Let's go, let's go ahead and get started. I'm Joe Quatrochi, the Semiconductor Semicap Analyst here for Wells Fargo. Excited to have the Synaptics team, Ken, Ken Rizvi, wow. Ken Rizvi. Ken Rizvi, CFO, as well as Munjal from the IR team. Maybe just to start, like, kind of level set, like, the discussion, can you just give us, like, a brief inf, like, you know, description of Synaptics, where the story. Yeah. Has been, where you're going, what's most exciting, and I'll, like, got. Yeah, we, I mean, maybe I'll take a step back for those. Oh, first, thank, thanks for having us, Joe. Really appreciate it. I'll maybe take a step back for those in the room or those new to the story. I mean, we have a very rich history, actually been around for 40 years or so, and have gone through several evolutions in the company's history. Whether it's been on the PC side, on the Mobile Side, and now really focusing our efforts and the growth engine on this Core IoT segment, but specifically, AI at the Edge. We've had a ton of investments over the last couple of years, and we're starting to see some nice growth trends that we'll go through here in a bit. We have really, I would say, three major technologies that we are prosecuting for Synaptics. One is around our interface products. That can be Video Interface, Human Interface Products. That is based on some of the architectures and the technology that we have developed over the last couple of decades. More recently, as we have been prosecuting this Edge AI segment of the market, we have been expanding into two areas. One is on the connectivity side, where we have been building up that portfolio, primarily today on connectivity with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth combo chips, unbelievable portfolio in terms of the high-performance capabilities with Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 7, which we are executing to today. We have a clear roadmap on Wi-Fi 8 as well, and then more broad market solutions in the connectivity side. The last bit, which is maybe the most exciting piece, is the processor portion of our business, which, and we've been talking about, and if you've heard us through previous Analyst Days and heard us over the last couple of earnings calls, talking about this Astra platform. In the last couple of years, we've, behind the scenes, been working on this Far-Edge AI processor. We've built it up from the ground to focus on applications at the far Edge. We just started sampling this product in October, and it should go GA in Calendar Year q2 of 2026. That's got a lot of excitement from our customer base, from the ecosystem. We have this great collaboration with Google on it, and that's a vector of growth for us as we think about the next couple of years. Really some Foundational Technology, Mixed-signal, Analog-oriented Technology and capabilities with our interface portfolio, and this growth engine that's ahead of us, on Core IoT with a focus on AI at the Edge. If I just step back the last six quarters, and seven if you include our guide, we've grown that business 50%+ on a year-over-year basis. We've had some nice, nice growth here over the last six to seven quarters. That's, that's perfect. Maybe let's start kind of there in the, in the Core IoT. I mean, can you talk about just, like, what's driving that momentum? You know, is it, is it specific in markets and different product perspectives? Like, just kind of help us understand, like, what, what is the, the key driver there? Yeah, and we talked a little bit about this on our earnings call. If you look at that Core IoT portion of our business, there are really two major product categories: the connectivity piece as well as that processor piece. Fair to say the connectivity portion of our revenue stream within Core IoT is the majority of that product line category. Although we have seen growth on a year-over-year basis on both aspects, both Processors and the Connectivity portion. It is a couple of factors. One, there definitely has been this rebound from the bottom as we have come through this COVID boom and a bit of a hangover here the last couple of years. From an inventory standpoint, supply chain standpoint, when we look to the Distribution channel, which today for us is very much a Logistics-oriented channel, that has leaned out. That's probably, at levels, definitely at levels, Pre-COVID. Very lean inventory, from that perspective. That has helped in terms of shipping to end demand. It is based on product wins in a variety of categories. Those can be applications like drones, where we've seen nice growth on a year-over-year basis, Security Cameras, other Video Intensive Applications where we have the Best-of-breed Capabilities with our Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. That has helped grow on that portion of the segment. The processor piece today is very much based on the legacy architecture, but what is ahead of us is this new architecture that we're just sampling as of October. Okay. That's helpful. We'll get to the Astra platform. Anything to add, Munjal? No, I think you covered it well. I think, yeah. Perfect. We—that's perfect. So we'll get to the Astra platform in a sec. But, like, maybe just if I think about, like, the existing platform, like, the connectivity piece of it, what do you think is, like, the competitive differentiation that, you know, you're seeing, like, design wins and success from? Yeah. So, if you look at our capabilities today, we probably have close to 500 engineers prosecuting our connectivity business. We think it is a leading team, especially for engineers that are focused on that IoT market. If you look from a performance standpoint, whether it's our Wi-Fi 6, but now Wi-Fi 7 capabilities and a clear roadmap into Wi-Fi 8, from a customer standpoint as well as engineering standpoint, that's really driving the success of the portfolio. Today, I would say