respond in 2 parts, right? PC, we had a good quarter. And where we are in our fiscal Q4, the current quarter, we continue to see reasonable momentum in the demand for our products. However, like you indicated and much of the market is saying as well, right, there could be headwinds in the second half of '26. We haven't seen that just yet. But like with everybody else in the marketplace, we may not be immune to that as well if it comes about. What works, like you said, Ross, favorably for us is that our participation is in the enterprise class products and premium class products.

And that potentially presents us with some form of cushion buffer because the affordability is a lot better in that class of products. But you are absolutely right. Like everybody is saying, there could be headwinds in the second half, and we may not be immune to it. Now the size and the impact may be a little different than what everybody is seeing. Regarding smartphones, as you know, there is also this challenge with memory, particularly identified in China, and we see that in our China-based smartphone shipments as a result in our touch products. However, we are gaining market share, and we're doing very well in a Korean OEM who has access to memory.

And so we are a beneficiary in that situation. And so even in the Mobile Touch, I think we don't know when the memory situation recovery happens for the China OEMs. However, we are a beneficiary on the other hand, with the Korean OEM where we are gaining market share and they have access to memory.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Cassidy with Rosenblatt Securities.

Kevin Cassidy: Congratulations on the great results. And congratulations on all the new product and design activity. I just wonder if I could ask a little more about the robotics market, very exciting. But can you describe the attach rate you're getting, just kind of a range of if you had only the capacitive touch versus whether you had all your products through the connectivity products. What would be the range of the content in robotics?

Rahul Patel: Yes. Kevin, thank you for the question. I'm really personally very excited about the opportunity for Synaptics in robotics. And think of robotics as from a tactile sensing point of view, as an implementation on the backs of analog design, some localized computation that ultimately transcends the biological sensory capabilities of a human hand to a level that presents tremendous amount of robustness in adverse conditions, tremendous amount of accuracy and dexterity and also the latency of inference basically is at a different level, right? In all these vectors, you see transcending the human hand behavior basically.

And so if you kind of sum it up, that is right in the alley of what Synaptics technology is capable of delivering best-in-class touch capabilities that, again, is proven and embraced extremely well in the premium class of smartphone marketplace, our AI-native processing engines and also wireless connectivity. And so being specific to your question about silicon content, currently, majority of our shipments are concentrated on tactile sensing and bus interface technologies. And you can think of the silicon content in terms of few tens of dollars per platform, largely on backs of those 2 capabilities. We are seeing early engagements on Astra and wireless connectivity, and that is additive on top of that.

And to be very clear, many platforms would have one or more capabilities from Synaptics in place. And so that's how we should think about it. And so the diversity of our product capabilities and our technology and the leadership capability in each of the categories that we are in, sensing, processing and connecting and interface is what is being appreciated in these platforms.

Kevin Cassidy: Great. And maybe on the pipeline you have of 35 OEMs, how does that look geographically?

Rahul Patel: It's highly concentrated in advanced stages of engagement in North America, some in China and early stages in Europe.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Neil Young with Needham & Company.

Neil Young: So within Astra, I wanted to ask about the end markets. Are there any particular end markets where customer traction is moving fastest today? And then as those designs move toward production, should we think about the initial ramp as being concentrated in a few larger programs? Or is this more diversified across many smaller edge AI deployments?

Rahul Patel: Neil, this is Rahul. I have indicated in the past, and I think that's exactly how it's emerging in our current design activity. Consumer will ramp up first. Industrial will follow. We are seeing industrial design wins now taking shape. I described us getting into medical equipment as well. However, I think of this as equipment that would sit at the far end of the edge in people's homes. In industrial, I highlighted, I mean, one of the many designs, but the design around fleet management. Now industrial takes a lot more in terms of validation, hardening of the platform and ramping through various regulatory "checkpoints" basically.

And so it is slower to ramp than consumer and longer to hold than consumer in terms of the revenue time lines. And so that's exactly what we are seeing in our plans. Regarding your question about is it going to be singles and doubles or there's going to be one big home run customer. Clearly, I think I've indicated we have a semi-custom design done for a very large OEM, who we are very closely partnering on multiple fronts from developing the IP around processing in our platforms for neural processing and many other things to engaging in building out the platform for the end product that is targeted for mass market consumer consumption in the first space.

And so there are going to be singles and doubles, and there's going to be this big home run that will come into our calendar '27 revenue profile on Astra.

Neil Young: Great. That's helpful. And then I wanted to ask about gross margin as core IoT continues to become a larger mix of the business and Astra-related products begin to ramp. Should we think about the current margin level as a reasonable baseline through FY '27? Or are there other factors that can come in? Maybe just talk about where you see that going.

