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Aehr Test Systems (AEHR)

Q2 2024 Earnings Call· Tue, Jan 9, 2024

$81.69

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to Aehr Test Systems' Second Quarter Fiscal 2024 Financial Results Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Jim Byers of MKR Investor Relations. Jim, you may begin.

Jim Byers

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and welcome to Aehr Test Systems' Second Quarter Fiscal 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. With me on today's call are Aehr Test Systems' President and Chief Executive Officer, Gayn Erickson; and Chief Financial Officer, Chris Siu. Before I turn the call over to Gayn and Chris, I'd like to cover a few items. This afternoon right after market close, Aehr Test issued a press release announcing its fiscal 2024 second quarter results, that release is available on the company's website at aehr.com. This call is being broadcast live over the Internet for all interested parties and the webcast will be archived on the Investor Relations page of the company's website. I'd like to remind everyone that on today's call management will be making forward-looking statements that are based on current information and estimates and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are discussed in the company's most recent periodic and current reports filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements, including guidance provided during today's call are only valid as of this date, and Aehr Test Systems undertakes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements. And now with that, I'd like to turn the conference call over to Gayn Erickson, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Thanks, Jim. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter of fiscal 2024 earnings conference call. Thanks for joining us today. We'll start with a quick summary of the highlights of the quarter and the continued momentum we're experiencing in the semiconductor wafer level test and burn-in markets, then Chris will go over the financials in more detail. After that, we'll open up the lines to take your questions. We had another solid quarter with strong year-over-year growth in revenue and net income, both ahead of consensus estimates. Revenue for the quarter was $21.4 million, an increase of 45% year-over-year and we generated non-GAAP net income of $6.7 million, slightly over 31% net profit. For the first half of the fiscal year, we grew revenue 65% over the same period last year. We continue to see increased demand for our wafer level burn-in products and remain confident about the future demand for our unique technology solutions and the multiple market opportunities they address. In just the last 60 days we've seen how the slowing of the growth rate of the electric vehicle market has had a negative impact on the timing of several current and new customer orders and capacity increases for silicon carbide devices used in them. For clarity, we do not see the silicon carbide market actually decreasing, only a slowing of the growth rate and we've seen delays in both current customer and new customer purchase orders for production ramps to meet those electric vehicle demand, compared to what we are expecting even within the last several weeks and days. I'll discuss more detail on our new customer engagements, but a very large customer that we've been engaged with on a significant automotive benchmark, in particular, has modified their timing for taking multiple production systems, which…

Chris Siu

Analyst

Thank you, Gayn. Good afternoon, everyone. We're pleased to announce another solid quarter for Aehr Test Systems, with strong year-over-year growth in revenue and net income, both ahead of consensus estimates. Let me summarize our results for the fiscal second quarter. Second quarter revenue was $21.4 million, up 45% from $14.8 million in Q2 of last year. Strong demand in all revenue categories including systems, contactors, and services contributed to a significant year-over-year increase in revenue in the second quarter. WaferPak revenues were $9.2 million and accounted for 43% of our total revenue in the second quarter, which was consistent with 45% of our revenue in the prior year quarter. Customers typically buy WaferPaks from us, subsequent to purchasing our FOX systems. We're seeing continued momentum for new WaferPak designs with existing and new customers to meet their customer and market requirements. As Gayn noted, we've seen how the slowing of growth in the electric vehicle market has had a negative impact on the timing of several current and new customer orders and capacity increases. As a result, bookings in the second quarter were $2.2 million and our backlog as of quarter-end was $3 million. We expect orders for systems, WaferPaks, Aligners and Services in this and next quarter in time to support our latest revenue forecast. GAAP gross margin for the second quarter came in at 51.1%, down from 53.4% in Q2 last year. The decrease in gross margin is primarily due to high inventory reserve and increased period costs. Operating expenses in the second quarter were $5.5 million, up 24% from $4.4 million in Q2 last year. The year-over-year increase is primarily due to previously noted increased headcount-related expenses to support our worldwide sales and marketing efforts, along with our R&D programs. Our investments in sales and marketing…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] First question today is coming from Christian Schwab from Craig-Hallum. Christian, your line is live.

