Synaptics (SYNA) 28th Annual Needham Growth Conference Virtual summary

Company evolution and strategic focus

• Nearly 40 years in semiconductors, evolving from touch sensing to edge AI solutions.

• Current growth driven by edge AI, leveraging sensing, processing, and connectivity platforms.

• Astra platform developed for native AI processing at the far edge, targeting next 2–4 years.

• Strong investments in edge and far edge AI, anticipating industry shift from data center to edge.

Astra platform and differentiation

• Astra 2600 series processor built from scratch for edge AI, featuring unique dual-core and NPU architecture.

• Only provider embedding Google’s Coral RISC-V NPU, with additional audio and vision co-processors.

• Delivers high compute at low power, eliminating need for heat sinks in industrial and healthcare applications.

• Emphasizes open source, enabling flexible model deployment from cloud to edge.

• Focus on quantizing models for efficient edge and cloud operation.

Customer traction and applications

• Astra 2600 series sampling now, general availability expected end of Q1 or early Q2.

• Early traction in industrial, healthcare, and consumer applications, including real-time translation and local LLMs.

• Demonstrated running Google’s Gemma 3 LLM locally at CES.

• Near-term growth expected in consumer and wearable markets; mid-term in industrial sectors.

• Robotics applications leverage combined touch, processing, and connectivity technologies.