VICR
#That was ---+ yes.
<UNK> will give you that.
I believe they were both down.
Yes, they were both down.
I can give you the total BBU number.
(inaudible) that both bookings and revenues for BBU were down, but let me give you a little bit more color regarding what's impacting that.
So, as suggested in prepared remarks, the defense market, particularly the US defense market, remains unhealthy with programs getting delayed.
I think of particular significance, what we've seen within the last few quarters has impacted BBU bookings and shipments and revenues, has been (inaudible) with respect to some other programs, of particular significance as noted in the prepared remarks, applications involving some railway type of hardware, particularly in Asia.
Now this detection is that this business, particularly the last one, which is in effect in the short-term, more predictable in terms of visibility, should start coming back over the next quarter or two.
There were some temporary gates that should reopen; that's what we are told.
So we don't see in the decline of recent quarters in BBU bookings and shipments a significant trend, and part of the reason why I can say that with confidence is that we track, as you might imagine, very closely new product registrations and when it comes to our classic bricks, the activity in terms of new registration has actually been very healthy, and that's indicative of future demand for those products, including new applications.
So at 10,000 feet, we see our classic Brick business being subject to fluctuations as it has in the past, and from time to time, the fluctuations are down, they are up.
That business isn't going to go anywhere up or down as you average through a number of quarters.
The growth is going to come from the new products, the ones we've been primarily focused on and we've been talking about.
And that growth is obviously going to start impacting the overall growth rate more and more as the fraction of revenues that are derived from the new products gets to be a larger percentage of the total.
So up to recently, fortunately there's been a small percentage.
It has itself been subject to ups and downs because the customer base has been relatively limited.
As we all know, there had been accelerations and then decelerations going from VR 12 to VR 12.5 and then to VR 13.
But now that we have grown the customer base, diversified into other types of applications, and guiding the new products business to be a larger percentage of the whole, we should begin to see the benefits of both that business we have a more statistically, more predictably, as well as over time leaving the classic legacy Brick business behind to be less significant while it is enjoying its old age.
Yes, we think we've seen, at least in the short-term, the bottom of it.
We see it coming back over the next couple of quarters, at least based on the visibility we have.
Should the difference market get healthier, there could be more significant pickup.
Now, in defense applications, we also have a lot and a growing presence with our new products, and obviously in the longer term those are going to be picking up where bricks get eventually left behind.
But we don't see cannibalizing our own Brick business anytime soon.
It has been very resilient for 30, nearly 40 years, and for everything from ---+ based on everything we can see, it's expected to continue to be resilient at least for the next 10 years.
Yes, yes.
Again, this is still reflective of some of the vagaries of how these orders are placed; they are not perfectly matched within a quarter.
Generally speaking, they should be rising in the same proportion.
They don't always do that.
And I think, again, as we progress to a more statistical VI Chip business for our power components and the power component business in general and the power system business based on the new generation of products, these numbers are going to, from quarter to quarter, come out to be more consistent and less bumpy.
Well, that's the case with Picor products.
I think with VI Chip there's been a grassroot growth in a variety of applications, defense applications, industrial and other kinds of applications.
And so the VI Chip business has been growing over the last year, even in those quarters, in those timeframes in which the (inaudible) demand was suppressed.
That's the best visibility we have at this point.
Well, we expect to see VR 13 to be a significant contributor.
We also expect other initiatives, and we have several in different end markets to become more significant as we get towards the latter half of next year.
There's a lot of missionary work that we've been doing on a number of fronts with new products, and these investments, these long-term investments, will start paying off in terms of bookings and revenues over the next few years.
So I don't want to pin the revenue growth for 2017 down at this point in time.
There's a lot of things that could happen next year.
I think there is another key milestone that we have been talking about in terms of our 3 by 5 initiative and point of inception that will in our minds mark a [phase sensation], if you will, in the state of the Company from what it has been to what it is going to be in terms of revenue run rate breaking ---+ approaching and breaking through the $300 million level.
We see that coming at the end in the fourth quarter of next year.
That's where we see that in terms of bookings rate coming about.
I don't think we provide a detailed breakdown.
(multiple speakers) We just provide the trends as discussed earlier.
For obvious reasons, we don't want to really expose the specifics of these various contributions.
Beyond the kinds of things we have discussed with a growing rate of acceptance of VI Chip, Picor products, they are beginning to represent the more substantial percentage of the whole.
And there was a point in time in which, as we had discussed, there was of some concern because of the fact that, once upon a time, in particular with VI Chip, we were not enjoying margins that were [representative of] what should be achievable.