Christian Schwab

Analyst

Thank you. Gayn, can you give us some indication of how you would anticipate the revenue orders to come and support in the second half of the year? Are you assuming the vast majority of the revenue you're guiding for the fiscal year will come in the May quarter? And [Multiple Speakers]

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Yes, no, that's a fair question. We were - given where the orders are right now with already a chunk into the third quarter, we think that second half or the [indiscernible] Q4 will certainly be bigger than Q3. Maybe but not majority, maybe at 60, 40 spreads or something like that. So we're still expecting orders and have things lined up to ship for this quarter.

Christian Schwab

Analyst

Okay. Okay. And then, you guys talked about -- Gayn, in your prepared comments you talked about -- we're seeing a slowdown, given all the reasons that you mentioned. But then you went on to say that does not change your growth expectations for years ahead. Can you let us know what are your growth expectations? What do you think the topline growth rate of the company on a multi-year basis will be?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Yes, that's what we probably set ourselves up for that Christian, because as we haven't given any multi-year growth strategy on here. Let me answer it this way instead and I know that we'll be giving next year's guidance in July. I'm not yet sure we'll commit to a multi-year or not. But when we talk to the customer, one of the hardest things about preparing for this call was even -- not even 30 days ago, we were still hearing across the board from our customers bookings and shipments lot requests that were consistent with us exceeding $100 million. It's only been in the last couple -- few weeks that we've seen things including all the way to last weekend, where they've sort of finalized what their plans are and pushed some things out. These customers have not changed their long-term plans, their forecast for their revenue growth, their market share, their silicon carbide, their test times, those kinds of things. We think are still consistent with what we had been [indiscernible] which includes by the way test time reductions over time. Consistent with the models that we generated couple of few years ago, where, if you look at $4 million wafer starts, so thereabouts to support just the EV market, it would take somewhere on the order of 2000 wafers of capacity or 2000 of our blades for the overall market. And so we haven't changed that. And in fact, I'll add one more thing here. Those numbers were based on this -- 30% penetration of 100 million vehicles or 30 million EVs in 2030, I keep using that 30, 30, 30 number. Last year for the bulk of the year, there were many people saying that EVs were going to be faster than that, there will be…

Christian Schwab

Analyst

Just then maybe another way thinking about as we exit this year and go into fiscal year 2025, would you assume that your lead significantly much greater than 10% customer, can you know grow or sustain itself at a material run rate $50 million, $60 million, $80 million. How should we be thinking about -- I understand you don't want to make a proclamation about what is their aggregate demand is, but they've made comments about it. So given their public comments, I guess, let's start with that, how would you anticipate that customer materiality in fiscal year 2025?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

I mean, we -- I believe that they will still be material. I don't know that they will be the dominant customer [Technical Difficulty] they'd be or they not be. My guess is, they will not even be the largest, as some of the other customers are kicking in with their ramps. One thing we've tried to look at is, how fast is the market growing itself. I mean, silicon carbide is growing, let's say 40% a year topline revenue. Can we grow faster than that? I think there is examples where we can, but I think it would be more realistic to think that we grow alongside the market itself. But as we displace potential package part burn-in, et cetera, there is opportunities. The wow part of this would be the mix. So as a customer, if they have purchased WaferPaks from us and they're shipping $100 million of the revenue year to a customer, the next year if the devices stay the same, they wouldn't buy any more WaferPaks and certainly not systems to meet that $100 million. If the -- if that customer or our customers' customer grows from $100 to $200, they would buy more systems and more WaferPaks. But if their customer mix or the product mix changes, they might displace all of those WaferPaks. So we would get revenue even though their revenue isn't growing. And that's a very important part of obviously our business for our shareholders but also to our customers that we can continue to generate revenue and have the dollars to spend on R&D and applications and support and new enhancements for their needs even if they're not necessarily buying new systems. But we do think that they will still be a significant customer for us next year. We believe that they -- and are consistent with what they have been telling people their growth plans are. But we think that there'll be other customers, most likely there'll be bigger than them next year.

