Wolfspeed Closes Fiscal 2026 With a $149.6 Million Quarter and a Gross Margin Still Below Zero

by Karl Lindström · August 19, 2026

Semiconductors & Hardware Reporter, Frontier Tech Wire

Wolfspeed (NYSE: WOLF) reported results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 on Wednesday, closing out the fiscal year in which it emerged from Chapter 11 with revenue of $149.6 million and a gross margin well below zero on both a GAAP and a non-GAAP basis. The quarter ended June 28, 2026.

The company said consolidated revenue was aligned with the midpoint of its own guidance range. Power Products contributed $106.3 million and Materials Products $43.3 million. On a GAAP basis Wolfspeed reported gross margin of negative 25 percent, a net loss of $145.4 million and a diluted loss per share of $2.81. Excluding items, the company put non-GAAP gross margin at negative 20 percent, non-GAAP net loss at $116.9 million, non-GAAP diluted loss per share at $2.26 and adjusted EBITDA at negative $62.4 million.

Measured against outside expectations rather than management's own, the quarter was a wide miss. Analyst consensus as reported by Investing.com, and separately cited by TipRanks, called for revenue of $223.55 million and an adjusted, non-GAAP loss per share of $0.52; Wolfspeed delivered $149.6 million and a non-GAAP loss of $2.26 per share. Because the company's own guidance midpoint was roughly $150 million, the shortfall sits between the sell-side model and the company's forecast, not between the forecast and the result.

One number that shaped the reaction was not in the release at all. On the earnings call, chief financial officer Gregor van Issum was asked what revenue level would be needed to stop losing money at the gross-profit line. According to a transcript account published by Investing.com, he answered: “we would say on $800 million annual run rate, that is probably the ballpark where a break-even gross margin point lies right now.” That wording is hedged, it is a run-rate estimate rather than a target, and it does not appear in Wolfspeed's own release; Frontier Tech Wire could not confirm it against a primary company document. Wolfspeed's guidance for the September quarter — revenue of $140 million to $160 million, with non-GAAP gross margin expected to remain negative and non-GAAP operating expenses of $62 million to $66 million — leaves the business a long way short of that pace.

That gap frames the fiscal year. Wolfspeed has built out capacity for a silicon carbide device market that has not yet arrived at the volume its cost structure assumes, and the under-absorbed fabs show up directly in a negative gross margin. Until utilisation rises materially, every incremental quarter of shipments still consumes cash at the gross-profit line before operating expenses are counted.

The bright spot management leaned on was artificial-intelligence infrastructure. Wolfspeed said in the release that AI data center revenue more than doubled year over year in fiscal 2026 and increased approximately 20 percent sequentially in the fourth quarter. The company did not disclose the dollar size of that business, so the growth rates cannot be checked against a base; the fiscal-year comparison also spans the Predecessor and Successor periods described below. Chief executive Robert Feurle said in the release that the company “continued to expand our device business, highlighted by strong growth in AI data center applications and the launch of our fifth-generation SiC MOSFET.”

Cash burn narrowed but did not stop. Operating cash flow in the quarter was negative $54.1 million and free cash flow was negative $60.9 million; operating cash flow for the Successor period to date was negative $180.8 million. Capital expenditure has been throttled hard: the Investing.com account of the results put fourth-quarter gross capex at $5 million against $38 million in the third quarter, consistent with a company that has finished its build and is now trying to fill it. Wolfspeed ended the period with $1.1 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments — $576.3 million of cash and equivalents plus $512.3 million of short-term investments.

On the liability side, the release's balance sheet as of June 28, 2026 showed long-term debt of $931.0 million and convertible notes, net, of $756.5 million. Those two lines sum to about $1.69 billion, which is the basis for the roughly $1.7 billion of total debt cited elsewhere; against $1.09 billion of cash and short-term investments that leaves net debt of about $0.6 billion, matching the roughly $600 million figure management gave on the call per the transcript account. Holders of $46 million of second-lien convertible notes voluntarily converted into equity during the fourth quarter, which trims interest expense at the cost of dilution to existing shareholders.

Two further debt figures come from Investing.com's summary of the company's slide deck rather than from the release, and they are drawn on a different basis. Investing.com reported that Wolfspeed reduced total debt by approximately $615 million “in US GAAP liability terms” over the fiscal year, from roughly $2.3 billion to roughly $1.7 billion, and that the company now has no debt maturity until 2030, with $636 million due that year and $1.1 billion in 2031. The $2.3 billion starting point is a full-fiscal-year comparison that straddles the Predecessor and Successor periods and is not a line item in the fourth-quarter release; only the $1.7 billion end point ties directly to the balance sheet above. Readers should not treat the $615 million as a movement between two audited, like-for-like balance sheets. Van Issum said in the release that the company is “aggressively targeting initiatives to further reduce our debt and cost of capital as well as enhance our financial positioning,” and per the transcript account he identified the company's most expensive debt — carrying interest of around 16 percent — as the highest priority to refinance.

Comparability is a genuine problem with this set of accounts, and readers should treat year-over-year figures carefully. Wolfspeed filed prepackaged Chapter 11 petitions on June 30, 2025 and its fresh-start accounting effective date was September 29, 2025, which splits the fiscal year into a Predecessor period on or before that date and a Successor period running from September 30, 2025 to June 28, 2026. The release does not present a single consolidated fiscal 2026 revenue line, and the two periods are not drawn on the same basis.

On the product side, Wolfspeed pointed to the launch of its fifth-generation silicon carbide MOSFET. Per Investing.com's summary of the slide deck, the company's 10kV MOSFET was recognised as a “Top Innovation” at the PCIM power-electronics conference in Europe in June, a recognition the summary says led to a memorandum of understanding with GE Aerospace — an industry award and a non-binding agreement, not a customer commitment. The same summary said Wolfspeed has completed its transition from 6-inch to 8-inch wafer production and that the fifth-generation device is running at its Mohawk Valley facility for rapid conversion to volume production.

Design activity, as described on the call and in the deck, spanned both of the company's end markets. The Investing.com accounts cited awarded business from a European tier-one supplier on an onboard charging application for a large German automaker, a deepened relationship with Toyota, a strategic collaboration with LITEON Technology on power supplies for AI data centres serving hyperscale customers, and work with an eVTOL manufacturer. Wolfspeed did not publish a design-win dollar value or a cumulative design-in figure in the release, so the revenue timing attached to any of this is unstated.

Shares fell sharply after the release. TipRanks reported Wolfspeed stock down 10 percent on the earnings miss, and Stocktwits reported shares off around 11 percent in after-hours trading on Wednesday. Frontier Tech Wire could not independently verify a regular-session closing price for August 19, and the specific price levels reported by Investing.com are therefore not carried here. Chip stocks were broadly weak during the session: 24/7 Wall St. reported Intel and AMD each down about 4 percent and Broadcom down about 5 percent, with Nvidia unchanged.

The risk profile here should be stated plainly. Wolfspeed is loss-making at the gross-margin line, is burning cash from operations, carries about $1.69 billion of gross debt against $1.09 billion of cash and short-term investments, has guided to another quarter of negative non-GAAP gross margin, and has already converted a slice of its convertible notes into stock, diluting existing holders. Its chief financial officer, per the Investing.com transcript account, put the annual revenue run rate at which gross margin breaks even in the ballpark of $800 million — well above the pace implied by September-quarter guidance of $140 million to $160 million. The AI data center line is growing quickly from an undisclosed base, and whether it grows fast enough to fill capacity built for automotive volumes remains the open question heading into fiscal 2027.