微晶片科技 (MCHP) 2019 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Microchip's Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2019 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Eric Bjornholt, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

大家好，歡迎參加 Microchip 2019 財年第四季度財務業績電話會議。提醒一下，今天的通話正在錄音中。此時，我想將會議轉交給首席財務官 Eric Bjornholt。請繼續，先生。

Good morning, everybody. During the course of this conference call, we will be making projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We wish to caution you that such statements are predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. We refer you to our press releases of last evening as well as our recent filings with the SEC that identify important risk factors that may impact Microchip's business and results of operations.

大家早上好。在本次電話會議期間，我們將對未來事件或公司未來的財務業績做出預測和其他前瞻性陳述。我們想提醒您，此類陳述是預測，實際事件或結果可能存在重大差異。請參閱我們昨晚發布的新聞稿以及我們最近向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，這些文件確定了可能影響 Microchip 業務和運營結果的重要風險因素。

In attendance with me today are Steve Sanghi, Microchip's Chairman and CEO; and Ganesh Moorthy, Microchip's President and COO. I will comment on our fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2019 financial performance, and Steve and Ganesh will then give their comments on the results, discuss the current business environment as well as our guidance and provide an update on our integration activities associated with the Microsemi acquisition. We will then be available to respond to specific investor and analyst questions.

今天和我一起出席的有 Microchip 董事長兼首席執行官 Steve Sanghi； Microchip 總裁兼首席運營官 Ganesh Moorthy。我將評論我們 2019 年第四季度和整個財政年度的財務業績，然後 Steve 和 Ganesh 將對結果發表評論，討論當前的商業環境以及我們的指導意見，並提供我們與 Microsemi 相關的整合活動的最新情況獲得。然後我們將可以回答具體的投資者和分析師問題。

We are including information in our press release and this conference call on various GAAP and non-GAAP measures. We have posted a full GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation on the Investor Relations page of our website at www.microchip.com, which we believe you will find useful when comparing GAAP and non-GAAP results. I want to remind investors that during the quarter ending June 30, 2018, we adopted the new GAAP revenue recognition standard, which requires revenue to be recognized at the time products are sold to distributors versus our historical revenue recognition policy where revenue on such transactions were deferred until the product was sold by our distributors to an end customer. We continue to track and measure our performance internally based on direct revenue plus distribution sell-through activity and will provide a metric for this called end-market demand in our earnings release each quarter. Therefore, along with our GAAP and non-GAAP results, based on distribution sell-in, we will also provide investors with our end-market demand based on distribution sellout, but will not provide a P&L on end-market demand. End-market demand in the March 2019 quarter was $1.34 billion, which was $10.4 million above our GAAP revenue.

我們在新聞稿和本次電話會議中包含了有關各種 GAAP 和非 GAAP 措施的信息。我們在我們網站 www.microchip.com 的投資者關係頁面上發布了完整的 GAAP 與非 GAAP 調節表，我們相信您在比較 GAAP 和非 GAAP 結果時會發現它很有用。我想提醒投資者，在截至 2018 年 6 月 30 日的季度中，我們採用了新的 GAAP 收入確認標準，該標準要求在將產品出售給分銷商時確認收入，而我們的歷史收入確認政策是此類交易的收入是推遲到我們的分銷商將產品出售給最終客戶。我們繼續根據直接收入加上分銷銷售活動在內部跟踪和衡量我們的業績，並將在每個季度的收益發布中提供這種稱為終端市場需求的指標。因此，除了我們基於分銷銷售的 GAAP 和非 GAAP 結果，我們還將為投資者提供基於分銷銷售的終端市場需求，但不會提供終端市場需求的損益表。2019 年 3 月季度的終端市場需求為 13.4 億美元，比我們的 GAAP 收入高出 1040 萬美元。

I will now go through some of the operating results, including net sales, gross margin and operating expenses. I will be referring to these results on a non-GAAP basis, which is based on expenses prior to the effect of our acquisition activities, share-based compensation and certain other adjustments. Our fiscal 2019 non-GAAP results are calculated as the sum of the non-GAAP sell-through based information we disclosed previously for each of the first 3 quarters of fiscal 2019 plus the non-GAAP sell-in based information disclosed today for the first quarter of fiscal 2019.

我現在將介紹一些經營業績，包括淨銷售額、毛利率和經營費用。我將在非 GAAP 基礎上提及這些結果，這是基於我們的收購活動、基於股份的補償和某些其他調整影響之前的費用。我們的 2019 財年非 GAAP 業績計算為我們之前披露的 2019 財年前三個季度的非 GAAP 銷售信息加上今天披露的非 GAAP 銷售信息的總和2019 財年季度。

Net sales in the March quarter were $1.33 billion, which was above the midpoint of our guidance and down 3.3% sequentially. We have posted the summary of our GAAP net sales and end-market demand by product line and geography on our website for your reference. On a non-GAAP basis, gross margins were 62.2% and well above the midpoint of our guidance which was 61.5%. Operating expenses were at the low end of our guidance range at 25.8% of sales and operating income was $484.1 million and 36.4% of sales. Non-GAAP net income was $370.4 million. Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share was $1.48, which was over $0.08 above the midpoint of our guidance of $1.395.

3 月季度的淨銷售額為 13.3 億美元，高於我們指引的中點，環比下降 3.3%。我們已在我們的網站上發布了按產品線和地理位置劃分的 GAAP 淨銷售額和終端市場需求摘要，供您參考。在非 GAAP 基礎上，毛利率為 62.2%，遠高於我們指引的中點 61.5%。營業費用佔銷售額的 25.8%，處於我們指導範圍的低端，營業收入為 4.841 億美元，佔銷售額的 36.4%。非 GAAP 淨收入為 3.704 億美元。非 GAAP 每股攤薄收益為 1.48 美元，比我們 1.395 美元的指引中點高出 0.08 美元以上。

For fiscal 2019, on a non-GAAP basis, net sales were a record $5.476 billion and up 37.6% year-over-year. Gross margins were a record 62.1%. Operating expenses were 24.3% of sales. And operating income was 37.7% of sales. Net income was a record $1.636 billion, and non-GAAP EPS was a record $6.55 per diluted share.

2019 財年，按非美國通用會計準則計算，淨銷售額達到創紀錄的 54.76 億美元，同比增長 37.6%。毛利率達到創紀錄的 62.1%。營業費用佔銷售額的 24.3%。營業收入佔銷售額的 37.7%。淨收入達到創紀錄的 16.36 億美元，非美國通用會計準則每股收益達到創紀錄的每股攤薄收益 6.55 美元。

Please note that for fiscal year 2019, our non-GAAP results are based on our publicly reported non-GAAP results, which Q1 through Q3, as I mentioned before, were based on sell-through revenue recognition in the distribution channels, and Q4 was based on sell-in revenue recognition in the distribution channel. Fiscal year 2020 non-GAAP results will be based on sell-in revenue recognition in line with our GAAP revenue reporting and the revenue recognition standard adopted during the first quarter of fiscal 2019.

請注意，對於 2019 財年，我們的非 GAAP 結果是基於我們公開報告的非 GAAP 結果，正如我之前提到的，第一季度到第三季度是基於分銷渠道的銷售收入確認，而第四季度是基於分銷渠道中的銷售收入確認。2020 財年非 GAAP 業績將根據我們的 GAAP 收入報告和 2019 財年第一季度採用的收入確認標準，根據銷售收入確認。

On a GAAP basis, gross margins were 61.7% and include the impact of $4 million of share-based compensation and $1.8 million of acquired inventory valuation costs. Total operating expenses were $535.9 million and include acquisition intangible amortization of $176.9 million, special income of $23.3 million, $4.4 million of acquisition-related and other costs, and share-based compensation of $35.1 million. The GAAP net income was $174.7 million or $0.70 per diluted share and includes an income tax benefit of $23.5 million. The GAAP tax benefit in the quarter related to a variety of matters including tax reserve releases due to statute of limitations expiring, tax reform refinements and tax benefits associated with restructuring of the Microsemi operations into the Microchip global structure.

按 GAAP 計算，毛利率為 61.7%，包括 400 萬美元的股權補償和 180 萬美元的收購庫存估值成本的影響。總運營費用為 5.359 億美元，包括 1.769 億美元的收購無形攤銷、2330 萬美元的特殊收入、440 萬美元的收購相關成本和其他成本，以及 3510 萬美元的股份補償。GAAP 淨收入為 1.747 億美元或每股攤薄收益 0.70 美元，包括 2350 萬美元的所得稅收益。本季度的 GAAP 稅收優惠與各種事項有關，包括因時效到期而釋放的稅收儲備金、稅收改革細化以及與將 Microsemi 業務重組為 Microchip 全球結構相關的稅收優惠。

On a GAAP basis for fiscal 2019, net sales were a record $5.35 billion and up 34.4% year-over-year. Gross margins were 54.8%, operating expenses were 41.4% of sales, and operating income was 13.4% of sales. Net income was $355.9 million, and EPS was $1.42 per diluted share.

根據 GAAP，2019 財年淨銷售額達到創紀錄的 53.5 億美元，同比增長 34.4%。毛利率為 54.8%，營業費用佔銷售額的 41.4%，營業收入佔銷售額的 13.4%。淨收入為 3.559 億美元，攤薄後每股收益為 1.42 美元。

The non-GAAP cash tax rate was 1.4% in the March quarter and 3% for fiscal year 2019. For cash planning purposes, we were able to defer the payment of some of our fiscal '19 taxes into fiscal '20, and this was one of the reasons our FY '19 tax rate was lower than originally projected. We expect our non-GAAP tax rate for fiscal '20 to be between 5% and 6%, exclusive of the transition tax, any potential tax associated with restructuring of the Microsemi operations into the Microchip global structure and any tax audit settlements related to taxes accrued in prior fiscal years. We have many tax attributes and net operating losses and tax credits as well as U.S. interest deductions that we believe will keep our cash tax payments low. The future cash tax payments associated with the transition tax is expected to be about $246 million and will be paid over the next 7 years. We have posted a schedule of our projected transition tax payments on the Investor Relations page of our website.

非 GAAP 現金稅率在 3 月季度為 1.4%，在 2019 財年為 3%。出於現金規劃的目的，我們能夠將 19 財年的部分稅款推遲到 20 財年，這是我們 19 財年稅率低於最初預期的原因之一。我們預計我們 20 財年的非 GAAP 稅率在 5% 到 6% 之間，不包括過渡稅、與將 Microsemi 業務重組為 Microchip 全球結構相關的任何潛在稅收以及與稅收相關的任何稅務審計結算在以前的財政年度應計。我們有許多稅收屬性和淨營業虧損和稅收抵免以及美國利息減免，我們相信這將使我們的現金納稅額保持在較低水平。與過渡稅相關的未來現金稅款預計約為 2.46 億美元，並將在未來 7 年內支付。我們已在我們網站的投資者關係頁面上發布了預計的過渡稅支付時間表。

Moving on to the balance sheet. You will notice that Microchip's accounts receivable balance is up significantly from the prior quarter. We have made an accounting presentation change to reclassify the distributor price adjustments that reduce the amount of cash we ultimately receive from our distributors from a reduction in the AR balance to an increase in accrued liabilities. Remember that we generally sell to our distributors at a price that is higher than the ultimate sales price and then that price is reduced by a distributor price adjustment when the ultimate sale occurs to the distributor's customers. Excluding this reclassification, our accounts receivable balance was up about $5 million in the quarter.

轉到資產負債表。您會注意到 Microchip 的應收賬款餘額較上一季度大幅增加。我們對會計報表進行了更改，以重新分類分銷商價格調整，這些調整減少了我們最終從分銷商處收到的現金金額，從 AR 餘額的減少到應計負債的增加。請記住，我們通常以高於最終銷售價格的價格銷售給我們的分銷商，然後當最終銷售發生在分銷商的客戶時，分銷商價格調整會降低該價格。排除此次重新分類，本季度我們的應收賬款餘額增加了約 500 萬美元。

Our inventory balance at March 31, 2019, was $711.7 million. All the inventory markup for Microsemi required for GAAP purchase accounting has now been sold through and is no longer reflected in the ending inventory balance. We had 128 days of inventory at the end of the March quarter, up 5 days from the prior quarter's level. Inventory at our distributors in the March quarter were at 35 days compared to 36 days at the end of December. We believe that barring any negative developments in the U.S.-China trade front, our distributors are holding a reasonable level of inventory to support end-market demand.