Christian Schwab

Analyst

Great. And then my last question, I apologize for so many. Is the Chinese market still is a -- a faster adoption -- adopter of silicon carbide, has numerous manufacturers -- many manufacturers of silicon carbide. Is that a market that you plan on eventually targeting or are you currently targeting?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Let me -- that's a good one, you're taking all the good questions here. But let me talk about the Chinese market because I think there is a change there from last quarter on -- and I'll be giving you more updates probably at the next one. So the Chinese market, certainly the EV market itself is growing very fast. A lot of the things you hear in the US with respect to why people should or shouldn't adopt EVs is just not the case outside of the US in particularly in Asia, and China. Chinese EVs are -- have exploding growth with big suppliers like BYD and NEO and others. We're actually shipping where we know we're testing products that are going into the Chinese market today. So they aren't being tested in China, right, but they're actually being tested on our systems and shipped to it. A lot of the silicon carbide if not the majority is still being supplied outside of China into China. But we see that changing over time as there's a lot of players getting into the Chinese market for silicon carbide. A lot of them in the wafer in itself, but also in devices. In the last quarter, we've had some pretty active conversations with some of the big Chinese suppliers, who candidly are asking us to participate and to engage with them more directly. And we've been having some conversations related to how can we protect our IP there, what would that look like, et cetera. And we are working on some strategies that I'm not trying to keep them from our shareholders, I'm just trying to keep them from our competitors, so we're keeping those close to our chest. But expect some movement there over the next quarter. And I will give you -- some movement in what we're doing. Next quarter, I'll try and give you guys some more update. But there are some key activities going on in China that I think Aehr is going to be participating in.

Christian Schwab

Analyst

That's great, thanks Gayn. No other questions.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Thanks, Christian.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Jed Dorsheimer from William Blair. Jed, your line is live.

Jed Dorsheimer

Analyst

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Sorry for the background noise, I'm in Las Vegas, meeting with your customer actually. So just Gayn trying to reconcile, it sounds like there was a material change in the last 30 days in terms of demand and visibility to your business. Is that correct? And I just asked that because your largest customer did flag something last quarter, but I want to separate what happened in the past versus what's occurred in the last 30 days. Thanks.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

All right. Well, one thing I'm going to start giving people heads up on is, I'm trying to be more thoughtful about giving insight into our customers, to be fair. But I'm going to specifically answer what I think you're implying. Right after our largest customer talked about their change in their forecast, we not only did not hear a negative impact to us, candidly, it flipped around and for a period of time, it was actually an uptick, right, which was a little hard to imagine and explain, but had to do with the wafer pack and the shift to new customers and some other things. Literally in the last seven days, they have reconciled their plans, et cetera. And we've tried to thoughtfully reflect that in the latest one. But again, I actually said in my prepared remarks, their revenue to us is pretty close to what we were expecting when this all came out. So if you want to say the bulk of the $15 million to $25 million decrease was not from them, that was actually from other customer forecasts that have changed over the last, like three to four weeks candidly.