very much on the high-performance side where, so think of video-oriented applications or rate of arranges is a key factor. We are driving the leading-Edge performance at, or within IoT. We are introducing this broad market solution, which will still enable our customers to have very strong performance, but at a much more cost-competitive price point. Okay. Just to add on, on Wi-Fi 7 for the types of devices that we play into, which is IoT types of devices, you're just starting to see the adoption happen now, right? That is the drive. Wi-Fi 7 also is a driver from that perspective for IoT types of devices. Wi-Fi 7 is still, I mean, when you start to see that more material, is that 2026 or is that 2027? Oh, we're seeing it now, and it should continue to proliferate as we move Calendar Year 2026. Okay. Into the beginning of 2027, you'll start to see 2027-2028 timeframe, Calendar Year 2027-2028, you'll start to see this transition into Wi-Fi 8. Typically what happens is it moves from the network all the way down to IoT devices. Our focus is obviously on the IoT side. That's where we think we have that leadership position. Okay. That's helpful. Maybe switch gears a little bit and talk about processors. You know, can you talk us through, like, the existing product portfolio and then, you know, how the Astra platform expands that and differentiates, you know, really your position in that market? Sure. We had some Core capabilities on the processor side, all the way back to, I think, 2017 or so, from an acquisition. What we've been doing, especially over the last couple of years, is building on this architecture and really creating this new class of product where we believe with this NPU capability, it's really AI-first in terms of the architecture. We have this partnership with Google that we've embedded their Core RISC-V NPU along with our NPU into an overall AI engine that we call Torque. That is a platform that has been in development. This new Astra 2600 Series incorporates that Torque AI engine. We believe, in terms of value and at this price point, we're gonna deliver capabilities that customers haven't seen at these levels. The ability to enable AI for the far Edge and AI everywhere is something that we're trying to architect with our customer base. That partnership with Google is very important because they have a similar view of the world, right? We're very much aligned in the sense of this open-source view of the world. It is not a closed architecture. This is very much an open-source view of the world where, given the fragmentation of all these models that are out there and all this development that is going to happen in the far Edge for Hybrid Compute, we're gonna help enable that with our customers and our partners. Maybe double-click a little bit on that, on the Google partnership. I mean. Sure. What was the, I guess, how did that come about and, like, what was that, you know, competitive process of, I think you're kind of one of the first to work with them in this particular, like. Sure. Application. Like, just take us through, like, what that looked like. Yeah. We announced that collaboration agreement, I believe, in January of this past year. We have been working with them even before then. If you look back, we have been supporting a number of their devices over the last, you know, four, five, six years, if you look at our connectivity solutions and some of the other devices that we have been selling into them. We have been working with them hand in hand. We are, I believe, the first to embed this RISC-V architecture, this Core NPU into an IC. That collaboration has been going on for the last couple of years and working hand in hand with their R&D team on this capability. For us, it is super exciting. It is a view that it opens up a Big Potential Ecosystem. When you think about someone like Google, there are not only the 1P opportunities, the devices that they sell, but there are also opportunities as they expand their ecosystem so that 3P capability and also with contract manufacturers and the like. That really is the exciting piece of this partnership. I'll just add that they chose us. Yeah. It was, when we announced the partnership, you know, Google worked with us. They liked what we were capable of, and they chose to work with us or chose to partner with us. Right. Okay. I guess, so I guess if you think about, like, just, you know, the Astra platform and just kind of maybe help us understand, like, you know, the, the competitive differentiation. Obviously, you've talked about some of that. Sure. The lead that you have, you think, or you think you have there relative to peers and just, you know, the differentiation from, is it, is it performance? Is it power? Kind of help us understand. I think it's gonna be a combination. I, you know, we feel like we're probably a couple of years ahead of where the competitors are in terms of where, when we started the development of this architecture and where that platform is today. You know, needless to say, we have an NPU class of products that we've just announced. You can assume we have another, we've been working as well as another, for another class of products, more of an MCU class of products, in the background that we talked about, for next year. So we're really building out this processor family and platforms that can then have derivatives off of these platforms. And so we believe we're a couple of years ahead of where the competition is. We obviously have to move fast, but welcome to the world of semis. You gotta move. Sure. You gotta move fast. That partnership is critical. From a capability standpoint, if we think about that far Edge, you need, I mean, latency's important, power's important, security's important. We think having this open-source capability's important. We think all of these factors enable us to win with the customers. That ecosystem is obviously one of those factors