我們在 2019 年 3 月 31 日的庫存餘額為 7.117 億美元。GAAP 採購核算所需的所有 Microsemi 庫存加價現已售出，不再反映在期末庫存餘額中。截至 3 月季度末，我們有 128 天的庫存，比上一季度的水平增加了 5 天。我們經銷商在 3 月季度的庫存為 35 天，而 12 月底為 36 天。我們認為，除非美中貿易戰線出現任何負面發展，否則我們的分銷商持有合理水平的庫存以支持終端市場需求。

The cash flow from operating activities was $403.4 million in the March quarter. As of March 31, the consolidated cash and total investment position was $430.9 million. We paid down $277.5 million of total debt in the March quarter, and the net debt on the balance sheet reduced by $272.3 million. At March 31, our debt outstanding includes $3.267 billion of borrowings under our line of credit; $1.912 billion of term loan B; $2 billion in high-grade bonds; and $4.481 billion of convertible debt.

3 月季度經營活動產生的現金流量為 4.034 億美元。截至 3 月 31 日，綜合現金和總投資頭寸為 4.309 億美元。我們在 3 月季度償還了 2.775 億美元的總債務，資產負債表上的淨債務減少了 2.723 億美元。截至 3 月 31 日，我們的未償債務包括 32.67 億美元的信用額度借款； 19.12億美元的定期貸款B； 20億美元的高級債券；以及 44.81 億美元的可轉換債券。

Our EBITDA in the March quarter was $544.4 million, and our trailing 12-month EBITDA was $2.212 billion. Our net debt to EBITDA, excluding our very long dated convertible debt that matures in 2037 and is more equity-like in nature was 4.8 at March 31, 2019. Our net leverage metrics are based on 12-month trailing EBITDA, which will continue to provide some headwinds due to the distribution inventory reductions that were made in the June and September quarter for Microsemi, which caused our shipment activity to be significantly less than the end-market demand during these periods.

我們在 3 月季度的 EBITDA 為 5.444 億美元，過去 12 個月的 EBITDA 為 22.12 億美元。截至 2019 年 3 月 31 日，我們對 EBITDA 的淨債務（不包括 2037 年到期且性質更像股權的超長期可轉換債務除外）為 4.8。我們的淨槓桿指標基於過去 12 個月的 EBITDA，由於 Microsemi 在 6 月和 9 月季度減少了分銷庫存，這將繼續帶來一些不利因素，這導致我們的出貨活動明顯低於年底- 這些時期的市場需求。

The weaker economic environment also has negatively impacted our EBITDA in the December 2018 and March 2019 quarters. We are committed to using substantially all of our excess cash generation beyond our dividend payments to reduce our debt levels, and we expect our debt levels to reduce significantly over the next several years. Our dividend payment in the March quarter was $86.7 million.

較弱的經濟環境也對我們 2018 年 12 月和 2019 年 3 月季度的 EBITDA 產生了負面影響。我們致力於使用除股息支付之外的幾乎所有超額現金產生來降低我們的債務水平，我們預計我們的債務水平將在未來幾年內顯著降低。我們在 3 月季度支付的股息為 8670 萬美元。

Capital expenditures were $40.1 million in the March 2019 quarter and $228.9 million in fiscal year 2019. We expect about $35 million in capital spending in the June quarter and that overall capital expenditures for fiscal year 2020 to be between $130 million and $150 million. We continue to add capital to support the growth of our production capabilities for our new products and technologies and to bring in-house more of the assembly and test operations that are currently outsourced. These capital investments will bring some gross margin improvement to our business, particularly for the outsourced Atmel and Microsemi manufacturing activities that we are bringing into our own factories.

2019 年 3 月季度的資本支出為 4010 萬美元，2019 財年的資本支出為 2.289 億美元。我們預計 6 月季度的資本支出約為 3500 萬美元，2020 財年的總體資本支出將在 1.3 億美元至 1.5 億美元之間。我們繼續增加資本以支持我們新產品和技術生產能力的增長，並將更多目前外包的組裝和測試業務引入內部。這些資本投資將為我們的業務帶來一定的毛利率改善，特別是對於我們正在引入我們自己工廠的外包 Atmel 和 Microsemi 製造活動。

Depreciation expense in the March quarter was $48.4 million.

3 月季度的折舊費用為 4840 萬美元。

I will now turn it over to Ganesh to give us comments on the performance of the business in the March quarter and provide an update on some of the Microsemi integration activities. Ganesh?

我現在將其轉交給 Ganesh，讓我們對 3 月季度的業務表現發表評論，並提供一些 Microsemi 集成活動的最新情況。像頭神？

Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. Before I get started, I'd like to clarify that the product line comparisons I will be sharing with you today are based on end-market demand, which is how Microchip measures its performance internally. Let's start by taking a closer look at microcontrollers. Our microcontroller business was sequentially down 4.6% compared to the December quarter, reflecting the broad macro weakness in the markets we serve. Microcontrollers, however, were up 8.6% from the year ago quarter. On a fiscal year basis, fiscal year '19 microcontroller revenue was a record at over $3 billion and grew 15% over fiscal year '18. Microcontrollers represented 53.3% of our end-market demand in the March quarter.

謝謝你，埃里克，大家早上好。在開始之前，我想澄清一下，我今天要與大家分享的產品線比較是基於終端市場需求，這是 Microchip 內部衡量其性能的方式。讓我們從仔細研究微控制器開始。與 12 月季度相比，我們的微控制器業務環比下降 4.6%，反映出我們所服務市場的整體宏觀疲軟。然而，微控制器比去年同期增長了 8.6%。在財年基礎上，19 財年微控制器收入創下超過 30 億美元的記錄，比 18 財年增長 15%。微控制器佔 3 月季度終端市場需求的 53.3%。

During the quarter, we continued to introduce a steady stream of innovative new microcontrollers ranging from the industry's first ARM-based microcontroller with space-qualified versions that have scalable levels of radiation performance, new dual- and single-core dsPIC33 Digital Signal Controllers with built-in functional safety, the industry's smallest IEEE 802.15.4-compliant module that combines an ultra-low power microcontroller with a sub-GHz radio. And last but not least, we unveiled our unified 32-bit microcontroller software framework called Harmony, extending support for Atmel-originated SAM microcontrollers in microchips development tool environment. We now support our MIPS-based microcontrollers as well as our ARM-based microcontrollers on a single development environment of MPLAB and Harmony.

在本季度，我們繼續推出源源不斷的創新型新微控制器，包括業界首款基於 ARM 的微控制器，其空間級版本具有可擴展的輻射性能水平，新型雙核和單核 dsPIC33 數字信號控制器具有內置- 在功能安全方面，業界最小的符合 IEEE 802.15.4 標準的模塊將超低功耗微控制器與 sub-GHz 無線電相結合。最後但同樣重要的是，我們推出了名為 Harmony 的統一 32 位微控制器軟件框架，在微芯片開發工具環境中擴展了對源自 Atmel 的 SAM 微控制器的支持。現在，我們在 MPLAB 和 Harmony 的單一開發環境中支持基於 MIPS 的微控制器以及基於 ARM 的微控制器。

Last month, Gartner released their microcontroller market share report for calendar year 2018. We are pleased to report that Microchip retained the #1 position for 8-bit microcontrollers. Once again, we gained market share as we grew faster than the 8-bit microcontroller market overall. And in fact, we are now 73% larger than the #2 player.

上個月，Gartner 發布了 2018 日曆年的微控制器市場份額報告。我們很高興地報告，Microchip 保持了 8 位微控制器的第一名位置。我們再次獲得了市場份額，因為我們的增長速度快於整個 8 位微控制器市場。事實上，我們現在比排名第二的玩家大 73%。

In the 16-bit microcontroller market, we remained in the #5 position and continued to gain significant market share as we grew faster than all our top competitors and at about 5x the growth rate of the 16-bit microcontroller market.

在 16 位微控制器市場，我們保持在第 5 位，並繼續獲得顯著的市場份額，因為我們的增長速度超過所有頂級競爭對手，增長率約為 16 位微控制器市場的 5 倍。

In the 32-bit microcontroller market, we remained in the #6 position and gained significant market share as we grew almost at 2x the growth rate of the 32-bit market -- microcontroller market. We were also the fastest-growing franchise among the top 6 players who make up over 80% of the 32-bit microcontroller market.

在 32 位微控制器市場，我們保持在第 6 位，並獲得了顯著的市場份額，因為我們的增長速度幾乎是 32 位市場——微控制器市場的兩倍。在佔 32 位微控制器市場 80% 以上的前 6 名參與者中，我們也是增長最快的特許經營權。

These results are despite Gartner rolling up our 32-bit microcontroller revenue to be 30% lower than the over $1 billion revenue that we informed you of in our last conference call. Had Gartner used our actual calendar year 2018 32-bit microcontroller revenue, we would have moved up to the #4 ranking. Additionally, our 32-bit microcontroller revenue in fiscal year '19 was over $1.1 billion, demonstrating continued momentum. For microcontrollers overall, we remained in the #3 position and grew faster than the 2 players ahead of us. The Gartner reported revenue is considerably lower than our publicly reported revenue for calendar year 2018. Using our publicly reported revenue, we would be approximately 13% and approximately 18% away from the top 2 players ahead of us as we continue our relentless march towards the #1 spot. Our microcontroller portfolio and road map has never been stronger. We believe we have the new product momentum and the customer engagement to continue to gain even more share in 2019 as we further build the best-performing microcontroller franchise in the industry.

儘管 Gartner 將我們的 32 位微控制器收入匯總為比我們在上次電話會議中告知您的超過 10 億美元的收入低 30%，但這些結果仍然存在。如果 Gartner 使用我們 2018 年的實際日曆年 32 位微控制器收入，我們的排名就會上升到第 4 位。此外，我們在 19 財年的 32 位微控制器收入超過 11 億美元，顯示出持續的增長勢頭。對於微控制器整體而言，我們仍然處於第三位，並且比我們前面的 2 個玩家增長得更快。Gartner 報告的收入遠低於我們公開報告的 2018 日曆年收入。使用我們公開報告的收入，隨著我們繼續朝著第一名的方向不懈前進，我們將與領先的前 2 名玩家分別相差大約 13% 和大約 18%。我們的微控制器產品組合和路線圖從未如此強大。我們相信，隨著我們進一步打造業內表現最佳的微控制器特許經營權，我們擁有新產品的動力和客戶參與度，將在 2019 年繼續獲得更多份額。

Now moving to analog. Our analog business was sequentially down 5.8% compared to the December quarter, reflecting the same broad macro weakness our microcontroller business experienced. Analog, however, was up 60.2% from the year ago quarter. On a fiscal year basis, fiscal year '19 analog revenue was a record at well over $1.5 billion and grew 64.6% over fiscal year '18. Analog represented 29% of our end-market demand in the March quarter.

現在轉向模擬。與 12 月季度相比，我們的模擬業務連續下降 5.8%，反映出我們的微控制器業務經歷了同樣廣泛的宏觀疲軟。然而，模擬業務較去年同期增長了 60.2%。在財年基礎上，'19 財年模擬收入創下歷史新高，超過 15 億美元，比'18 財年增長 64.6%。模擬產品占我們 3 月季度終端市場需求的 29%。

During the quarter, we continued to introduce a steady stream of innovative analog products, including a new analog-to-digital converter family that enables high-speed, high-resolution analog-to-digital conversions in harsh environments. Our FPGA business was sequentially down 5% as compared to the December quarter, reflecting the same broad macro weakness. However, design wins in our new low-power midrange PolarFire family continue to grow strongly, and we are optimistic about this product family adding another leg of growth for the future. During the quarter, we introduced the PolarFire FPGA imaging and video solution that supports resolution as high as 4K in the small low-power form factors necessary for a wide range of imaging and video applications. We also released our Libero SoC design tool, which delivers a unified design suite. FPGA represented 7% of our end-market demand in the March quarter.