Jed Dorsheimer

Analyst

Got it.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Our lead customers forecast settled in only in the last week or so. Now, having said that, folks, it may not be the right answer. There's still a range. We took a very conservative stance in hopes there's no way we'll miss it on the low end, but I can see scenarios where we could be higher than the range I gave you. But going out and saying we have a range of $75 million to $100 million just seemed weird silly. And so, we're taking this stance, I think we really think that this is appropriately communicating what the customers are telling us, and we could defend that and we're doing our best to just be open with people. Okay? Q - Jed Dorsheimer That's helpful, I guess, Gayn to that point, though, if I look at what you've done this year versus the guide of $75 million to $85 million and subtract out the delta there, that would imply, if it was equal between each of the next two quarters, somewhere between $16 million and $19 million each quarter. And I know to Christian's earlier question, you said it would be 60:40, but I guess it does beg the question with the current bookings, what gives you the confidence towards the low end there? Because you seem pretty confident in -- that it's been conservative and there would only be upside. But I guess what's giving you that? Is that the sort of verbal commitment that you -- that's happened in the last few weeks with the customers?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Yeah. I mean, I would warn what a verbal commitment really is. We are in constant communication with all of these customers, and our lead customer is [indiscernible] candidly. I'd say that the numbers and the forecasts they've given us have been constant for the last 30 to 60 days but on the low end. And so that's why we have more clarity. I think they have direct visibility of orders that they have from their customers and what that drives in terms of wafer packs and capacity, et cetera. But I will -- my personal belief is I don't think they have perfect visibility. And I think there's a little bit of reaction to the seeming slowdown. But now, with interest rates recovering and perhaps people getting through their inventory, maybe they'll be pleasantly surprised on their side. But, yes, I mean, we're down to knowing -- when we have these forecasts, we know what wafer pack mix it is, et cetera. So we have pretty good visibility. I'd say very good visibility.

Jed Dorsheimer

Analyst

So two more questions for me. First is, with the inventory that you've built, which is good if you get to move to a turns business and a book and chip. But I'm just wondering whether or not that presents a challenge of holding pricing, whether or not if pricing was to erode it all, would that -- how should we be thinking about a margin impact and then also with wafer pack versus system?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Okay, there's a couple of things. So, first of all, on the inventory, the inventory that we built, we believe is -- allows us to address the needs across all of the markets we've talked about, plus the 2D, 3D sensing, including memory, that we didn't spend much time spending. That -- we built this platform with a mix that basically we can ship to multiple different customers, that gives us the confidence that we bought this material. We're not going to be writing it down or anything along those lines. So that one is really important. We've had a lot of conversation about that. The turns business has the advantage of, you can get an order today and ship a lot in the next month. It has the disadvantage of customers can wait and kind of -- try and hold you up. We're not and have not been in conversations with people and don't really entertain conversations of people trying to hold us over a barrel. If you decrease your price, then I'll place the order or I'll take a shipment. Candidly, we've tried not to do that. I think that's the wrong answer. Would pricing come down over time? We have not been experiencing that. What we have been doing, and we've expressed this to customers, our costs, like everybody else's costs, increased during COVID but we did not pass those on to our customers, even in the extreme cases when shipping costs were out of control. So we've been able to hold our pricing, which, as a vendor, I appreciate a lot. And so, candidly our customers raise their prices on us because we buy their components, but we've been able to hold our pricing even in a time when we're extra competitive and we've not been…

Jed Dorsheimer

Analyst

Thanks for all the color, Gayn. I appreciate it. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow night.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Okay. Thank you, Jed.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question is coming from Tom Diffely from D.A. Davidson. Tom, your line is live.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Hey, Tom.

Tom Diffely

Analyst

Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for the question. Quite a few have been asked already, so I'll stick to a couple of just industry questions for you, if you don't mind.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

No problem.