as well. Okay. The other pieces, right? Like, I mean, I think you talked about the samp, you've been in sampling. What, what has that kind of initial feedback been like from customers? What type of, like, products are it. Yeah. That you can share? Like, what applications are kind of the initial ones we should be thinking about? Yeah. We had a tech day in the middle of October. We had a few hundred of our customers and ecosystem players there. There was a great forum there that's on our YouTube channel if you wanna go take a look at it in terms of outlining what the capabilities are and why some of the ecosystem and Device Manufacturers are excited about the products in terms of the technology and some of the items I just referenced in terms of power, security. Yeah. Compute capabilities and the value at this, at this price point. That has been some of the interaction. If you look at what areas that we're targeting, it can be applications, you know, such as drones. It can be, think on the industrial side, think of Fleet Management Applications. On the consumer side, think of smart home applications and wearables, because those are where we see the far Edge needing AI. The ability to really incorporate this NPU, both from Google and ourselves, as well as the Co-processors that are in there for vision and for voice, I mean, it's really a unique set of architectures that we've incorporated into this monolithic chip. Yeah. That's helpful. You know, I think you talked about shipping for revenue still in front of us. Yes. What are maybe, like, some of the milestones that we should be paying attention to over the next several quarters, like, that, you know, that kind of helps us judge, like, the success of the launch or the magnitude that we should be kind of thinking about entering the model eventually? Yeah. It is a great question. It is one of the, this is a new area for us in terms of this category of products that we are developing. We will, the samples have come out fantastic. Actually, the tape outs were in, I think, about six weeks or four weeks before our tech day. The fact that within a four-week time, we could turn it from that to samples and to have demos available tells you the product came out very, very strong. Now, we are in that hardening process in terms of the technology. It will go GA here in Q2. From a metric standpoint, I think between now and, call it the middle Calendar Year q2, you will start to hear about the Pipeline Evolution. The fact is the pipeline is big if you look overall, but how that evolves into both the design ends and design wins, that we have visibility into. We will start to talk about those types of metrics, for both the processor side as well as some of the broad market connectivity solutions we are coming out with. Okay. I guess, you know, if you're thinking about, you know, we're gonna sit here a year from now, you know, how would you define, like, success for this platform in, like, the first initial few quarters or year or pick your timeframe, kind of, like, what, what would a success look like to you? Yeah. It will be just a continued build-out and proliferation of this product line and the various platforms that we've talked about into the entire ecosystem. That will be, whether it's from Industrial Applications, Robotic Applications, to the Consumer Applications. I think that what, from a financial perspective, what we should start to see is that revenue start to grow. We'll outline that over this period of time in terms of that processor, the wins, the ends, the wins, and then eventually the revenue and how that accelerates our growth in that IoT segment. Okay. Maybe, maybe take the opposite side of it. What do you think's, like, maybe the biggest risk? Like, is it market adoption of just kind of Edge AI slower than expected? Like, how do you think, how do you frame that? I mean, I think that's always a risk whenever you have new technology that's out there, is what is that Rate of Adoption. What we're seeing is such a tremendous amount of investment in the infrastructure. Our belief is that when we think about compute and we think about hybrid compute overall, that has to move down into the Edge because where we connect with our devices, and if we believe we want AI everywhere, then we're gonna connect on a physical basis with devices that are near to us. Our belief is that that compute will move into the Edge and into the far Edge in a very fast manner because we've had an unprecedented amount of compute spend at the cloud, but all of the touch points that we have to our physical world will be at the Edge. Okay. Maybe shift gears a little bit and let's talk about the wireless business. Sure. Can you talk just a little bit about, like, the portfolio there? You know, I think you guys have acquired, like, some assets and things from Broadcom. What does that bring to you and kind of where the trajectory of that business? Sure. Yeah. Happy to do that. You're spot on. That That business started in the 2020, 2021 timeframe, and we've grown it over that period. I would say, you know, if you look at the assets that we acquired, you know, we have full access and we own the IP and we're able to prosecute that IP, essentially across all applications. There are a couple of restrictions that we have, but in general, anything IoT related, we're able to prosecute this technology with. The team that we've built is best in class, we believe. It's 500+ engineers that are prosecuting this primarily in lower-cost regions. We think that's nice from a competitive standpoint. If you look at that IP, it is probably the highest performance Wi-Fi that's out there. The interoperability, all the way back, you know, several generations is one of the critical factors. We are excited about the team. We are excited about that IP and the ability to continue to migrate that from Wi-Fi 7 into Wi-Fi 8, and then more specifically, be