本季度，我們繼續推出源源不斷的創新模擬產品，包括可在惡劣環境中實現高速、高分辨率模數轉換的新型模數轉換器系列。與 12 月季度相比，我們的 FPGA 業務連續下降 5%，反映出同樣廣泛的宏觀疲軟。然而，我們新的低功耗中端 PolarFire 系列的設計優勢繼續強勁增長，我們對這個產品系列在未來增加另一條增長點持樂觀態度。本季度，我們推出了 PolarFire FPGA 成像和視頻解決方案，該解決方案支持高達 4K 的分辨率，具有廣泛的成像和視頻應用所需的小型低功耗外形。我們還發布了 Libero SoC 設計工具，它提供了一個統一的設計套件。FPGA 佔 3 月季度終端市場需求的 7%。

Moving next to our licensing business. This business is sequentially down 42.3% as compared to the December quarter. The production activity of our licensing customers has been cut significantly in response to industry conditions. Also as we mentioned in our February conference call, we did not expect nor have any meaningful patent licensing revenue in the March quarter while we did in the December quarter. Our patent licensing strategy is to monetize portions of the substantial patent portfolio we inherited through our acquisitions by licensing select patents to players in noncompetitive fields of use while retaining the rights to these patents in our products as well. Investors should expect that the revenue contribution from patent licensing in the future will be lumpy from quarter-to-quarter. Our memory business was sequentially up 3.8% in the March quarter as compared to the December quarter, and finally our multi-market and other business was up 3.5% sequentially as compared to the December quarter.

接下來是我們的許可業務。與 12 月季度相比，該業務環比下降 42.3%。為響應行業狀況，我們的許可客戶的生產活動已大幅削減。同樣，正如我們在 2 月份的電話會議中提到的那樣，我們預計 3 月份的季度也沒有任何有意義的專利許可收入，而我們在 12 月份的季度卻有。我們的專利許可策略是通過向非競爭性使用領域的參與者許可選定專利，同時在我們的產品中保留對這些專利的權利，從而將我們通過收購繼承的大量專利組合的一部分貨幣化。投資者應該預計未來專利許可的收入貢獻將按季度波動。與 12 月季度相比，我們的內存業務在 3 月季度環比增長 3.8%，最後，與 12 月季度相比，我們的多市場和其他業務環比增長 3.5%。

A quick update about our Microsemi integration. As we come up on the 1-year anniversary after the close, business units, sales, operations and support groups are all making good progress. Our thanks go to the combined company employees who are working hand-in-hand to achieve accelerated synergy results. Overall, we're ahead of our synergy targets and expect continued synergy gains for many quarters to come. Business systems and operations integration is taking the longest time to complete as we are conducting this complex transition in phases. The first and second phases were completed on November 1 and February 1, respectively, for a combined total of 4 business units. The third phase went live on May 1 and involved 4 more business units. With that, we are about 1/3 of the way through the business systems and operations integration and more phase releases are planned every quarter. We expect the overall business and operational integration will take about another 12 to 15 more months to complete.

關於我們的 Microsemi 集成的快速更新。在我們迎來收盤後的一周年之際，業務部門、銷售、運營和支持團隊都取得了良好的進展。我們要感謝合併後的公司員工，他們攜手合作，加速實現協同效應。總體而言，我們領先於我們的協同目標，並預計未來許多季度將繼續實現協同收益。業務系統和運營集成需要最長的時間才能完成，因為我們正在分階段進行這種複雜的過渡。第一期和第二期分別於11月1日和2月1日完成，共計4個事業部。第三階段於 5 月 1 日上線，涉及另外 4 個業務部門。這樣一來，我們大約完成了業務系統和運營集成的 1/3，並且每個季度都計劃發布更多的階段性版本。我們預計整體業務和運營整合還需要大約 12 到 15 個月才能完成。

Finally, prior to our acquisition, Microsemi had announced the closing of a small 4-inch fab in Bend, Oregon. The last wafers came out of this fab at the end of the March quarter, and we ceased production on schedule. Additionally, we were able to find a buyer for the fab and close the sale last week. The sale price was not material to Microchip.

最後，在我們收購之前，美高森美宣布關閉位於俄勒岡州本德的一家小型 4 英寸晶圓廠。最後一批晶圓在 3 月季度末從該晶圓廠出廠，我們按計劃停產。此外，我們能夠為晶圓廠找到買家並在上週完成銷售。銷售價格對 Microchip 來說並不重要。

Let me now pass it to Steve for some comments about our business and our guidance going forward. Steve?

現在讓我把它轉交給史蒂夫，徵求他對我們的業務和我們未來的指導的一些評論。史蒂夫？

Thank you, Ganesh, and good morning, everyone. Today, I would like to first reflect on the results of the fiscal fourth quarter of 2019. I will then provide guidance for the fiscal first quarter of 2020. Our March quarter GAAP and non-GAAP net sales based on sell-in revenue recognition came in just a tad above the midpoint of our guidance. The business in the quarter proceeded as we had expected. Our end-market demand measured by sell-through was about $10 million higher than the sell-in revenue, but unfortunately, we cannot call sell-through-based market demand as revenue anymore based on the new revenue recognition standard. The end-market demand was stronger than sell-in revenue, which is consistent with our thesis that the channel is continuing to manage their working capital conservatively by reducing inventory due to uncertainty.

謝謝你，Ganesh，大家早上好。今天，我想首先回顧一下 2019 財年第四季度的業績。然後我將提供 2020 財年第一季度的指導。我們基於銷售收入確認的 3 月季度 GAAP 和非 GAAP 淨銷售額略高於我們指導的中點。本季度的業務如我們預期的那樣進行。我們以銷售率衡量的終端市場需求比銷售收入高出約 1000 萬美元，但不幸的是，根據新的收入確認標準，我們不能再將基於銷售率的市場需求稱為收入。終端市場需求強於銷售收入，這與我們的論點一致，即由於不確定性，該渠道將繼續通過減少庫存來保守地管理其營運資金。

Our consolidated non-GAAP gross margin at 62.2% exceeded the high end of our guidance. Our consolidated non-GAAP operating margin of 36.4% was also above the high end of our guidance. These growth and operating margin percentages are the highest results we have ever posted at the bottom of a cycle. Our consolidated non-GAAP earnings per share exceeded the midpoint of our guidance by over $0.08 per share. On a non-GAAP basis, this was also our 114th consecutive profitable quarter. I want to thank all employees of Microchip, including employees from all of our acquisitions, for their contribution.

我們的綜合非 GAAP 毛利率為 62.2%，超過了我們指引的上限。我們的綜合非美國通用會計準則營業利潤率為 36.4%，也高於我們指導的上限。這些增長和營業利潤率百分比是我們在周期底部發布的最高結果。我們的合併非 GAAP 每股收益超過我們指導的中點每股 0.08 美元以上。在非 GAAP 基礎上，這也是我們第 114 個連續盈利的季度。我要感謝 Microchip 的所有員工，包括我們所有收購的員工，感謝他們所做的貢獻。

One other area I wanted to point out is our debt payments. In the March quarter, we paid down $277.5 million of our debt. Our total debt payments since the end of June 2018 has been $1.156 billion. With expected $250 million payment in the June quarter, we expect to have paid down about $1.4 billion of our debt since the closing of the Microsemi transaction on May 29, 2018, which we feel is excellent progress. In addition, with Federal Reserve Board expected to be on hold for any further interest rate increases, we're optimistic that the peak of our debt-to-EBITDA leverage is behind us, and we should see meaningful reduction in leverage in the next 1 year starting this June quarter.

我想指出的另一個領域是我們的債務支付。在三月季度，我們償還了 2.775 億美元的債務。自 2018 年 6 月底以來，我們的債務支付總額為 11.56 億美元。自 2018 年 5 月 29 日 Microsemi 交易結束以來，預計在 6 月季度支付 2.5 億美元，我們預計已經償還了約 14 億美元的債務，我們認為這是一個很好的進展。此外，由於美聯儲預計將暫停任何進一步加息，我們樂觀地認為我們的債務與 EBITDA 槓桿率的峰值已經過去，我們應該會在接下來的 1 年內看到槓桿率的顯著下降從這個六月季度開始的一年。

Now I will provide you guidance for the June quarter. The guidance we provided for the September quarter of last year, which is reflective of our caution on business conditions, turned out in retrospect to be spot-on and was a harbinger for broader industry weakness through the last several quarters. In our last quarter's earnings call, we said that barring any negative development on the trade front, we see the March 2019 quarter to mark the bottom of the cycle for Microchip. Secondly, we said that last quarter, we did not know the shape of the recovery, whether it is V, U or L-shaped, and it will depend somewhat on the outcome of the trade talks. Towards that end, we did not get a settlement on the trade front. In fact, in recent days, the rhetoric has turned more negative with 25% duties on $200 billion of Chinese goods expected to go into effect this Friday. Therefore, the uncertainty related to U.S.-China trade relations continues.

現在我將為您提供 6 月季度的指導。我們為去年 9 月季度提供的指引反映了我們對商業環境的謹慎態度，回想起來是正確的，並且預示著過去幾個季度更廣泛的行業疲軟。在我們上一季度的財報電話會議上，我們表示除非貿易方面出現任何負面發展，否則我們認為 2019 年 3 月的季度將標誌著 Microchip 週期的底部。其次，上個季度，我們不知道復甦的形態，是V型、U型還是L型，多少要看貿易談判的結果。為此，我們沒有在貿易方面達成和解。事實上，最近幾天，言辭變得更加消極，預計將於本週五對價值 2000 億美元的中國商品徵收 25% 的關稅。因此，與美中貿易關係相關的不確定性仍在繼續。

Given this continued uncertainty, we see weaker than seasonal business conditions for Microchip. We continue to operate our business prudently for long-term shareholder value, and we believe that the end-market demand will continue to be stronger than the GAAP sell-in revenue in the June quarter, and that channel and customer inventory will continue to decrease. Given this color about business conditions, we expect net sales for our products to be about flat sequentially, plus or minus 5% in the June 2019 quarter.

鑑於這種持續的不確定性，我們認為 Microchip 的商業環境弱於季節性。我們繼續為長期股東價值審慎經營我們的業務，我們相信終端市場需求將繼續強於 6 月季度的 GAAP 銷售收入，渠道和客戶庫存將繼續減少.鑑於業務狀況的這種顏色，我們預計我們產品的淨銷售額將在 2019 年 6 月季度大致持平，上下浮動 5%。

We want to correct some of the analysts' and investors' perception about what is a seasonal growth for us in the June quarter. If you take our past years' revenue as reported and average them for the calculation of the June quarter seasonality, you will get a very wrong result. It is because several of our acquisitions closed in April. Supertex acquisition closed on April 1, 2014; Atmel acquisition closed on April 3, 2016; and Microsemi acquisition closed on May 29, 2018. If we make the calculation based on removing the acquired company sales in the first quarter, then based on the last 7 years, our average net sales in the June quarter were up about 3% sequentially. Therefore, our current flattish guidance at the midpoint for June quarter is below historical seasonality for classic Microchip.

我們想糾正一些分析師和投資者對我們在 6 月季度的季節性增長的看法。如果您將我們過去幾年的收入作為報告的收入，並在計算 6 月季度季節性時對其進行平均，您將得到一個非常錯誤的結果。這是因為我們的幾項收購在 4 月份完成。Supertex 收購於 2014 年 4 月 1 日結束； Atmel 收購於 2016 年 4 月 3 日結束；和 Microsemi 的收購於 2018 年 5 月 29 日結束。如果我們根據第一季度去除被收購公司的銷售額進行計算，那麼根據過去 7 年，我們在 6 月季度的平均淨銷售額環比增長約 3%。因此，我們目前 6 月季度中點的持平指引低於經典 Microchip 的歷史季節性。

We expect our non-GAAP gross margin to be between 61.8% and 62.2% of sales. We expect the non-GAAP operating expenses to be between 25.3% and 26.3% of sales. We expect the non-GAAP operating profit percentage to be between 35.5% and 36.9% of sales. We expect our non-GAAP earnings per share to be between $1.26 per share to $1.49 per share.