Tom Diffely

Analyst

Curious where we are as an industry, when we talk about power conversion devices in the move from silicon to silicon carbide? And then inside that, where we are from district silicon carbide to kind of multi die systems?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Okay. So it's interesting, the ISS summit is going on right now, and people have been feeding me slides of what's going on. And that's just an industry forum where large players like Infineon and ST, for example, were presenting and they were showing their roadmaps and talking about the importance of silicon carbide and gallium nitride to the power semiconductor industry and how that fit with silicon. Why that's important is they plus on semiconductor as an example, are not pure plays. They have both silicon IGBT, large businesses, multi-billion dollar businesses, as well as silicon carbide businesses and gallium nitride businesses in the cases of ST and Infineon in particular. So they have I would call it a good balanced opinion about what's going on because they're doing both. They talk about how important it is for kind of a greener planet because of the efficiencies associated with both silicon carbide and gallium nitride and how those markets are going to grow significantly and not only displace some of the IGBT, but create new markets that didn't even exist. So, my feeling is silicon carbide -- we've had a chance to sit in front of customers in Asia and Japan, Europe, US, there continues to be a ton of excitement around silicon carbide and not just in the EVs. And guys, we're not pivoting. EVs are critically important and they're a huge opportunity for Aehr Test. But there's a lot of companies, in fact, the last two customers that placed orders with us, they were not aimed at the EVs. I said that already publicly. They were actually at other applications. And so those companies are making their whole strategy related to -- so there is -- it feels like a little bit of -- silicon carbide was…

Tom Diffely

Analyst

So even though it's on everyone's roadmap, would you say today it is very, very early in that transition?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

I believe still, I do. I mean, not everybody is doing it and -- I don't want to get into anything other than what is publicly described out there. But even some of the shifts with respect to what's going on in Tesla's business has had an implication, because I think people now, and again, I'm not saying anything that's not public. Tesla which started this segment, they actually used a form of a discrete device in their current inverters. It has two die in each device and you can call it a module. And depending on the supplier, they can either do it with package form or wafer level. And some of those shifts could have an impact on us in the near term, but although I don't -- I'm not providing any insight into what Tesla's plans are long term, but the prevailing thought process is that, by the end of the decade and certainly before that you'll see all silicon carbide engines and modules or most of them.

Tom Diffely

Analyst

Great. I appreciate all the extra color.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Thanks, Tom.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Matt Smith from Halter Ferguson. Matt, your line is live.

Matt Smith

Analyst

Yes, thanks. And Gayn, I wanted to kind of piggyback on that last question, I mean hearing everything you've talked about in the longer term kind of prospects around GaN or photonics or even newer markets within auto, am I right to presume that your kind of level of expectation for [Technical Difficulty]

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Matt, you just broke up on your last sentence. Our level of expectation what?

Matt Smith

Analyst

Sorry. Apologies. Can you hear me now? Is that any better?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Yes.

Matt Smith

Analyst

All right. Just your level of expectation around some of these, either new markets or new segments seems to be increasing relative to maybe what you would have thought a couple of years ago or maybe even a couple of quarters ago. So despite the kind of short-term noise or like a demand we might be seeing on auto, is your expectation on the other segments kind of increasing to the point where you think you might be close to the capacity in a couple of years?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Yes. Okay. So yes, let me -- kind of the historical perspective of the timing of it. I'll pick on what do I do, memory, because we didn't talk much at all about memory. What we've said is, if you invest in area, you are investing in memory. Memory has always been on our plans and we have different level of engagements and we're still talking with memory suppliers about potentially wafer-level burn-in. It is not deployed in mass yet, it makes sense at flash, it ultimately makes sense in DRAM. That's the longest term out there. We're not planning to get revenue in the next year. But I've even shared, we have specific long-term bonus and KBOs for every manager and my staff and myself to get into memory. So that is a real thing. Back up a little bit, it's gallium nitride. We just talked about gallium nitride just like within the last nine months and what we said at the beginning of the year is, we're getting -- we're going to work to engage with the leaders, which now I'm very comfortable we are, to understand the requirements and what their needs are, and -- so we can be there to address their needs and to learn and understand if there is a large production opportunity. What I will share with you is that, we've learned a lot already together with those customers. There is some things about it and I'm not going to get into it [indiscernible] but there is some real tricks that we've been able to help our customers to solve that are unique to GaN versus silicon carbide. And honestly, I'm super happy about it, I am a bit of a technical nerd, but the things that we're able to do with the…