able to leverage that technology and go after this broad market opportunity set over the next several years. That, in and of itself, the broad market opportunity, expands our SAN by about $2 billion-$3 billion. That is a space that we have not historically played in. It is an opportunity that is still ahead of us. We have a couple solutions that are coming out that will address that. That is the exciting piece. Okay. Anything else you wanna add? No. I think you mentioned a couple of solutions. I mean, I don't know if you wanna, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We talked a little bit about Wi-Fi 7 a bit ago, as well. Maybe on the mobile side, you're gonna talk about just kind of the growth opportunities relative to, like. Yeah. You know, overall Android market. I think you talked about, like, strong interest from, from some Chinese OEMs and things. Sure. Maybe just start there. Yeah. So, you know, one of the areas of our portfolio, it was about 15% of our overall business, is around mobile touch products. Where we focus on today is primarily the High-end Android market. We think we have Best-in-class signal-to-noise Ratio. So, for touch products for the High-end, customers come to us in terms of leading-Edge technology. Historically, we've been more focused on the Candy bar phones or Vertical Foldable phones. One of the things that we've announced here in the last quarter or so is this new architecture, this Multi-frequency Touch Architecture, that enables us to get into the Horizontal Foldable phones. We also talked about a win here with a Korean customer on our last earnings call. That opens up a new SAM opportunity for us because when you think about the Foldable phone market and the Horizontal Foldable phones, you basically have two screens. You have the large screen and then you have an outside screen. It essentially can hopefully more than double our content opportunity. One. What is that rep or the SAM expansion within the smartphone market? That is the second opportunity that is ahead of us. That technology is one that we also think can expand into larger screens over a period of time. Today, it is very much focused on the phone market. Okay. I guess maybe one day, foldable tablets, something like that? It can go into fold and also, you know, potentially into applications like PCs or other even larger scale applications down the road. Okay. You're saying, I guess you said it's a 2x increase for the foldable versus, like, kind of a traditional, or is the, I assume that, that touch controller might be a little bit different? Yeah. I would say if you look at the content opportunity, it'd be more than 2x. Part of it is. Yeah. You have one, a larger screen. The content opportunity for that larger screen is, the ASP should be a little bit higher. Then, you typically have two screens per each foldable phone. Yep. Okay. Maybe on the, on the enterprise and, and automotive side, you know, PCs have been pretty, pretty stable. Yeah. Maybe even a little, very slight growth. Can you talk about just kind of what you're seeing there from a demand perspective? How do you think about, like, Windows 10 End of Life and, like, AI PC dynamics? Yeah. We, I mean, within the PC segment, I would say it's a franchise business for us in the sense that, in a lot of the markets that we have, in the mixed-signal analog-esque oriented markets, we are either a number one position or a strong number two position in these markets. They are very much unit-driven markets, but they provide, you know, very good margins, very good cash flow for us. We retain very high share with those customers. What we have seen, and whether it's an AI PC or, let's say, a non-AI PC, our content on average is about the same. It's really what is going to help us is that unit growth. We have seen, I would say, more of a steady progression on the enterprise side, but we have not seen a step function inflection as a result of this PC refresh. If we just step back, when was the last time we saw a big refresh? That was during the 2021-2022 timeframe. I think there were something like 400 million PCs that were upgraded around that period. That is an opportunity. We have not seen that yet. I think that is an opportunity as we look Calendar Year 2026, as Windows 10, or as we start to see the End of Life of some of these PCs and a refresh on the Enterprise Side. Okay. Okay. On the Automotive side, I think, you know, we've seen kind of a pretty difficult kind of cycle, right? Yeah. Like, across the board. You know, maybe talk about, like, what you're seeing there and then, you know, on top of just kind of flat start or something, you know, right? Or maybe there's some mixed benefits. But what are the content, you know, opportunities that are unique to Synaptics? Yeah. Automotive, we do have this product category, enterprise and automotive. I think one of the things that we've outlined on our earnings call is the growth or we've seen a growth on the enterprise side where automotive's been a bit more sluggish here overall. If you look at our exposure, it's primarily on the display side. We have reasonable share there. The one area where I think is an opportunity for us as we think over the midterm and long term is really expanding more geographically. Today, we ship into U.S., European, Japanese auto manufacturers. The China market is one that we have not expanded into historically. That's an area that provides some opportunity as we think about the next couple of years. How do you think about just, like, the margin structure of, like, trying to go into, to China? I mean, the, you know, trying to penetrate the incumbent. Sure. Fair enough. If you look at our portfolio overall and where we try to target, it's typically at the high end. Yeah. Whether it's on the mobile phone side, whether it's on the PC side, whether, you know, where we're focused on the enterprise market, it's where