我們預計我們的非 GAAP 毛利率將在銷售額的 61.8% 至 62.2% 之間。我們預計非 GAAP 營業費用將佔銷售額的 25.3% 至 26.3% 之間。我們預計非 GAAP 營業利潤百分比將在銷售額的 35.5% 至 36.9% 之間。我們預計我們的非 GAAP 每股收益在每股 1.26 美元至 1.49 美元之間。

Now the next question is what happens after the June quarter. The hints coming out of Washington regarding the status of U.S.-China trade talks continue to oscillate between positive and negative. While there is no guarantee that talks will end successfully with a settlement, we believe that any finality of such talks will remove some of the uncertainty and will have positive effect on the business. China has already taken a number of stimulus measures to boost business, including a cut in the VAT, from 16% to 13%, cutting the personal income tax rate and cutting reserve requirements of the banks, thus increasing the money supply. We have seen some strength in our China business from the bottom in the March quarter and expect more strength to pick up in the second half of calendar year 2019.

現在下一個問題是六月季度之後會發生什麼。華盛頓關於美中貿易談判現狀的暗示繼續在正面和負面之間搖擺。雖然不能保證談判會成功結束並達成和解，但我們相信此類談判的任何最終結果都會消除一些不確定性並對業務產生積極影響。中國已經採取多項刺激措施來提振業務，包括將增值稅從 16% 下調至 13%、降低個人所得稅稅率和降低銀行存款準備金率，從而增加貨幣供應量。我們已經看到中國業務從 3 月季度的底部開始出現一些實力，並預計 2019 年下半年會有更多實力回升。

The automotive business continues to be weak around the world because of car production down in U.S., Europe and China. We expect that our automotive business bottomed in March quarter, too, and should start to recover from the low days and strengthen into the second half of calendar 2019.

由於美國、歐洲和中國的汽車產量下降，全球汽車業務繼續疲軟。我們預計我們的汽車業務也在 3 月季度觸底，應該會開始從低谷中復蘇，並在 2019 年下半年走強。

Considering all of the above factors, we are renewing our belief that barring any negative developments on the trade front, we will expect the business recovery to pick up in the second half of calendar 2019. Given all the complications of accounting for acquisitions, including amortization of intangibles, restructuring charges and inventory write-up on acquisitions, Microchip will continue to provide guidance and track its results on non-GAAP basis except for net sales, which will be on a GAAP basis. We believe that non-GAAP results provide more meaningful comparison to prior quarters, and we request that the analysts continue to report their non-GAAP estimates to First Call.

考慮到上述所有因素，我們重申我們的信念，即除非貿易方面出現任何負面發展，否則我們預計業務復甦將在 2019 年下半年加速。考慮到收購會計的所有復雜性，包括無形資產攤銷、重組費用和收購庫存增記，Microchip 將繼續提供指導並在非 GAAP 基礎上跟踪其結果，淨銷售額除外，淨銷售額將在 GAAP 基礎上基礎。我們認為，非 GAAP 結果與前幾個季度相比更有意義，我們要求分析師繼續向 First Call 報告他們的非 GAAP 估計。

With this, operator, will you please poll for questions?

有了這個，接線員，請你投票提問好嗎？

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

We will now take our first question from John Pitzer from Crédit Suisse.

我們現在將接受來自瑞士信貸銀行的 John Pitzer 的第一個問題。

Steve, my first question, very helpful to help us understand how you're viewing seasonality into the June quarter, but just given all the acquisitions, and I think a couple of quarters ago, you talked about still trying to understand the seasonality of all of the new businesses together. I wonder if you can just level-set everyone on the call and help us understand how you think about seasonality in September, December and March as well as June.

史蒂夫，我的第一個問題，非常有助於幫助我們了解您如何看待 6 月季度的季節性，但考慮到所有的收購，我想幾個季度前，您談到仍在努力了解所有的季節性的新業務。我想知道您是否可以對通話中的每個人進行水平設置，並幫助我們了解您如何看待 9 月、12 月和 3 月以及 6 月的季節性。

John, we are -- we're not able to give forward-looking seasonality for multiple quarters yet. We haven't had enough experience on the Microsemi front. Some of the last year's performance was affected by the inventory reduction we undertook in distribution, so we haven't had a number of normal quarters. Then we got hit by all this U.S.-China trade issues for the last couple of quarters that we have been fighting and are now looking for the recovery. So the historic seasonality for June quarter I mentioned was to remove the acquired company's first quarter revenue and then average the last 7 years. We certainly can do that for the September and December quarter and provide that information to the investors, but that would be backward-looking seasonality. We're not yet able to give you information on the forward-looking seasonality.

約翰，我們是——我們還不能給出多個季度的前瞻性季節性。我們在 Microsemi 方面的經驗還不夠。去年的一些業績受到我們在分銷方面進行的庫存減少的影響，所以我們沒有幾個正常的季度。然後我們在過去幾個季度中受到所有這些美中貿易問題的打擊，我們一直在努力應對，現在正在尋求復蘇。因此，我提到的 6 月季度的歷史季節性是去除被收購公司第一季度的收入，然後取過去 7 年的平均值。我們當然可以在 9 月和 12 月季度這樣做，並向投資者提供該信息，但這將是回顧性的季節性。我們還不能為您提供有關前瞻性季節性的信息。

That's helpful. And then just as my follow-up. On the CapEx guidance for the new fiscal year, it's down fairly meaningfully year-over-year. To what extent is that just a reflection of the weak business environment? Or is this just really some of the CapEx projects you had in place to help integrate the acquisitions are mostly behind you? And how do we think about kind of the run rate of CapEx, whether as a percent of sales or an absolute dollar number from kind of what you're projecting for the current fiscal year?

這很有幫助。然後就像我的後續行動一樣。在新財年的資本支出指南中，同比下降相當有意義。這在多大程度上只是疲軟營商環境的反映？或者這真的只是您為幫助整合收購而實施的一些資本支出項目大部分都落後於您了嗎？我們如何看待資本支出的運行率，無論是銷售額的百分比還是您對當前財政年度的預測的絕對美元數？

Okay. This is Eric. I can take that question. So as indicated, we're protecting somewhere between $130 million and $150 million in CapEx for fiscal '20. That's down from about $230 million in fiscal '19. Fiscal '19, we had some kind of onetime events associated with some building projects that we talked about the last few conference call that was in the $60 million to $70 million range, and we had put capacity in place in the first half of last fiscal year, expecting the environment to be stronger. So I think we're pretty well positioned. And then we also have a full year of Microsemi, a couple more months in fiscal '20 compared to fiscal '19. So all that combined, I think our CapEx projection is a reasonable range for the current year. I think over the course of time, we'll be in that 3% to 4% of sales, and there'll be peaks and valleys to that just based on the environment that we're facing at that time.

好的。這是埃里克。我可以接受這個問題。因此，如前所述，我們在 20 財年保護了 1.3 億至 1.5 億美元的資本支出。這低於 19 財年的約 2.3 億美元。19 財年，我們遇到了一些與一些建築項目相關的一次性事件，我們談到了最後幾次電話會議，金額在 6000 萬到 7000 萬美元之間，並且我們在上一財年的上半年就已經部署了產能年，期待環境更強大。所以我認為我們的定位非常好。然後我們還有 Microsemi 的一整年，與 19 財年相比，20 財年多了幾個月。所以所有這些結合起來，我認為我們的資本支出預測是今年的合理範圍。我認為隨著時間的推移，我們將佔銷售額的 3% 到 4%，並且根據我們當時面臨的環境，會有高峰和低谷。

We will now take our next question from Chris Danely from Citi.

我們現在將接受來自花旗銀行的 Chris Danely 的下一個問題。

So Steve, your tone seems a little more pessimistic than it did 3 months ago. So has anything changed? Is this just because we're looking at another $200 billion? Has anything changed in your business over the last week or the last, I guess, 3 months since you were last on the call make you a little more pessimistic on how things are going?

所以史蒂夫，你的語氣似乎比 3 個月前更加悲觀。那麼有什麼改變嗎？這僅僅是因為我們正在尋找另外 2000 億美元嗎？您的業務在上週或上次有什麼變化嗎，我猜，自您上次接聽電話以來的 3 個月讓您對事情的進展更加悲觀？

Well, what changed is really the tone on the U.S.-China trade front, going from lot of positive signals coming from various officials including Secretary Mnuchin and all that over the last couple of months, and then turning into a tweet by President Trump on Sunday that the 25% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods going into effect this Friday, resulting into cancellation of the visit by Vice Premier of China first, and then later on, he re-put back the visit and he's now arriving on Thursday. So the rhetoric has turned meaningfully negative here and causing significant uncertainty. Now there hasn't been a lot of time since that news to gauge the reaction of our distributors and customers. And as you know, we have very broad distribution and thousands and thousands of customers, and in a couple of days you cannot really gauge all that. So yes, tone has turned distinctly negative due to those developments.

好吧，真正發生變化的是美中貿易戰線的基調，從包括國務卿姆努欽在內的多位官員在過去幾個月裡發出的許多積極信號，然後變成特朗普總統週日發布的一條推文對 2000 億美元的中國商品徵收 25% 的關稅將於本週五生效，導致中國副總理首先取消了訪問，然後又重新推遲了訪問，現在他將於週四抵達。因此，這裡的言論已經變得非常消極，並造成了重大的不確定性。自該消息發布以來，現在沒有多少時間來評估我們的分銷商和客戶的反應。如您所知，我們擁有非常廣泛的分佈和成千上萬的客戶，並且在幾天之內您無法真正衡量所有這些。所以是的，由於這些事態發展，基調明顯變得消極。

Sure. I guess if this wasn't going on, maybe last week or the week before, what would your guidance be? And what have you heard from your customers kind of as the quarter has progressed on their tone of business?

當然。我想如果這沒有發生，也許是上週或前一周，你的指導是什麼？隨著本季度業務基調的發展，您從客戶那裡聽到了什麼？

I think that's kind of -- we're not sure, that could -- we don't know. But certainly, our guidance would have been much more narrower in the range versus a wide range, and the guidance would have been more positive on the midpoint than the one we have provided now.

我認為這有點——我們不確定，那可能——我們不知道。但可以肯定的是，我們的指導範圍比寬範圍要窄得多，而且中點的指導會比我們現在提供的指導更積極。

Chris, I would add also that the trade resolution has also been delayed, so not only is the most recent news from the weekend. When we were speaking to everybody back in February, there was a much earlier date for resolution, so that continues to push out and create uncertainty as well.

克里斯，我還要補充一點，貿易決議也被推遲了，所以不僅僅是周末的最新消息。當我們在 2 月份與所有人交談時，解決的日期要早得多，因此這會繼續推進並產生不確定性。

During our conference call last quarter, which I think was on February 9th or something, the trade resolution was supposed to happen prior to March 1, so it was relatively imminent. Then it was delayed to May 1, and then it didn't happen on May 1, and then the events turned negative. So there has been a substantial delay and change on that front.

在我們上個季度的電話會議中，我認為是在 2 月 9 日左右，貿易決議應該在 3 月 1 日之前發生，所以它相對迫在眉睫。然後推遲到5月1日，然後5月1日沒有發生，然後事情就轉陰了。所以在這方面有很大的延遲和變化。

We will now take our next question from Harlan Sur from JPMorgan.

我們現在將接受來自摩根大通的 Harlan Sur 的下一個問題。

Last year at Analyst Day, which was held in early March of last year, you guys were able to accurately call out the trends for the June quarter and even provide June quarter sequential growth outlook. And I think a big part of analysis back then was the rate of backlog billed for the June quarter post-Chinese New Year's, which in a normalized demand environment kind of flattens out during CNY and then rises post-Chinese New Year. So I guess the question is, well it seems like you didn't see this type of recovery in the backlog this year. So maybe if you could just provide us with some color here on the backlog trends post CNY this year. And what are the current backlog trends telling you about the September quarter?

去年在去年 3 月初舉行的分析師日上，你們能夠準確地指出 6 月季度的趨勢，甚至提供 6 月季度環比增長前景。我認為當時分析的很大一部分是中國新年後 6 月季度的積壓率，在正常的需求環境中，它在人民幣期間趨於平緩，然後在中國新年後上升。所以我想問題是，你似乎沒有在今年的積壓工作中看到這種類型的恢復。因此，也許您可以在今年農曆新年後的積壓趨勢中為我們提供一些顏色。當前的積壓趨勢告訴您有關 9 月季度的情況是什麼？

So I think the environment is of significant uncertainty because of U.S.-China trade talks this year, than it was last year, there was no such uncertainty. The only uncertainty we were dealing with last year was investors' perception about the letters we had written a year before, which many investors felt that pulled the demand up and there'll be a correction. And I think we showed through the charts that there was no such effect of the letters we write. Those letters are simply to inform our customers, broad base of 120,000-plus customers, the environment we were dealing with, and through backlog and turns and various metrics, we showed to the investors that our business was in good shape, and we were not really seeing any challenges. The environment today with uncertainty with the 2 largest markets we have, which are the U.S. and China, together they make close to 50% of our business if not more, is of significant more uncertainty. And simply looking at the backlog and turns and all that in the middle of the quarter cannot make up for large amount of customer sentiment.