Matt Smith

Analyst

I think what I was trying to get at is, it seems to me that the growth rate of these, let's call it, non-core business segments for Aehr today, it's probably going to be like higher than the growth rate within the kind of core automotive silicon carbide market. Is that kind of how you would think about just the sheer quantity and the sheer magnitude of those opportunities?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Okay, two things. Okay. So if you're going to take growth rate, be careful, because a small number of growth rate can seem large and it's a small number, so are there -- are those bigger? The optical IO market, we've said, we think can be as big or even potentially bigger than even silicon carbide simply because of the potential units and the test time, the dollars, it turns out it's actually much more expensive for us to build, even though it's extremely cost-effective. So it has the ability to be bigger. Memory absolutely is the biggest of all of them, right? And GaN is a TBD, I think, but it looks promising. So if I try and give you relative sizes, okay?

Matt Smith

Analyst

All right. Thanks. I appreciate the color.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Okay.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is coming from Larry Chlebina from Chelbina Capital. Larry, your line live.

Larry Chlebina

Analyst

Hey, Gayn. I have several questions and we get through them fairly quickly. We are getting late. Do you expect follow-on orders and shipments this fiscal year to the fully automated silicon carbide customer that you just booked the revenue last quarter. Do you expect shipments and revenues, additional follow-on with revenues this fiscal year from that customer?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Yes. We -- I am looking down to the whole list here. I think we are expecting some level of revenue from most customers including them.

Larry Chlebina

Analyst

That was a significant order and since they ordered two of them, I would expect there -- they have a significant ramp that they’re going to need some more capacity.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Hi. All of these -- all of the customers need significant more capacity to meet their revenue forecast. That’s correct.

Larry Chlebina

Analyst

Could it be that maybe the slower uptake of some of these customers, particularly the one you've been working on forever, is simply the fact that they're building 200-millimeter fabs and they're waiting for the 200-millimeter wafers before they commit to your full system so that they don't have to buy two sets of wafer packs? Why start at 150 if you wait a little bit you're going to be on 200. Maybe they have a bunch of single wafer probers that they can get by on. It's not efficient but could it be something along those lines?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

I don't think that -- it could be, Larry. I mean I don't think so. I look at each individual customer. Most of them are all planning to go from 150 to 200. Now, it's not -- so if you -- let's say the 200 is a new line completely. Very often people may want to change their strategy and go from discrete to die level on a new line, let's say. In that case, maybe you're right, they would time it with the 200-millimeter ramps. But that hasn't been how it has felt to us. People have -- I think the 200-millimeter is coming. I mean, we're testing 200-millimeter wafers today from multiple customers, right? We see it. I think it's kind of consistent with everything that everybody's hearing. We don't have any particular great insight. I just don't -- it's not -- I think it's slower than people have originally thought. I don't think it's going to be 100% of the market, it's going to -- through the end of the decade, there's still going to be a big chunk of 150-millimeter wafers being built. One of the big discussions that's going on is will, a 200-millimeter wafer yield higher than 150 at a lower cost per yielded die? And right now I think everything I've read is not yet, and so -- but that's also very true with most of these transitions. It's sort of chicken and egg, you have to lead with it and then eventually your costs come under control. But one thing with us is that, the system is fully compatible between 150 and 200. You can build our auto aligner and it can work with both. We have current customers that in the same day are doing both. And so -- and the wafer packs, there are some things we can do with wafer packs to actually leverage and help with that too. But yes, I don't think that's the majority of it, but it might be on some customers.

Larry Chlebina

Analyst

Okay. On the optical IO customer, it's interesting that they started with [NPs] (ph), if I recall, four of them that is scattered around the world, and then now they're pushing you to pull in and complete as soon as possible the production XP for that application. It would seem that in a fairly short time, maybe sooner than later, they might be needing quantities of production tools. As fast as that market is growing on the AI front, possibly it would give them a terrific leg up on their competitors. Do you think that could be something that might be at work here?

