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So… what’s happening this week?
Vicor (VICR) lastly introduced its “Fab 2” location, with a deal to accumulate property in Merrimack, New Hampshire for his or her growth plans. It can take a 12 months or so to construct up the primary new Fab, we’re informed, and it gained’t be free, however they’ve ambition to develop even past that… and at the very least the clock is ticking now for the development course of, and buyers can begin to think about the capability ramp-up. We’ll see how they discuss concerning the timeline and the demand on their subsequent convention name (in a couple of month), whereas the inventory rides the ups and downs of the AI/semiconductor euphoria/despair cycle.
In order that was encouraging final week… but it surely wasn’t the large information, the large replace this week was that Vicor licensed their expertise to a different firm, which is what actually has the potential to ramp up Vicor’s income a lot sooner, even when they’ll’t truly get their very own manufacturing capability expanded as rapidly as massive clients would really like. And it’s royalties that initially attracted us to Vicor: not simply their key function in supplying energy provide modules for high-end chips, just like the wafer-scale engines at Cerebras (CBRS), but in addition the chance that with patent litigation up to now turning their route, exposing many infringing merchandise that may not be imported into the US, they’ll be capable of license their energy designs to a lot higher-volume producers… maybe turning into, in time, the royalty-driven Arm Holdings (ARM) of their smaller phase of the market.
We’re not there but. This can be a fairly open-ended settlement, with an unnamed licensee, so we don’t know what the income impression could be (it’s not as clear as their licensee introduced earlier within the 12 months, which had a hard and fast royalty payment payout over two years) — however there’s at the very least some potential for it to be massive, as a result of it primarily offers OEMs or hyperscalers some cowl to purchase in any other case patent-infringing gear from non-Vicor suppliers, but in addition to get reductions on the royalty payment due in the event that they purchase from Vicor straight. Right here’s how Vicor summed up the potential, in non-specific methods, of their press launch:
“Vicor has granted a non-exclusive license to a brand new OEM licensee with the fitting to obtain Vertical Energy Supply (VPD) modules lined by Vicor patents from unlicensed suppliers. VPD permits high-performance AI compute and community processors fueled at a excessive present density …