所以我認為今年由於美中貿易談判，環境具有很大的不確定性，與去年相比，沒有這種不確定性。去年我們處理的唯一不確定性是投資者對我們一年前寫的信件的看法，許多投資者認為這拉動了需求並且會出現修正。而且我認為我們通過圖表表明我們寫的信件沒有這種效果。這些信件只是為了告知我們的客戶，120,000 多名客戶的廣泛基礎，我們正在處理的環境，通過積壓和轉彎以及各種指標，我們向投資者展示了我們的業務狀況良好，我們沒有真正看到任何挑戰。今天的環境充滿不確定性，我們擁有的兩個最大市場，即美國和中國，它們加起來占我們業務的近 50%，甚至更多，不確定性要大得多。僅僅看看積壓和周轉以及本季度中期的所有這些都無法彌補大量的客戶情緒。

So having said all that, our backlog on April 1 started lower than our backlog was on January 1, because last quarter, bookings were weak. So our backlog started lower. However, the bookings quarter-to-date in this quarter for the month of April and few days in May has been stronger than the bookings we got during the same time last quarter, from January 1 to February time frame. So the bookings are stronger, and the turns coming from those bookings are stronger because the lead times are short. But with significant change in the sentiment driven by just the events of last few days, it's very difficult to project what the distributor and customer sentiment would be in the balance of the quarter.

綜上所述，我們 4 月 1 日的積壓開始低於 1 月 1 日的積壓，因為上個季度，預訂疲軟。所以我們的積壓開始減少。然而，本季度 4 月份和 5 月份幾天的預訂量比我們在上個季度同期（1 月 1 日至 2 月期間）獲得的預訂量要多。因此，預訂量更大，並且由於交貨時間短，這些預訂帶來的轉機更強。但由於最近幾天的事件導致情緒發生重大變化，因此很難預測分銷商和客戶情緒在本季度的餘額中會是什麼。

Just imagine, if you were a supplier and you didn't know whether you'll be able to pass on a 25% tariff increase to your customers, whether your customer will then choose to buy their product from Korea or Taiwan or somewhere else and not from the Chinese supplier. In that environment, you would take actions to protect your business by not having large amount of inventory, only building to firm orders and negotiating with your customers what kind of price increase you can pass on. Those are all uncertainties thousands and thousands of customers have been dealing with for quite a while impacting our business.

試想一下，如果你是供應商，你不知道你是否能夠將 25% 的關稅增加轉嫁給你的客戶，你的客戶是否會選擇從韓國、台灣或其他地方購買他們的產品，並且不是來自中國供應商。在那種環境下，您會採取行動來保護您的業務，方法是不擁有大量庫存，只建立確定的訂單並與您的客戶協商您可以傳遞什麼樣的價格上漲。這些都是成千上萬的客戶長期以來一直在處理的不確定因素，影響著我們的業務。

I think one other thing I would add to what Steve said us, comparing the sentiment at March 1 last year when we did our Analyst Day to today, the other significant change over that period is lead times have contracted significantly. And so that gives customers flexibility to place very short term orders on us and to be responsive, which wasn't necessarily the case over a year ago back in March.

我想我還要補充一點史蒂夫所說的話，將去年 3 月 1 日我們舉辦分析師日時的情緒與今天進行比較，那個時期的另一個重大變化是交貨時間顯著縮短。因此，這使客戶可以靈活地向我們下達非常短期的訂單並做出響應，而一年多前的三月份情況並不一定如此。

Great. My follow-up question is strong showing on the market share front in MCUs for 2018. On 32-bit, you guys grew your business almost 900 basis points faster than the overall market, and I don't think Microsemi had any 32-bit MCUs, so pretty much all organic. You've got your MIPS architecture, you've got your ARM family. If you guys could just help us understand the drivers of this strong outperformance? I assume maybe part of it is helping your customers move up the stack. But what are some of the other dynamics driving the strong market share performance?

偉大的。我的後續問題是 2018 年 MCU 市場份額方面的強勁表現。在 32 位上，你們的業務增長速度比整個市場快將近 900 個基點，而且我認為 Microsemi 沒有任何 32 位 MCU，所以幾乎都是有機的。您擁有自己的 MIPS 架構，擁有自己的 ARM 系列。如果你們能幫助我們了解這種強勁表現的驅動因素？我假設其中一部分可能是幫助您的客戶升級。但是，推動強勁市場份額表現的其他一些動力是什麼？

It is not completely correct that Microsemi had no 32-bit microcontrollers. They did have a class of what we call specialized microcontrollers, which are 32-bit microcontrollers. But in general, the classic Microchip 32-bit products, of both architectures MIPS and ARM, have been doing extremely well. As you know, we acquired the ARM microcontrollers through the Atmel acquisition, so that has given us the ability to serve a broader set of customers, a broader set of applications. And so that combination of both what classic Microchip could do with the 32-bit microcontrollers we had that are more general-purpose, plus some of the specialized microcontrollers that came from Microsemi, all contributed to the last 12 months or the calendar year '18 growth numbers that you see.

Microsemi 沒有 32 位微控制器的說法並不完全正確。他們確實有一類我們稱之為專用微控制器的類，它們是 32 位微控制器。但總的來說，經典的 Microchip 32 位產品，無論是 MIPS 還是 ARM 架構，都做得非常好。如您所知，我們通過收購 Atmel 獲得了 ARM 微控制器，這使我們能夠為更廣泛的客戶群和更廣泛的應用程序提供服務。因此，經典 Microchip 可以用我們擁有的 32 位微控制器做的更通用的組合，加上來自 Microsemi 的一些專用微控制器，所有這些都為過去 12 個月或 18 年日曆年做出了貢獻你看到的增長數字。

We will now take our next question from Rajvindra Gill from Needham Company.

我們現在將接受來自 Needham 公司的 Rajvindra Gill 的下一個問題。

Just a follow-up on the China trade issue. I'm trying to get a sense in terms of how the issues with trade and how it translates to actual orders on the ground. A lot of the companies in the coverage space saw kind of an abrupt cut in orders from their customers in China starting in December, different from kind of past cycles and then have been starting to see some rebound. And given kind of your guidance in June reflected kind of weaker seasonal trends even though the comment from Trump came out on Sunday. I'm just trying to reconcile your guidance and the -- just the short nature of the change in sentiment because this only happened last week and the actual impact that you're seeing on the ground to give you -- to give a way to get the guidance in the first place.

只是關於中國貿易問題的後續行動。我試圖了解貿易問題如何以及它如何轉化為實地的實際訂單。從 12 月開始，覆蓋範圍內的許多公司都看到中國客戶的訂單突然減少，這與過去的周期不同，然後開始出現一些反彈。考慮到你在 6 月份的指導反映了某種較弱的季節性趨勢，儘管特朗普的評論是在周日發表的。我只是想調和你的指導和 - 只是情緒變化的短期性質，因為這只發生在上週，以及你在實地看到的實際影響 - 給出一種方式首先獲得指導。

It's very, very difficult to accurately assess the impact of a substantial negative turn on the developments of our trade talks. That's why we have a fairly broad guidance not being accurately able to model the impact. These are not the issues where there is a historic record of what happens. I mean, these kind of things haven't happened in history. It's only in the last couple of quarters, and I think we predicted the downturn better than anybody in the industry. We were the first one to predict that. And many of the earnings report this season came before the Trump's tweet on Sunday citing the talks have turned negative. So having that knowledge that these talks have turned negative, in our announcement last night in our earnings, we had to put the possibility of negative customer behavior.

很難準確評估實質性負面轉變對我們貿易談判發展的影響。這就是為什麼我們有一個相當廣泛的指導，但無法準確地模擬影響。這些不是有歷史記錄的問題。我的意思是，歷史上沒有發生過這樣的事情。只是在最近幾個季度，我認為我們比業內任何人都更能預測經濟衰退。我們是第一個預測到這一點的人。本季的許多收益報告都是在特朗普週日發布推文稱談判已經轉為負面之前發布的。因此，在知道這些談話已經轉為負面後，在我們昨晚的收益公告中，我們不得不考慮負面客戶行為的可能性。

One thing I have described before to analysts and investors in various calls and meetings is, the world economy largely runs on people building to forecast. Every manufacturer builds large amount of their products on forecast, from electronic stores to grocery stores to furniture stores. If you go to a store and -- grocery store is full of grocery, and you put it in the bags, and you go home. If the manufacturers did not put the grocery store inventory, you would go there and just place your order and come back in 2 days to pick it up.

我之前在各種電話和會議上向分析師和投資者描述的一件事是，世界經濟在很大程度上依賴於人們建立預測。每個製造商都根據預測生產大量產品，從電子商店到雜貨店再到家具店。如果你去一家商店——雜貨店裡擺滿了雜貨，你把它們放在袋子裡，然後你就回家了。如果製造商沒有在雜貨店存貨，你會去那裡下訂單，然後在 2 天內回來取貨。

So in an uncertain environment, when the -- when our customers are not able to figure out the demand for their products because they do not know whether they will be able to pass a 25% tariff to their end customers, in their environment, they stop building to a forecast, and they largely want to build to hard orders where they can negotiate the price increase, and that is happening with our industrial customers, with our consumer customers, housing, appliance customers. You have heard where prices for washers and dryers and others have gone up 20%.

因此，在一個不確定的環境中，當我們的客戶無法弄清楚對其產品的需求時，因為他們不知道他們是否能夠將 25% 的關稅轉嫁給他們的最終客戶，在他們的環境中，他們停止建立預測，他們主要希望建立硬訂單，在那裡他們可以談判價格上漲，而我們的工業客戶、我們的消費者客戶、住房、家電客戶正在發生這種情況。您聽說洗衣機和烘乾機以及其他產品的價格上漲了 20%。

So in that environment, the ecosystem squeezes down the inventory from end customer inventory to loading docks to intermediate hubs to stores to everywhere else. And that creates a negative impact on our ability to supply chips, which then eventually go into parts. And you have seen that phenomena experienced by every other semiconductor manufacturer whose revenue has fallen in the last 6, 9 months where back in August nobody was confirming that there's a problem and we said there was a problem. Does that make sense, Raji?

因此，在那種環境下，生態系統會壓縮庫存，從終端客戶庫存到裝卸碼頭，再到中間樞紐，再到商店，再到其他任何地方。這對我們供應芯片的能力產生了負面影響，而芯片最終會變成零件。你已經看到了過去 6、9 個月收入下降的所有其他半導體製造商所經歷的現象，早在 8 月份就沒有人確認存在問題，我們說存在問題。這有意義嗎，拉吉？

Said the Chinese -- hello?

中國人說——你好？

Yes?

是的？

Yes, I think that makes sense. It's a moving target, just read that now, that Trump said the Chinese Vice Premier is coming to the U.S. to "make a deal" so I guess, it's a constant change. But I appreciate.

是的，我認為這是有道理的。這是一個移動的目標，現在才讀到，特朗普說中國副總理將來美國“達成協議”，所以我想，這是一個不斷變化的目標。但我很感激。

We'll now take our next question from Vivek Arya from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

我們現在將接受美銀美林的 Vivek Arya 的下一個問題。

Steve, I know we are trying to get the best sense for June, and I understand and appreciate that it's a moving target, so the conservatism is justified. My first question is that just in terms of what you have actually seen so far in terms of bookings on your customers in China or U.S. or Europe, is it fair to say that any of these concerns about trade have not yet reflected in those bookings so far? But have you seen any trend -- I realize that we are just within a week of all these political developments, but so far, is it fair to say that you have not really seen any negative development in bookings from any geography or end market or anything along those lines?