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Maybe, yes. I mean, we're preparing the tool. It will allow us to duplicate and build multiple of the same flavors. One of the nice things that we did with this one is the system is actually in the new chamber configuration, so it bolts right onto the front or the back, if you will, of the aligner. So they could do it either with offline or integrated. It was not purchased with the integrated aligner, but we could easily upgrade it in the field if they wanted to do that. And we think -- I think that makes sense for that market. I think the aligner is the right answer. And as high volume, that would totally make sense.

Larry Chlebina

Analyst

Exactly. So along the high volume. Last question on the -- you mentioned many times that every DRAM is burned in, I'm assuming some kind of exotic package part of burn-in or whatever. But the -- the large DRAM producer in the US is planning on building actually several fabs in the US. And they're also introducing high bandwidth memory this quarter, I believe, with 12 stacks of DRAM on top of it. It just seems like a layup. I know it's more complicated than that, but an application that would lend itself towards wafer-level burn-in versus doing testing on that stack and finding you got a bad die in there somewhere. Would it make sense to try to get an evaluation tool on a fully automated XP over that memory customer before they set their plans on clean room space and so on and so forth, particularly before they commit to building those fabs.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

I mean I don't want to get too much into it, but on DRAM, there's a couple of other things that need to happen with DRAM to be able to cost-effectively do a wafer-level burn-in. And we've had some conversations related to those DFT nodes and what will be needed. Fundamentally, I mean, the HPM device can have a thousand pins on it. Let's say you have 1000 die on a wafer, that'd be a 1 million-pin wafer pack. You couldn't build one of those. Okay? And if you could, it wouldn't be very cost-effective. So the net here is, that's not the right answer. The answer has to do more with the DFT modes of something like the flash memory that I'm familiar with. And so there's some other things that need to happen, and we're looking to help enable that. Flash memory is probably the leading edge of this instead. It's easier to get there, but it's pretty specific, Larry. But I mean DRAM would be I'd say probably the most impactful to the financials of those companies, and so they would have the vested interest to make those changes to their devices. Let me leave it at that, okay?

Larry Chlebina

Analyst

Okay, that's all I had. Take care, you guys.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

Thanks, Larry.

Chris Siu

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today's call. I will now turn the call back to Aehr Test management team for closing remarks.

Gayn Erickson

Analyst

All right, thank you. I actually wrote myself a couple of comments here I just wanted to do just make sure to summarize because I mean candidly this is the first time we've come in and lowered and so we've tried to do our best to ensure that all of our shareholders, our customers, our employees understand that where we're at. We're not in DEFCON 5 position here, we lowered our growth expectations but believe that they're going to recover as we go forward. Aehr Test has spent a lot of time selecting and focusing on some really incredible markets some of those selected us if you will and we believe we're going to give us the opportunity to have more than our fair share of growth in the semiconductor capital equipment market. We're actually growing faster than semis and semiconductor capital equipment this year, right? So that -- there is a little interesting, people don't put in perspective. We're focused on production wafer level test and burn-in of silicon carbide, gallium nitride. We've talked about the growth and electrification worldwide infrastructure, electric vehicle traction inverters, infrastructure, data centers, solar, numerous industrial application and we're candidly focused on engaging with mobile companies in the silicon photonics, okay? And we talked about the large companies that have roadmaps that are heading in a direction if you will where we have gotten to a place where they're coming towards us, okay? We also talked about memories and I think as memory goes towards things like heterogeneous integration for graphics, AI processors, et cetera, long term, that's going to make sense for this as well. There's these large macro trends that are going on, semiconductors are going to double in the next seven, eight years. More semiconductors are less reliable, compound semiconductors, smaller…

Operator

Operator

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