Ken Rizvi: Neil, it's Ken. I appreciate that. So we guide 1 quarter ahead, and you can see that margin profiles in that 53.5%, plus/minus 1% for our guide. We've been at this range. I would say behind the scenes, one of the things that we've been doing well and kudos to the operations team is like other semi players, we have seen cost increases, but we've been able to absorb those and maintain very healthy gross margins. On a longer-term basis, as we think about the core IoT business and specifically, as we think about the processing and processor capabilities, those should have a margin profile greater than the corporate average.

And therefore, as that scales over time, that will help the overall mix of Synaptics.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Krish Sankar with TD Cowen.

Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan: First one, Ken, I had a question for you on revenues and gross margins. It seems like since early '24, your revenues have been growing roughly $10 million a quarter, and I understand it's hard to forecast. I'm just wondering, is there a hockey stick recovery ahead? Or is it going to be gradual? And on the gross margin side, I'm wondering if there's any leverage in the model from a gross margin drop-through standpoint since your gross margins have been remarkably stable around the 16.5% levels over the last several quarters despite revenues inching up slowly. And I have a follow-up for Rahul.

Ken Rizvi: Perfect. Okay. Thanks for the question. So if you look at the revenues, I think one of the factors over the last several quarters has been just working through, right, from the COVID boom and coming through a more challenging inventory environment post-COVID, we've worked through that inventory levels. And so inventories in the channel, even for us have been very -- have leaned out. And now over the last couple of quarters, we've been shipping towards end demand and gaining traction, as you've seen on the core IoT piece over the last several quarters. So that should continue to fuel our growth as we think about the outer years.

From a margin standpoint, a lot of it is dependent because we are fabless, it is dependent on the mix and in some cases, the mix within the mix. And so as I mentioned on my last -- the last question, one of the things the team has done a really fantastic job on the operations side is there have been headwinds in cost. We've done a great job maintaining that margin profile and absorbing it. I think on a longer-term basis, the mix and the mix of some of our products such as in the processor category, those are going to help fuel the long-term margins of the company. And so that's kind of where we are today.

Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan: That's very helpful. And then a quick follow-up for Rahul. On the Astra SR series, when will it be deployed? And is Google just partnering with you? Or are they using other silicon designers, too?

Rahul Patel: Krishna, thank you for the question. The SR series is our microcontroller -- AI-native microcontroller platform. It is targeting a mass market along with what we are doing for one large semi-custom customer on this program. So I'm not sure whether I'm answering your question, but your ask was very specific to a particular OEM, and I'm not at the liberty of giving you that or divulge into the name of the OEM at this point.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Rolland with Susquehanna.

Christopher Rolland: And perhaps following up on that last one. Without divulging any customer names or details, if you could update us on the semi-custom chip opportunity. I don't know if you're able to size that or not yet? And then have you received any interest from others for semi-custom chips as well?

Rahul Patel: Chris, this is Rahul. That semi-custom -- I mean, I think there was a question from Neil earlier, and I indicated, I think that semi-custom is -- the way we look at semi-custom is one that delivers a home run right off the bat, right? And I think that is how you should think about semi-custom for us. The customer has got material skin in the game, and we will build a product that differentiates their platform and ultimately uniquely takes them to the marketplace across their entire portfolio of products in that class of products, right? And so I think -- we are also in multiple discussions on semi-custom designs. However, there's not much to share at this point.

But going back to the portfolio, the IP capabilities that we present, clearly, both in physical AI and edge AI, there is strong customer interest to do semi-custom opportunity. We have a very clear set of OpEx envelope to work with, and we are very judicious in how we go through and evaluate those opportunities and work through them. But there is definitely a tremendous amount of interest in doing semi-custom with Synaptics.

Christopher Rolland: Excellent. And I apologize, it's a busy day if questions were asked already. I know you had some details around your Astra products, but you have a pretty extensive road map of new products coming as well, whether it's like MCU or connectivity, different flavors like Wi-Fi 7, for example. I was wondering if you could update us as to not sampling, but revenue ramps for a few of these new products. And then lastly, in the Broadcom IP purchase, I think you had -- maybe it was UWB. There was a technology, I forgot exactly what it was. I think it was UWB, it might have been something else.

But you weren't sure if you were going to pursue that and put R&D resources into that. Did you ever and it seems like maybe in robotics, there could be some functionality there. Just curious what you did with that.

Rahul Patel: Yes. I think -- so 2 questions, I believe, you have. First one is the Astra revenue ramp. So we've guided this is going to be calendar '27 event. We'll start seeing the ramp towards the end of the year, calendar year and obviously, material as we progress through the year 2027. Regarding various products, we have -- right now in production, 3 Astra products and in multiple customer design engagements. One is in sample stage, which is our microcontroller with NPU or being AI native with Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth all in a single die, and that is in sample stage.

And then later this year, we will, in the fall, sample the semi-custom MCU with the Google Coral NPU embedded in it as well. And so that 3 or 4 products will ramp in calendar 2027, and that will be the Astra revenue in '27. I think you had a second question, I lost track of it.