史蒂夫，我知道我們正在努力為 6 月做出最好的判斷，我理解並讚賞這是一個不斷變化的目標，因此保守主義是有道理的。我的第一個問題是，就您目前在中國、美國或歐洲的客戶預訂方面實際看到的情況而言，可以公平地說，這些對貿易的擔憂尚未反映在這些預訂中嗎？遠的？但是你有沒有看到任何趨勢——我知道我們距離所有這些政治發展只有不到一周的時間，但到目前為止，可以說你還沒有真正看到來自任何地區或終端市場的預訂有任何負面發展，或者沿著這些路線有什麼嗎？

So Vivek, you have to first decide from what time frame you're comparing. If you're simply comparing it to what we talked last Friday, yes, we have not seen an impact in the last 2 days because just too hard to gauge. But if your time frame is February 9, our last call, then we have seen the impact. At that time, the trade settlement was supposed to happen prior to March 1, then it got delayed to May 1, then we didn't see it on May 1 either. So all that time, we have seen the impact on bookings and customers' ability to want to build the appropriate amount of inventory for their business from the endpoint inventories to loading docks to hubs to everything else. If your reference point is our last earnings call, yes, the business is weaker than where it could have been if there was a settlement on March 1.

所以 Vivek，你必須首先決定你比較的時間範圍。如果您只是將其與我們上週五的談話進行比較，是的，我們在過去兩天沒有看到任何影響，因為太難衡量了。但如果你的時間範圍是 2 月 9 日，也就是我們最後一次通話，那麼我們已經看到了影響。當時貿易結算應該在3月1日之前進行，然後延遲到5月1日，然後5月1日我們也沒有看到。因此，一直以來，我們都看到了對預訂的影響以及客戶希望為他們的業務建立適當數量的庫存的能力，從端點庫存到裝卸碼頭再到樞紐再到其他一切。如果你的參考點是我們上次的財報電話會議，是的，如果在 3 月 1 日達成和解，那麼該業務的表現可能會更弱。

Got it. I asked that, Steve, just because I think your March numbers were actually fine, and I think what you mentioned was that so far in June, the bookings have also been fine. But let me leave that aside for a second. On Microsemi, could you remind us how much earnings accretion you finally saw now that fiscal '19 is over? And how much earnings accretion we should be thinking about from a fiscal '20 perspective?

知道了。史蒂夫，我問這個問題只是因為我認為您 3 月份的數字實際上還不錯，而且我認為您提到的是 6 月份到目前為止，預訂也很好。但是，讓我暫時擱置一下。在美高森美，您能否提醒我們您在 19 財年結束後最終看到了多少收益增長？從 20 世紀財政年度的角度來看，我們應該考慮多少收益增長？

Okay. So we have not broken out in the current quarter what -- the quarter we're just reporting, what the Microsemi contribution was. We are definitely ahead of schedule. We had mentioned last quarter that we had achieved our kind of 1-year target of run rate of $0.75 accretion. We were above that as through the end of December. And the things are continuing to progress, we're taking costs out of the system. Ganesh gave commentary in terms of how we're doing on business units and sales and support groups from an integration perspective, so making good progress. We still feel good about our long-term synergy numbers and are working towards that. But we haven't broken out and aren't breaking out at this point in time, the specific accretion that we have achieved so far.

好的。因此，我們在本季度還沒有突破 - 我們剛剛報告的那個季度，Microsemi 的貢獻是什麼。我們絕對提前了。我們在上個季度提到過，我們已經實現了 0.75 美元增長的 1 年運行率目標。截至 12 月底，我們都高於這一水平。而且事情還在繼續發展，我們正在從系統中降低成本。Ganesh 從整合的角度評論了我們在業務部門以及銷售和支持團隊方面的表現，因此取得了良好的進展。我們仍然對我們的長期協同數字感到滿意，並正在努力實現這一目標。但我們還沒有爆發，也沒有在這個時間點爆發，我們目前所取得的具體增長。

We will now take our next question from William Stein from SunTrust.

我們現在將接受來自 SunTrust 的 William Stein 的下一個問題。

I have 2. First, the company posted some better-than-expected results on the gross margin line. Can you help us understand whether that's attributed more to mix or cost savings from Microsemi or anything else? And then I have a follow-up, please.

我有 2. 首先，公司在毛利率方面公佈了一些好於預期的結果。您能否幫助我們了解這是否更多地歸因於 Microsemi 或其他任何產品的混合或成本節約？然後我有一個後續行動，請。

Okay. So I'll take that. So we exceeded the midpoint of our non-GAAP gross margin guidance by about 70 basis points. The very strong gross margins were driven by variety of reasons, including favorable product mix and ongoing cost reductions. So it always is a mix of things. There's a lot of moving parts, margin, but we're making good progress on integration and the product mix was favorable in the quarter also to help us with that. And even at the midpoint of our guidance on the current quarter at 62%, we're only really 1% away from our long-term target of 63%. So I think things have really held up well in this downturn. Yes, our inventory situation is a little bit higher than our target, but with short lead times and customers and distributors been in a pattern of decreasing their inventory levels, it gives us the best ability to respond very proactively to their needs.

好的。所以我會接受的。因此，我們超出了非 GAAP 毛利率指引的中點約 70 個基點。非常強勁的毛利率是由多種原因推動的，包括有利的產品組合和持續的成本削減。所以它總是混合的東西。有很多活動部件，利潤率，但我們在整合方面取得了良好進展，本季度的產品組合也很有利，這也有助於我們實現這一目標。即使在我們對當前季度 62% 的指導的中點，我們距離我們 63% 的長期目標也只有 1%。所以我認為在這次經濟低迷中情況確實很好。是的，我們的庫存情況略高於我們的目標，但由於交貨時間短，客戶和分銷商的庫存水平一直在下降，這使我們能夠最好地主動響應他們的需求。

I would re-emphasize one point that I made in my prepared remarks that as we go through various cycles, you can look at in the last 20 years, this would be the highest growth in operating margin nearly at the bottom of the cycle. In the past, you will see this kind of growth in operating margin usually on the top of the cycle. So this is how much we have improved, creating higher highs and higher lows. So as we go further in the next couple of years, complete this integration, have better loading in our factories with the demand coming back, it's really a good feeling to think about where the growth in operating margins could go.

我想再次強調我在準備好的發言中提出的一點，當我們經歷各種週期時，你可以看看過去 20 年，這將是接近週期底部的營業利潤率的最高增長。過去，您通常會在周期的頂部看到這種營業利潤率的增長。這就是我們的改進，創造了更高的高點和更高的低點。因此，隨著我們在未來幾年走得更遠，完成這種整合，隨著需求的回升，我們的工廠有更好的負荷，考慮營業利潤率的增長方向真的是一種很好的感覺。

Appreciate those comments. One follow-up, if I can. Turning to the Microsemi acquisition, less about the integration but more about the inventory. I understand from the prepared remarks that you've worked through all of the Microsemi inventory that was your own balance sheet. I was hoping you could comment on inventory, not only in the channel but in any other places like at customers to the degree you can see it. Is that worked down to more normal levels where this is less of a deterrent to growth going forward? Or is there still some inventory in channel or at customers to work down?

感謝這些評論。如果可以的話，進行一次跟進。談到對 Microsemi 的收購，與其說是整合，不如說是庫存。我從準備好的評論中了解到，您已經完成了所有 Microsemi 庫存，即您自己的資產負債表。我希望你能對庫存發表評論，不僅在渠道中，而且在任何其他地方，比如在客戶處，只要你能看到它。這是否會降低到更正常的水平，從而減少對未來增長的阻礙？或者在渠道或客戶處是否仍有一些庫存需要處理？

Yes. So I think we've done a good job of working through the issues that were identified early on in the acquisition. The Microsemi distribution inventory, take you back to the September quarter. It was reduced to about 2.6 months over the course of the first 4 months of holding the asset, and the shipment activity into distribution was impacted dramatically by that. But that has stayed very constant. That 2.6 months has stayed the same in the December quarter and the March quarter. So we think we've got a good balance there. There can be a business unit or 2 that has a little bit of elevated inventory, and that's just taking some time to bleed that down. But overall, I think we're in good position. And the other things that we had talked about was contracts, manufacturing inventory and things like that and I think all those have been corrected at this point in time. Steve or Ganesh might have some additional comments to make.

是的。所以我認為我們在解決收購早期發現的問題方面做得很好。美高森美分銷盤點，帶你回顧9月季度。在持有該資產的前 4 個月中，它減少到大約 2.6 個月，並且運輸到分銷的活動受到了極大的影響。但這一直保持不變。這 2.6 個月在 12 月季度和 3 月季度保持不變。所以我們認為我們在那裡取得了很好的平衡。可能有一個或兩個業務部門的庫存略有增加，而這只是需要一些時間來減少庫存。但總的來說，我認為我們處於有利地位。我們討論的其他事情是合同、製造庫存和類似的事情，我認為所有這些都在這個時間點得到了糾正。Steve 或 Ganesh 可能有一些額外的意見要發表。

The only comment I'd make, is I think, in terms of end customers, we really don't get inventory reports. So we don't think there's a big overhang there, but we don't have much visibility into it. Our own inventory internally, we're continuing to work down. So this is our production areas, and we have been running lower than what the sell-through is in terms of what we're building, and that is slowly coming back into levels that should be, but is not completely where it needs to be.

我唯一要說的是，我認為，就最終客戶而言，我們真的沒有得到庫存報告。所以我們不認為那裡有很大的懸垂，但我們對它的了解不多。我們自己的內部庫存，我們正在繼續努力。所以這是我們的生產區域，就我們正在建造的產品而言，我們的銷售量一直低於銷售量，並且正在慢慢回到應該的水平，但還沒有完全達到需要的水平.

And we did take an under-capacity utilization charge in the quarter overall for various factories of a little over $7 million in the last quarter.

在上個季度，我們確實為各個工廠收取了 700 萬美元多一點的本季度產能利用率不足費用。

And as the demand comes back and when that $7 million charge goes away, that $7 million ends up in the gross margin.

隨著需求的恢復，當 700 萬美元的費用消失時，這 700 萬美元最終成為毛利率。

Yes, eventually.

是的，最終。

We will now take our next question from Craig Ellis from B. Riley FBR.

我們現在將接受來自 B. Riley FBR 的 Craig Ellis 的下一個問題。

I'll start with clarification on 2 operating items. First, debt reduction came in much better than expected, at least on my front, and the outlook suggests that the improvement that the company saw versus expectations is structural, so I wanted to get some clarification on that, and further on the comments that Ganesh had in his prepared remarks where he outlined 3 milestones that have been achieved with business integration. The clarification there is, is the financial benefit fairly linear with the milestones achieved so that we're about 1/3 of the way through the financial benefit? Or is it front-end loaded or back-end loaded?

我將從澄清 2 個運營項目開始。首先，債務削減比預期好得多，至少在我看來是這樣，而且前景表明公司看到的改善與預期相比是結構性的，所以我想就此得到一些澄清，並進一步了解 Ganesh 的評論在他準備好的發言中，他概述了通過業務整合實現的 3 個里程碑。需要澄清的是，財務收益是否與實現的里程碑相當線性，因此我們大約完成了財務收益的 1/3？或者是前端加載還是後端加載？

So Craig, just to clarify, you had started off with -- it's an OpEx question, right?

所以克雷格，只是為了澄清，你已經開始 - 這是一個 OpEx 問題，對吧？

The first one is debt reduction. And the $277 million, I thought that was above the expectation of the company. What's the cause of the positive variance?

第一個是減少債務。而 2.77 億美元，我認為這超出了公司的預期。正方差的原因是什麼？

Okay. All right. So we've continued to really manage our working capital requirements quite tightly and had good execution there and just managing our overall cash balances worldwide. So we've outperformed on debt paydown, no doubt about that, over the last couple of quarters and made good progress. I've mentioned that our debt-to-EBITDA is still 4.8, and we expect as we progress in the second half of 2019 and the EBITDA improves, we're going to continue to be using all of our excess cash generation to pay down debt, that we will see some significant improvements in our debt-to-EBITDA. So I think it's working capital management, we talked about CapEx a little bit earlier. Also CapEx being down significantly in fiscal '20 as a projected number compared to fiscal '19 will also help on the cash flow, and we should expect to see the debt come down significantly over the course of the next 12 months.