But we have been making good progress with that, so we now feel quite good about the change in mix and the new products that we've invested so much in developing, in effect, taking over the bigger share of the total revenue as we get in 2017 and more so in 2018.
But beyond those general commentaries, we're going to keep the percentages from getting too detailed.
Those are segment data that's aggregated.
So I don't have those numbers in front of me.
I think the information that's provided in the Q obviously will continue to be provided in the Q.
Yes, it won't be long.
Yes, that is happening, and we are gearing up for the action on that.
So that's an example of our providing a front end VIA solution in a computing application.
It's not [official] point-of-load type of device that we've talked as much about.
It's a front end converter, and it's remarkable because of the fact it's in the new VIA package.
By the way, we've invested as part of the capital equipment deployment has been going on, we've invested in VIA manufacturing line in preparation for customers' uptake of VIA products.
So it's a good development because we see millions of dollars worth of revenues next year from that particular opportunity and growing its current revenues for VIA products.
As time goes on, it is more of the VIA products getting introduced, and there is going to be an accelerating pace of activity with respect to VIA products.
So we are also essentially investing in capacity with respect to point-of-load solutions.
We are investing in capacity with respect to chip packages and in particular the kinds of Chip VTMs, Chip PRMs, Chip MCMs for power package that were briefly discussed earlier in the call.
So this capacity expansion is taking place, again in anticipation of requirements for all these products.
But, going back to the VIA products, we are doing well.
In particular, so-called VCM VIAs, which were introduced after the VCM chips were themselves introduced, they are getting good traction with customers that value the fact that the VIA package offers a turnkey solution that provides not just the real power conversion function, but everything that needs to go around it in order for the customer to, in fact, plug and play in this particular case a front end converter that includes filtering, the rush protection, the (technical difficulty), secondary side communication, all of the bells and whistles that enable a very fast time to market, highly predictable deployment of a front-end building block.
So I think there's good news on the VIA front to match expectations.
It's not going to turn into $100 million business overnight.
We see based on the registered wins and design activity, we see an escalation with millions of dollars going to tens of millions of dollars over the next year to three years.
It is, it is.
I think there are several programs involved with one customer.
The first program, these programs are phased ---+ this is the first program that goes into production early next year, and there are other programs with the same customers that are going to fall on the heels of the first.
So we view VIA products as power system products, and we generally approach our business in terms of point-of-load and power system products.
So the point-of-load solutions are what we call power component solutions.
They tend to be relatively small modular building blocks that get deployed, typically next to processor, ASICs or other kinds of point-of-load hardware.
Whereas VIAs and new kinds of bricks that we are going to be introducing with chips within them tend to be removed from the point-of-load that they provide power to the point-of-load, but they process it from a source which can be the DC bus or a single-phase or three-phase power source.
And those kinds of products are power systems products that ---+ going back to the heart of your question ---+ are in some respects more like the classic bricks.
Now there was a point in time in which the classic bricks in distributed power played the role of a point-of-load device.
But a lot has happened since then, power system architectures are evolved and evolved again, and at this point in time, the right partitioning is of a different kind.
Brick-like products are really more front-end type of devices, and VIA is a perfect example that we're going to have some new products that are going to be referred to as super bricks; those are beginning to come out for some customers and some engagements starting in Q1.
Those kinds of solutions are going to be front-end power system type of building blocks that complement the point-of-load solutions.
And, again, our strategy is to give customers greater flexibility, greater architectural flexibility of our system flexibility to implement the best solutions with a faster time to market, with a high degree of predictability, great cost effectiveness, if you will, soup to nuts.
In this particular analogy, the soup is the front-end VIA-like product, and the nuts are the point-of-load power components.
So we are going to be evolving the way in which we track these things and manage them and make the most out of them.
We very much believe in a divide and conquer strategy.
It brings about focus, it brings about accountability, it brings about greater level of performance, and we are adapting to the future requirements to project to our customers the best solutions, both at the point-of-load and in the front end that leads to the point-of-load.
And in concert with that vision, we are going through some internal refocusing to again provide the best in terms of the divide and conquer strategy.
Let's maybe leave that for the next call.
I think we are getting close to the end of this one, and I don't have specific data in front of me.
Let's make a note of it, and I can address it the next time around.
I think in general terms I can tell you, as suggested in the prepared remarks, that this is a market we're focused on, and we have some significant engagements.
One of the products that has opened the way to those kinds of applications have been PFM-like products and other kinds of products that we have been introducing over the last few years.
You're welcome.
Maybe if there is another short question, we'll take it.
Otherwise ---+
Very well.
Thank you very much.
We will talk to you in three months.