the customers are valuing that technology. Same thing within the China market. It's gonna be where there's value for the technology, and the quality and the performance that we're delivering. There's always an opportunity for that. Okay. Maybe shift gears a little bit. You know, I know you're gonna, you're gonna have an Analyst Day next year. Sure. Can you just spend some time, like, talking about, like, the Long-term Model, how you think about, like, the progression of that? Sure. You know, obviously, like, you know, where we come from and kind of where it's going. Yeah. So, you know, we had an Analyst Day back in 2023 timeframe. And so we, you know, our intention is to have an Analyst Day here Calendar Year 2026. You know, Rahul just joined about seven months or so ago. That's been fantastic for the company in terms of really driving the direction of the business towards Core IoT and expansion within AI at the Edge. And as part of the Analyst Day, we'll outline the model. But in terms of what we've talked about is this 57% gross margin target and getting to about 30%, I think, op margins at $1.6 billion in sales. And so if you look at those levers, the biggest driver are really a couple of factors on the margin side. We have been for the last couple of quarters in this 53%-54% range here for the last couple of quarters on the gross margin side on a non-GAAP basis. The levers to improve that margin profile will be one, mix within mix with, so in any of our product categories, there are certain of our products that have a much higher gross margin percentage. If we can drive the mix, that's going to help us out. As we think about the mid and long term, it is driving the portfolio towards both more processors, as well as more solutions. Those inherently should have a better margin profile, which can help us over that mid and long term. Okay. When I think about just kind of driving towards that and, you know, like, just kind of to support. Sure. You know, the Astra platform ramping, other investments that you need to make. Yeah. Like, from a, whether it be Go-to-market perspective, I think you kind of talked about channel right now is more of. Sure. Maybe fulfillment than, like, demand creation. You know, just to maybe talk about, like, that dynamic. Yeah. Sure. So I, and it's a good question. As we think about the investment profile, it is what you've outlined there. There's a couple of things that we need to continue to do. One is this Go-to-market engine. As we think about the customer base, for Edge AI and for the Core IoT segment, it's a different, some of them are gonna be different customers, than we've traditionally serviced. And so building out that Go-to-market engine, both from a channel perspective, from a Sales FAE perspective, from a partnership perspective, all of that are things that we'll have to continue to invest in within a reasonable envelope. You know, the goal is how do we grow our revenues but also grow our earnings faster than that, that revenue growth over that period. To do that within a reasonable envelope is critical to us. For instance, in this most recent guide, we've talked about the fact that OpEx will go up a little bit. That's to support that continued investment on the Go-to-market piece. Also within the Edge AI space, there will be some Incremental Software Investments that we have to make, on the application side and the like. That will also occur, but within the envelope that we're talking about. Okay. I mean, the couple of minutes we have left here, you know, can you talk about Capital Allocation? How do you think about. Sure. You know, balancing focus of cash M&A versus share repo? Yeah. If we look broadly speaking, the categories that we think about for Capital Allocation, first and foremost, invest in the business, and invest in the opportunity that we have ahead of ourselves, which is significant. Number two is we have done some M&A. If there are opportunities to do some tuck-ins, or Aqua hires and the like to enable our capabilities to really accelerate the growth in the Core IoT portion of our business or Edge AI portion of the business, we will look at those opportunities. Then it is a function of returning capital back to our shareholders. If you look last year, we spent or used about $128 million to return capital, vis-à-vis share repurchases back to our shareholders. In July, we announced a $150 million share repurchase program that we are executing towards as well. and then finally maintain reasonable leverage. Our net leverage is very reasonable today at under two turns. Perfect. Maybe just kind of round up the discussion. You know, I think. Sure. You take a step back and you think about, like, the Synaptics story. What do you think is maybe, like, underappreciated or, or what do you think, like, investors or myself need to spend more time working on? I would say if we look back and look ahead, looking ahead, we have an unbelievable opportunity. One, we have these Core technologies and capabilities with our mixed signal portfolio that are producing, you know, great returns for the company overall. Two, this opportunity that we have ahead with Edge AI, right? If we're believers that AI needs to move to the Edge and the far Edge, we feel like we're well-positioned to capture that opportunity set over the mid and long term. We are just now coming out with this new architecture on the processor side. It's very exciting for us. We think it's gonna be exciting for the marketplace and the overall ecosystem. We have this great potential to capture that opportunity at the far Edge with this Astra platform, with this collaboration with Google on this quarrel architecture and with our overall Torque AI engine. All these things are exciting for us as we think about the next couple of years. Perfect. We'll end it right there. Okay. Thanks for joining us. Hey, really appreciate it. Thank you, Joe. Thanks.