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Vicor Reports Rising Results from Rising XPU Bus Voltages

April 25, 2018 by Paul Shepard

Vicor Corporation reported revenues for the first quarter ended March 31, 2018, rose to $65,269,000, compared to $54,462,000 for the corresponding period a year ago, and rose from $58,771,000 for the fourth quarter of 2017. First quarter bookings rose to $81,907,000 from $57,891,000 for the corresponding period a year ago, and rose from $71,343,000 for the fourth quarter of 2017.

Gross margin rose to $30,211,000 for the first quarter of 2018, compared to $23,652,000 for the corresponding period a year ago, and rose from $26,931,000 for the fourth quarter of 2017.  Gross margin, as a percentage of revenue, rose to 46.3% for the first quarter of 2018, compared to 43.4% for the corresponding period a year ago, and rose from 45.8% for the fourth quarter of 2017.

Net income for the first quarter was $3,943,000, or $0.10 per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $(974,000), or $(0.02) per share, for the corresponding period a year ago and net income of $1,611,000, or $0.04 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2017.

Cash used for operating activities totaled $812,000 for the first quarter of 2018, compared to cash used for operating activities of $1,347,000 for the corresponding period a year ago and cash used for operating activities of $3,752,000 for the preceding fourth quarter of 2017. Cash and cash equivalents sequentially decreased by $1,552,000 to approximately $42,678,000 at the end of the first quarter of 2018 from $44,230,000 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017.

Total backlog at the end of the first quarter of 2018 was $89,975,000, compared to $73,054,000 at the end of 2017.

Commenting on recent developments, Dr. Patrizio Vinciarelli, Chief Executive Officer, stated, “The transition of XPUs (CPUs, GPUs and ASICs) to 48V is accelerating with the recent introduction of GPUs whose high performance is enabled by Power-on-Package Modular Current Multipliers.

“We believe data center and automotive applications of accelerated computing platforms will bring about broader conversion from 12V legacy infrastructure to 48V to efficiently power AI processors that draw more than 1000 Amperes at less than 1V while demanding greater I/O connectivity. This emerging trend is being reflected in our bookings and revenue growth," Dr. Vinciarelli added.

Watch the demonstration of Gyoukou, the ExaScaler/PEZY ZettaScaler-2.2 liquid immersion cooling supercomputer with a November 2017 Top500 ranking of #5 reported at 19.1PFlop/s and a Green500 ranking of #4 reported at 14.1GFlops/Watt.

Each tank within the system is comprised of 256 processors and utilizes 48V Factorized Power, a high-efficiency, high-density power distribution architecture. PEZY CPUs are co-packaged with Vicor Power-on-Package Modular Current Multipliers which enable efficient, direct 48V to sub-1V current multiplication at the XPU. The Gyoukou supercomputer is installed at the JAMSTEC Yokohama Research Institute in Japan.

Dr. Vinciarelli concluded, “With $90 million in backlog as of the end of Q1, Q2 revenues may increase nearly 10% sequentially. With rising volumes and economies of scale, gross margins are also expected to increase.”