好的。好的。因此，我們繼續非常嚴格地真正管理我們的營運資金需求，並在那裡執行得很好，並且只管理我們在全球範圍內的整體現金餘額。因此，毫無疑問，在過去幾個季度中，我們在償還債務方面表現出色，並取得了良好進展。我已經提到我們的債務與 EBITDA 比率仍然是 4.8，我們預計隨著 2019 年下半年的進展和 EBITDA 的改善，我們將繼續使用我們所有的多餘現金產生來償還債務，我們將看到我們的債務與 EBITDA 的比率有一些顯著改善。所以我認為這是營運資本管理，我們之前談到了資本支出。此外，與 19 財年相比，20 財年的資本支出預計將大幅下降，這也將有助於現金流，我們預計在未來 12 個月內債務將大幅下降。

To your second question on the business and operations integration, it's -- on a longer-term basis, it's more linear but quarter-to-quarter, we're going to see more or less effects depending on are we able to retire some of the prior ERP systems completely or not. And so it's not entirely linear looking at it quarter-to-quarter.

關於你關於業務和運營整合的第二個問題，從長期來看，它更線性，但按季度來看，我們將看到或多或少的影響，這取決於我們是否能夠淘汰一些以前的ERP系統完全或沒有。因此，從季度到季度來看，它並不完全是線性的。

And then the follow-up is for Steve. Steve, you've given us a very clear picture of the dynamic that you're seeing now and the way recent political developments are impacting your thinking. What I wanted to do is reconcile that with comments that I thought I heard you say that there could be a pickup in the back half of the year. Is that potential pickup more predicated on a favorable set of developments that could happen on the macro front? Or is it closer proximity to typical enterprise and consumer builds that would take place in the back half of the year or something else?

然後是史蒂夫的後續行動。史蒂夫，你已經非常清楚地向我們展示了你現在所看到的動態，以及最近的政治發展如何影響你的想法。我想做的是調和我認為我聽到你說下半年可能會有回升的評論。這種潛在的回升是否更多地取決於宏觀方面可能發生的一系列有利發展？或者它是否更接近於今年下半年或其他什麼時候發生的典型企業和消費者構建？

I think there are 2 possibilities on the trade front. Actually, 3. One -- the worst would be that trade talks break, and there's 25% duty not only on the $200 billion of goods but another $325 billion of goods that are threatened. That would be the worst-case scenario. But the other possibilities are there is some very good settlement where whatever the issues are between the 2 countries on IP theft and forced transfers of technology and all those things, there is a system put in place to monitor all these and issues are resolved and the tariffs come down. That would be the best-case scenario. And the other one is that there is some sort of finality where it's not as good as the U.S. wants. As long as there is a finality on the settlement where the people know what the rules are, then the manufacturers can adjust to those rules and can negotiate with their customers to pass the additional cost, whether it's 5%, 10% duty cost. As long as there's a finality, I think it will be positive for the business. Of course, it will be extremely positive if there's a settlement and duties go away, and there is a very good environment. But even if it is not the ultimate best, but there is some sort of finality, I think that would be better than the uncertainty we're dealing with.

我認為在貿易方面有兩種可能性。實際上，3. 最糟糕的是貿易談判破裂，不僅對 2000 億美元的商品徵收 25% 的關稅，而且對另外 3250 億美元的受到威脅的商品徵收 25% 的關稅。那將是最壞的情況。但其他可能性是有一些非常好的解決方案，無論兩國之間關於知識產權盜竊和強制技術轉讓以及所有這些事情的問題是什麼，都有一個系統來監控所有這些並且問題得到解決並且關稅下降。那將是最好的情況。另一個是存在某種最終結果，它不如美國想要的那麼好。只要在人們知道規則是什麼的情況下達成和解，製造商就可以調整這些規則，並可以與客戶協商以轉嫁額外成本，無論是 5%、10% 的關稅成本。只要有最終結果，我認為這對企業來說是積極的。當然，如果達成和解，免除責任，並且有一個非常好的環境，那將是非常積極的。但即使它不是最終最好的，但有某種最終性，我認為這比我們正在處理的不確定性要好。

We will now take our next question from Harsh Kumar from Piper Jaffray.

我們現在將接受來自 Piper Jaffray 的 Harsh Kumar 的下一個問題。

First of all, we appreciate your position trying to guide in all this see-saw trade chatter and running the company prudently for the long term. Steve, now you've taken share for quite a bit of time in what is a mature 8-bit market. What do you think are some of the things that Microchip specifically is doing that is helping you take share in that market?

首先，我們感謝您的立場，試圖引導所有這些拉鋸戰的貿易喋喋不休，並長期審慎地經營公司。史蒂夫，現在您已經在成熟的 8 位市場上佔據了相當長的時間。您認為 Microchip 專門做的哪些事情可以幫助您在該市場中佔有一席之地？

Well, I don't really want to tell my competitors how I'm taking share. I would simply say that if somebody doesn't develop any more 8-bit parts and adds no innovation to them simply because they buy a thesis that 8-bit market is not growing and put all the energy in the 32-bit, then they will continuously become more and more uncompetitive in the 8-bit, and we'll continue to gain share, which is really what's happening. There are many more things we're doing, but we are continuously able to show 8-bit customers how they can keep on utilizing our newer and newer 8-bit microcontrollers and continue to add innovation and not having to go to 16- or 32-bit microcontrollers, and therefore, we're taking a lot of share.

好吧，我真的不想告訴我的競爭對手我是如何分享的。我只想說，如果有人僅僅因為相信 8 位市場沒有增長並將所有精力投入 32 位而不再開發任何 8 位部件並且不向它們添加創新，那麼他們在 8 位中將不斷變得越來越沒有競爭力，而我們將繼續獲得份額，這就是正在發生的事情。我們正在做的事情還有很多，但我們能夠不斷向 8 位客戶展示他們如何繼續使用我們越來越新的 8 位微控制器並繼續增加創新，而不必轉向 16 位或 32 位位微控制器，因此，我們佔據了很多份額。

Fair enough, Steve. Thanks for that color. And then I wanted to ask about -- you cited some bookings data and some order data, all of it seems to be improving, the back half commentary is improving. Would it be fair for me to assume that you basically haircutted what you might -- let's say, you were doing earnings last week, you might have had a completely different commentary, completely different set of guide. You simply haircutted that based on the developments this week. Is that a fair assumption?

很公平，史蒂夫。謝謝你的顏色。然後我想問一下——你引用了一些預訂數據和一些訂單數據，所有這些似乎都在改善，後半部分的評論也在改善。我假設你基本上剪掉了你可能剪掉的頭髮是否公平——比如說，你上周正在做收益，你可能有完全不同的評論，完全不同的指南。您只是根據本週的事態發展對其進行了理髮。這是一個公平的假設嗎？

Yes, that's a fair assumption.

是的，這是一個合理的假設。

(Operator Instructions) Will now move on to our next question from Kevin Cassidy from Stifel.

（操作員說明）現在將轉到來自 Stifel 的 Kevin Cassidy 的下一個問題。

Steve, you had mentioned the automotive market. You felt that, that had hit the bottom and is coming back. Can you give a little more details around that? And also just maybe what your content increases might be for this year.

史蒂夫，你提到了汽車市場。你覺得那已經觸底並正在回來。你能提供更多細節嗎？也可能是您今年增加的內容。

So I think the way to think about it is not that it's rebounding into this quarter. I think we said it's hitting bottom, and it is heading to where, as we look into the second half, things are getting better. The content increase is a constant effort that we drive. We have shown you some of the slides in investor forums where we have 60, 70, 80 different components. And that continues to take place in various carmakers. It may not be for the same design in every carmaker, but it is a part of how we drive the market. It is a part how the market is evolving. There is more and more electronics that is going into safety, into convenience, into some of these new electric and electrification and ADAS, those type of trends. And we have our fair share in all of those areas. And I think the last piece is the European WLTP regulational change. I think the last remnants of that will get cleared into the -- by the end of this quarter. It has taken longer to clear, but we believe that all of that clears as we go through the end of this quarter. Those are all the different factors going into some of the color that Steve provided.

所以我認為思考它的方式並不是它在本季度反彈。我想我們說過它正在觸底，而且它正朝著下半年的方向發展，情況正在好轉。內容的增加是我們不斷努力推動的。我們在投資者論壇上向您展示了一些幻燈片，我們有 60、70、80 個不同的組成部分。這種情況繼續發生在各種汽車製造商中。它可能不是每個汽車製造商都採用相同的設計，但它是我們推動市場的方式的一部分。這是市場如何發展的一部分。越來越多的電子產品進入安全、便利、新電氣化和 ADAS 等趨勢。我們在所有這些領域都有公平的份額。我認為最後一塊是歐洲 WLTP 監管變化。我認為最後的殘餘將在本季度末被清除。它需要更長的時間才能清理乾淨，但我們相信，在本季度末，所有這些都會清理乾淨。這些都是影響 Steve 提供的某些顏色的不同因素。

Okay. Maybe just as a follow-up to China VAT tax, have you seen a more positive bookings from the Chinese automotive companies?

好的。也許只是作為中國增值稅的後續行動，您是否看到中國汽車公司的訂單更加積極？

We haven't really broken down the Chinese automotive specifically. I think if we look at China overall, we're seeing stronger bookings, and there should be a part of that reflected in most of the other areas, markets that are in China.

我們還沒有真正具體地分解中國汽車。我認為，如果我們從整體上看中國，我們會看到更強勁的預訂，其中一部分應該反映在大多數其他地區，即中國市場。

The lower VAT went into effect, I think, on April 1. So just like in U.S. when tax law changes or sales tax changes in a city or a state or some other rule change, or interest rate changes. I mean it takes a while to affect the economy. And I don't know if that's enough time for us to measure that a Chinese customer change their orders based on the VAT. I think that takes longer term to take hold in the economy. We're going to get orders from Chinese customers based on them having orders from their customers to build the modules, build the cars or whatever, and that's not likely to change in 4 weeks of VAT changing.

我認為，較低的增值稅於 4 月 1 日生效。就像在美國，當一個城市或州的稅法發生變化或銷售稅發生變化或其他一些規則發生變化或利率發生變化時。我的意思是影響經濟需要一段時間。我不知道這是否足以讓我們衡量中國客戶根據增值稅更改訂單。我認為這需要更長的時間才能在經濟中站穩腳跟。我們將從中國客戶那裡獲得訂單，因為他們從他們的客戶那裡獲得了建造模塊、建造汽車或其他任何東西的訂單，而這在增值稅變化的 4 週內不太可能改變。

We will now take our next question from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs.

我們現在將接受來自高盛的 Mark Delaney 的下一個問題。

First question was on operating expenses, which was pointed out came in the low end or just below guidance. Can you help us better understand to what extent those are structural cost takeouts that helped the better performance on cost or more timing or other temporal factors?

第一個問題是關於運營費用，有人指出這是低端或略低於指導。您能否幫助我們更好地了解這些結構性成本支出在多大程度上有助於在成本或更多時間或其他時間因素方面取得更好的績效？

Sure. So I mean we've done what I consider to be a very good job in managing OpEx over the last several quarters. We've essentially beat significantly on OpEx in both September and December and came in at the low end of guidance here in the current quarter. So we're managing the operations very tightly given the environment that we're facing. And as the environment improves in the second half, if it improves, we will have investments to make in the business that will have those dollars go up. So I am -- we -- we're holding OpEx flat at the midpoint of guidance in the current quarter, and that's pretty tight control, and again, would expect that OpEx will increase over time as we need to invest in the business to drive the long-term health at 40%-plus operating margin goals we have.

當然。所以我的意思是，在過去的幾個季度裡，我們在管理運營支出方面做了我認為非常出色的工作。我們在 9 月和 12 月的 OpEx 基本上都大大超過了本季度的指導低端。因此，鑑於我們所面臨的環境，我們正在非常嚴格地管理運營。隨著下半年環境的改善，如果情況有所改善，我們將對業務進行投資，這將使這些美元增加。所以我 - 我們 - 我們將 OpEx 持平在當前季度的指導中點，這是非常嚴格的控制，並且再次預計 OpEx 會隨著時間的推移而增加，因為我們需要投資於業務以以 40% 以上的營業利潤率目標推動長期健康發展。

Got it, that's helpful. And there's a lot of discussion on the call about the distribution business. Was just hoping maybe to pivot a little bit and better understand some of the trends in the direct business that came over from Microsemi acquisition. I believe servers and storage were markets that were served on an OEM-direct basis. Can you help us understand how bookings and market share is trending in those areas and I think cross-selling the full portfolio was part of the strategy, how successful that has been?