Christopher Rolland: Yes. There was a -- it was a UWB.

Rahul Patel: Yes, with the UWB. Yes, we do have that IP in our portfolio. And we are not doing a whole lot with it right now. However, we are consistently evaluating opportunities. UWB presents an interesting use case outside of digital car key in locationing. And so that use case absolutely is something that we constantly evaluate and especially for indoor applications.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Martin Yang with OpCo.

Martin Yang: First question on your engagement with robotics customers. Do you have direct relationship with all those 35 OEMs? Or are you able to leverage certain distributors or channel partners to engage those robotics customers?

Rahul Patel: Martin, this is Rahul. All our engagements are direct at this point. And in many situations, it's direct engineering to engineering engagement largely because this is a new frontier in what the end platforms are trying to accomplish. And the depth of technology, engagement, implementation details is not something that is ready to be consumed through traditional channels like distribution. And so we are very mindful of what we do. We also have a partner that we have worked with that can get into a broader marketplace. We've announced and we have indicated that on multiple marketing forums, the partner is Grinn.

And we will try to bring up other partners where they can go engage with other customers that we may not be able to scale on our own, and they help us scale. So they are a scaling partner for us. However, a majority of the designs that I described in tactile sensing are direct engagement that tactile sensing and interface are direct engagements with Synaptics.

Martin Yang: One more question on robotics. So can you maybe educate us on the advantage of capacitive approach versus other potential sensing solutions, maybe optical, maybe pressure-based. Are the robotics customers taking capacitive as the winning solution? Or are they at this stage, still evaluating different approaches for tactile sensing?

Rahul Patel: Yes. I think it's a very good question. And so something I indicated earlier, the performance along the lines of creating equivalency or transcending biological sensory capabilities of what a typical hand does on the dimension of robustness, latency of inference, the accuracy, the grip, all of that working in adverse conditions is going to, at some point, evolve requiring multimodal implementation and inference capabilities, and that's going to require more than one sensing capability. However, all of that probably is a roadmap item on these platforms.

Today, majority of them are seeing capacitive sensing in the capability that Synaptics is bringing to the forefront, the signal-to-noise ratio capabilities, the number of channels that we support, the level of accuracy, the latency of inference, the AI-enabled touch controlling implementations. I think those are the areas where Synaptics continues to excel in the eyes of customers when they bring capacitors touch sensing versus other sensing technologies in the platform.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Peter Peng with JPMorgan.

Peter Peng: You guys pointed out just the cross-selling opportunities in the humanoid with your products. Maybe can you point us to some example of other end applications that you guys are working on that you have the opportunity to also cross-sell with your multiple products?

Rahul Patel: Yes. So I think, Peter, this is Rahul. No, robotics is a very broad category by itself. Humanoid is one big platform category within robotics. And in -- if you look at the dexterous hand, right, of a robot or a humanoid, you have the opportunity to combine our AI native processing capabilities along with our touch sensing capabilities and also wireless connectivity for peer-to-peer or robot-to-robot communication or robot to the network communication, right? And so I think you can see a lot of these ultimately lends to cross-selling of and pull-through of one product on the backs of the other product because we come in with a system-level solution sale, right?

We come in with some pre-integrated software capabilities to the platform. Regarding other platforms in Edge AI, absolutely. Every time there is an Astra sale, it pulls through our connectivity, right? However, I would also highlight our connectivity gets situated on many non-Synaptics processing platforms as well, and that opens the door for us to kind of ultimately bring in Astra to pair up with our connectivity. And so there's a lot of cross-selling across the company in terms of end markets going on right now.

Peter Peng: Got it. And then just on the core IoT, I think the June quarter kind of implies kind of in this 20-ish percent year-on-year growth. Is that kind of the rate that we should expect before that big ramp in the first half of 2027? Maybe any color on whether that's a sustainable growth rate or maybe we have to wait for the first half to see further acceleration?

Ken Rizvi: Peter, it's Ken. Thanks for the question. So I think if you look at the last year, right, we've actually had very nice growth on a year-over-year basis overall. So based on the midpoint of the guide, if you look at the core IoT segment, should be north of $385 million or so and call it, 40% plus type of growth on a year-over-year basis. There will always be some ebbs and flows quarter-to-quarter. But the goal that we outlined previously was on a longer-term basis, can we drive that core IoT business to be north of that 25% range overall. And so obviously, quarter-to-quarter ebbs and flows.

But if you just step back, look on a holistic basis, and you look at this year and even last year, we've had really good performance in that portfolio.

Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Rahul Patel for closing remarks.

Rahul Patel: Before we close, I want to thank our global team for their continued focus and execution. Synaptics is making solid progress on strategic priorities and expanding its position in key growth areas. Thank you all for joining us today, and we appreciate your continued support. Have a great rest of the day.

Operator: Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.