明白了，這很有幫助。關於分銷業務的電話會議進行了很多討論。只是希望能夠稍微調整一下，更好地了解 Microsemi 收購帶來的直接業務的一些趨勢。我相信服務器和存儲是在 OEM 直接基礎上服務的市場。您能否幫助我們了解這些領域的預訂量和市場份額趨勢，我認為交叉銷售整個產品組合是該戰略的一部分，這有多成功？

So there is weakness in some of those markets as you have seen reported by other players as well. I don't think there's anything particular about bookings that would give us any insight there. In terms of the cross-selling, those customers have given us access for other solutions that classic Microchip had, and we are having good progress and discussions on how those can be incorporated into next-generation designs using Microchip classic solutions that surround some of the storage and other networking solutions that Microsemi brought. So the customer access has been extremely useful to take solutions that are necessary in the market, but we did not have as good customer access as Microchip standalone.

因此，正如您在其他參與者所報告的那樣，其中一些市場存在疲軟。我不認為預訂有什麼特別之處可以讓我們在那裡有任何見解。在交叉銷售方面，這些客戶讓我們可以使用經典 Microchip 擁有的其他解決方案，我們正在取得良好進展並討論如何使用 Microchip 經典解決方案將這些解決方案納入下一代設計。 Microsemi 帶來的存儲和其他網絡解決方案。因此，客戶訪問對於採用市場上必需的解決方案非常有用，但我們沒有像獨立的 Microchip 那樣好的客戶訪問。

We will now move on to our next question. It comes from Christopher Rolland from Susquehanna International Group.

我們現在將繼續我們的下一個問題。它來自 Susquehanna International Group 的 Christopher Rolland。

Susquehanna. Yes, one for Eric and then one for Steve. I guess, Eric, the $7 million in underutilization, is there a level of company utilizations which you deem underutilized? And then also if you could talk about where utilizations are now and your inventory levels and if you have plans to bring them down?

薩斯奎漢娜。是的，一份給埃里克，一份給史蒂夫。我猜，埃里克，700 萬美元未充分利用，是否存在您認為未充分利用的公司利用率水平？然後你是否可以談談現在的利用率和你的庫存水平，以及你是否有計劃降低它們？

Okay. So really, the underutilization is looked at in a factory by factory basis based on kind of historical norms, so there isn't kind of a one-size-fits-all for that, and we've got our 3 large fabs, 3 large assembly and tests that Microchip classic has had historically and then a bunch of smaller factories that have come through the Microsemi acquisition. So it's kind of a case-by-case scenario that we look at that. And we don't break out a specific capacity utilization percentage. We just haven't done that historically, but we've got lots of capacity in place, and so we're well poised to be able to respond to growth as it comes in the future with pretty low CapEx, so that's a good thing. The second piece of your question was what?

好的。因此，實際上，根據某種歷史規範，逐個工廠查看未充分利用情況，因此沒有一種千篇一律的方法，我們有 3 個大型晶圓廠，3 個Microchip classic 歷史上擁有的大型組裝和測試，然後是通過收購 Microsemi 獲得的一些較小的工廠。因此，我們會根據具體情況來考慮。而且我們沒有打破具體的產能利用率百分比。我們只是歷史上沒有這樣做過，但我們有很多產能，所以我們已經做好準備，能夠以相當低的資本支出應對未來的增長，所以這是一件好事.你的第二個問題是什麼？

Was internal inventory. And do you guys have a plan to work that down, how do you feel about that level?

是內部庫存。你們有計劃降低這個水平嗎？您對這個水平有何看法？

Okay. So inventory was up 5 days in the quarter to 128. We've kind of had a target of 115 to 120 that we've talked about, and so inventory is on the higher end, but I think it is prudent for us to hold that level of inventory given the fact that the distribution inventory has come down, and customers are managing their own inventory quite conservatively, we believe. Again, we don't get real time reports from them. So it allows us to respond quickly in this uncertain environment where customers are needing to respond quickly when they get demand because they're not building to forecast as Steve kind of described before. So longer term, our goal would be to get the inventory down to 120 days or less, but that's not the environment that we're facing right now.

好的。因此，本季度庫存增加了 5 天，達到 128 天。我們已經討論過 115 到 120 的目標，因此庫存處於較高端，但我認為考慮到分銷庫存已經達到這一水平，我們保持這一水平的庫存是謹慎的下降，我們相信客戶正在相當保守地管理自己的庫存。同樣，我們沒有從他們那裡得到實時報告。因此，它使我們能夠在這種不確定的環境中快速做出響應，在這種環境中，客戶需要在收到需求時迅速做出響應，因為他們沒有像史蒂夫之前描述的那樣按照預測進行建設。所以從長遠來看，我們的目標是將庫存減少到 120 天或更短，但這不是我們現在面臨的環境。

A little extra inventory at this part of the cycle also prevents CapEx expenses on the other side of the cycle, so these are products with very long lives. There is little to no obsolescence risk, and so it does help from an overall cycle standpoint to have some inventory investment that can then defray CapEx spending on the other side of the cycle.

在周期的這一部分增加一些額外的庫存也可以防止週期另一端的資本支出支出，因此這些產品的壽命很長。幾乎沒有過時風險，因此從整體週期的角度來看，進行一些庫存投資確實有助於支付週期另一端的資本支出支出。

I will say also that our inventory is a lot lower than some of the larger, other analog players' inventory I have heard about. So while our target is 115 to 120, you would expect at this part of the cycle, when you're at the near bottom of the cycle, the inventory to be higher than the -- at the higher end of that and yet I think when I compare it, our inventory is lower than a lot of other players.

我還要說的是，我們的庫存比我聽說的一些較大的其他模擬播放器的庫存低很多。因此，雖然我們的目標是 115 到 120，但你會期望在周期的這一部分，當你處於週期的底部附近時，庫存會高於——在那個週期的高端，但我認為當我比較時，我們的庫存低於很多其他玩家。

There are many at 150-ish.

有很多在 150 左右。

Yes, that is fair. And then Steve, for you. If a trade deal was reached, would you still view kind of the return of business as a potential bonanza? Or are you more tempered here? Is there something that makes you more tempered, just as these negotiations, it seems like, even if we think something is finalized, that they may not be?

是的，這很公平。然後是史蒂夫，為你。如果達成貿易協議，您是否仍將某種程度上的業務回歸視為潛在的財富？還是你這裡脾氣比較大？有沒有什麼事情讓你脾氣更暴躁，就像這些談判，看起來，即使我們認為事情已經敲定了，但他們可能還沒有？

I think having seen the yo-yo sentiment on the trade talks, I would rather wait for the talks to conclude than analyze what that finality is, whether it ends up at 10% duty or something higher than that or goes all the way to 0 and have a chance to understand our customers and distributors' reaction through our salespeople and talking to some directly to really make an informed opinion rather than just throw something out.

我認為在看到貿易談判的搖擺不定情緒後，我寧願等待談判結束，也不願分析最終結果是什麼，最終關稅是 10% 或更高，還是一直到 0並有機會通過我們的銷售人員了解我們的客戶和分銷商的反應，並直接與一些人交談以真正提出明智的意見，而不是只是扔掉一些東西。

We will now take our next question from Craig Hettenbach from Morgan Stanley.

我們現在將從摩根士丹利的 Craig Hettenbach 那裡回答下一個問題。

I understand all the focus on China in terms of what's happening from a macro but was hoping, Steve, you can talk about trends that you're seeing in Europe and the United States as well.

我理解從宏觀上發生的一切都關注中國，但我希望史蒂夫，你也能談談你在歐洲和美國看到的趨勢。

Well, trends in U.S. and Europe are really not that great either. A lot of our U.S. customers are impacted because of the same trade issues. Industrial customers build a lot of their products in China and are having to pay the tariff costs, which are currently 10%, going to 25%. So our industrial business in the U.S. is impacted. Our consumer business, which is in the consumer appliance area, is impacted. The automotive business is impacted not because of tariffs, but I think the automotive in general, automotive production is down in all 3 geographies.

好吧，美國和歐洲的趨勢也確實不是那麼好。由於同樣的貿易問題，我們的許多美國客戶都受到了影響。工業客戶在中國製造他們的很多產品，並且不得不支付關稅成本，目前是 10%，將上升到 25%。所以我們在美國的工業業務受到了影響。我們在消費電器領域的消費業務受到了影響。汽車業務受到影響不是因為關稅，而是我認為整個汽車行業，所有 3 個地區的汽車產量都在下降。

But China is weak, too, and so -- China was a big export for European automotive.

但中國也很弱，所以——中國是歐洲汽車的大出口國。

Yes. So go ahead and comment on Europe. I was going to go there.

是的。因此，繼續對歐洲發表評論。我正要去那裡。

So I think Europe is seeing some of those headwinds that are -- none of these are confined to just 1 geography. There is interconnection between how global economies play. And so, for example, on the European carmakers, especially the luxury carmakers, they've had significant declines because the China market has been very weak for them. And that ripples through into some of the lower -- in recent times lower GDPs coming through some of the European economies. Many of them like Germany are highly export-oriented and affected by any impact in other regions of the world. And so there is a continued uncertainty and weakness that expands beyond just China and the U.S., but in part driven by what's happening in these economies.

所以我認為歐洲正在看到一些逆風——這些逆風都不僅僅局限於一個地理區域。全球經濟的運作方式相互關聯。因此，例如，歐洲汽車製造商，尤其是豪華汽車製造商，他們的業績大幅下滑，因為中國市場對他們來說非常疲軟。這會波及一些較低的——最近一些歐洲經濟體的 GDP 較低。其中許多國家，如德國，高度出口導向型，並受到世界其他地區的任何影響。因此，持續存在的不確定性和疲軟不僅限於中國和美國，但在一定程度上是由這些經濟體正在發生的事情所驅動的。

Got it. And just a follow-up question on the commentary of inventory, the expectation that you think it will be drawn down again in the June quarter. Do you think that the customers or the distributors will be reaching kind of limits of how far they will take it down? Or if things remained uncertain directionally, you think you would still go lower in terms of their inventory management?

知道了。只是關於庫存評論的後續問題，您認為庫存將在 6 月季度再次減少。您是否認為客戶或分銷商會達到某種程度的限制？或者，如果事情的方向仍然不確定，你認為你仍然會在他們的庫存管理方面走得更低嗎？

I think distributors will assess what the sales-out is. And of the sales-out is decreasing because of whatever, then they will continue to draw down inventory. If they expect that sales-out is increasing, then they would start to grow inventories to serve that sales-out. So it's not that the inventory is changing that much in months of inventory, it's mostly a multiple of really what their expectation of sales-out is. And many of the Chinese distributors, their sales-out have been much lower in December and March quarters. A lot of it driven by trade issues because their end-customers couldn't sell their product given the duties.

我認為分銷商會評估銷售情況。由於任何原因，銷售量正在減少，然後他們將繼續減少庫存。如果他們預計銷售量會增加，那麼他們將開始增加庫存以滿足銷售量。所以並不是說庫存在幾個月的庫存中變化那麼大，它主要是他們對售罄預期的倍數。許多中國經銷商在 12 月和 3 月季度的銷售額要低得多。其中很多是由貿易問題驅動的，因為鑑於關稅，他們的最終客戶無法出售他們的產品。

As there are no further questions at this time, I would like to hand the call back over to you, Mr. Sanghi for any additional closing remarks.

由於此時沒有其他問題，我想將電話轉回給您，Sanghi 先生，請您作任何額外的結束語。

We want to thank you. There was a very large participation on this call compared to what we have had in the last several quarters. We got lots of very, very good questions from investors and analysts, and thank you for giving us a chance to explain our views on U.S.-China trade, where the things are, how the business is. And we'll see some of you as we get on the road to various conferences this quarter. Thank you very much.

我們要感謝你。與過去幾個季度的情況相比，這次電話會議的參與人數非常多。我們從投資者和分析師那裡收到了很多非常非常好的問題，感謝您給我們機會解釋我們對美中貿易的看法，事情在哪裡，業務如何。我們將在本季度參加各種會議的路上見到你們中的一些人。非常感謝。

This will conclude today's conference. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.

今天的會議到此結束。謝謝大家的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。