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Operator
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Aehr Test Systems second-quarter fiscal 2014 earnings conference call. During today's presentation all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation the conference will be open for questions. (Operator Instructions). This conference is being recorded today, Thursday, January 9, 2014. I would now like to turn the conference over to Marilynn Meek. Please go ahead, ma'am.
Marilynn Meek - IR
Good afternoon and thanks for joining us to discuss Aehr Test Systems' second-quarter fiscal 2014 results. By now you should have all received a copy of today's press release. If not you can call my office at 212-827-3746 and we'll get one to you right away.
With us today from Aehr Test Systems are Gayn Erickson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Gary Larson, Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Management will review its operating performance for the quarter before opening the call to your questions.
Before turning the call over to management I'd like to make a few comments about forward-looking statements. We will be making forward-looking statements today 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.
Factors that may cause results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are discussed in our 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. Now I'd like to introduce Gayn Erickson, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Gayn.
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
Thank you, Marilynn, and good afternoon and Happy New Year to those joining us on the conference call and also listening in through the online link on the Web. We are pleased to have reported Aehr Test returned to profitability even as we continue to invest heavily in our R&D programs to get the new Fox wafer level test and burn-in products to market this year.
We ended the quarter with revenue just under $5 million, up from approximately $3.8 million in the previous quarter with a profit of $137,000. Gary will cover the numbers in more detail in a few minutes, but I wanted to discuss our business and our markets as well as bring you up-to-date on how our new products are coming along.
Let me start by talking a little bit about the new orders we just announced coming out of Europe. We have been seeing a pickup in business out of our European customers. This includes increasing activities in automotive as well as an opportunity where we're seeing new applications for our products for high reliability commercial devices.
We received a multisystem order for our ABTS automated burn-in and test system for IC reliability characterization and test for multiple target devices aimed at commercial, industrial and consumer application. It's great to see opportunities accelerate in Europe as this has been a very quiet region for us for several years.
We continue to see the automotive market drive production burn-in capacity. We announced a key win in the automotive production burn-in space with a leading manufacturer of logic ICs for automotive embedded processing, BSP and analog applications in July of last year. We shipped the first from that multisystem production order during our fiscal Q2.
This system is our new ABTS-P production test and burn-in system that has up to 72 large burn-in boards that offer almost 70% more capacity than our previous generation MAX systems used in production today. We also shipped several engineering workstations that allow for test program development and debugging using 100% compatible hardware and software in a low-cost engineering single bib workstation configuration.
Additionally, in the automotive space we received a follow-on order for our FOX-15 multi-wafer test and burn-in system as well as a number of WaferPak contact just to go along with the system. This is a follow-on order from a production customer and is significant as this customer is now exceeding their capacity due to the success of their products.
They have told us that they are achieving significant savings due to testing at wafer levels instead of the traditional package level, and also because they can test at a much higher temperature on our system, 170 degrees C compared to package level test systems that were limited to a maximum of 125 or 150 C. By increasing the temperature at which the devices are tested they have been able to reduce the test time considerably while still achieving the sub 2 PPM, or parts per million, defect rate demanded by the automotive industry customers.
We continue to see opportunities in wafer level testing of discrete and embedded memories. We announced a multi-system order for our FOX-1 full wafer test systems from an existing customer last year and we shipped another system from that order during the quarter. We also saw an uptick in orders for our WaferPak contactors that go along with those systems as the customer's changing mix of products and capacity resulted in the need for additional WaferPak contactors.
As we discussed in the past, we offer a unique alternative to traditional probe cards for our FOX systems. These contactors use a robust low-cost vertical probing technology that is very well-suited for design for test, or DFT, and low pin count test modes that are becoming common for discrete and embedded memories where test times are very long and increasing.
DFT and low pin count test applications are where the new Fox products we're developing are seeing the majority of interest from our customers. These new products are based upon our new per pin architecture pin electronics first introduced and shipped in our ABTS-P system in 2012.
Our new [FOX-1P] system we are developing is a next-generation system that is aimed at single wafer testing with single or multi-touchdown test capability using wafer probers available in the market from several vendors.
This system extends our current FOX-1 system adding multiple new and unique capabilities that we feel will be a significant contribution to the semiconductor ATE space, making the FOX-1P system very well suited for low pin count DFT, BIST and MBIST test modes commonly found in the semiconductor industry today. We expect to have first shipments of this product during the next couple of quarters.
We've already received orders for both engineering and multiple production systems for our new FOX-1P and we are actively engaged with other customers for use of this product in a few different applications. As we formally introduce this product we will release more details on the specifications, features and why it is a great alternative to other semiconductor test systems on the market.
We're also developing our next-generation FOX multi-wafer test system using the same hardware and software architecture as the FOX-1P. This new FOX multi-wafer solution is highly leveraged from existing subsystems in our FOX-15 wafer level burn-in and test system, our ABTS burn-in and test system for package parts, and the new FOX-1P test system electronics.
This test cell is being designed to include the contactor alignment and material handling automation required for high-volume wafer level test and burn-in applications where multiple wafers are processed in a single chamber. We see opportunities for this product for wafer level test and cycling of memories the target high reliability applications and/or where devices are stacked several devices high in a single package.
The cost of finding a failure in stack package is significant and provides a meaningful financial incentive to test these devices in wafer form before stacking them together in a package. We also see opportunities in high reliability logic applications including automotive and process monitoring. We expect to introduce this product in the second half of calendar 2014.
As I've noted over this last several quarters, a key challenge is achieving a balance of cost controls to maintain profitability while at the same time focusing our energies and spending on new R&D programs where we see a very large opportunity for Aehr Test to contribute and gain market share. We took significant measures to control our spending during the past year. Recently we have been feathering in reinstatement of time and pay and expect to remove all of the deep expense reductions during fiscal Q3.
We also have been bringing on external contractors and third parties to help us get the new FOX products out sooner. I'm personally pleased that despite this increase in our spending we were able to achieve our goal of profitability that we forecasted to our shareholders. We plan to continue our R&D spending while maintaining our expectation to be profitable for fiscal year '14, which ends May 31 of 2014.
Doing the math for you with this quarter's profit, we're basically breakeven for the first half of our fiscal year and we're expecting to be profitable for the second half as well, even at our elevated R&D spending levels. We anticipate our spending to decrease during the second half of calendar 2014 following the bubble we are experiencing now in connection with the new FOX products.
As stated in today's release, we're optimistic about the opportunities ahead for Aehr Test and particularly those for our new FOX products. I will now turn the call over to Gary who will discuss our numbers in fuller detail. Following this we will open up the lines for questions.
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
Thank you, Gayn. as reported in today's press release our net sales in the second quarter were approximately $5 million, up 32% compared with net sales of $3.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Our net profit of $137,000 in the second quarter of fiscal 2014, or $0.01 per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $166,000 or $0.02 for diluted share in our previous quarter.
Our non-GAAP income this quarter was $384,000 or $0.03 per diluted share compared with a non-GAAP loss of $23,000 or $0.00 per diluted share in the preceding quarter. The only item that is different between GAAP and non-GAAP is our stock option expense here which was a little less than $250,000 this quarter.
Gross profit was $2.5 million or 50% of net sales, this compared to gross profit of $1.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014 or 52% of net sales. In recent quarters we've shipped systems that included previously written down material as we complete the shipment of such systems during Q3 we expect our gross margins to decrease somewhat quarter on quarter.
Operating expenses of $2.3 million for the quarter were up slightly compared to operating expenses of $2.1 million for the previous quarter. SG&A was $1.5 million compared to $1.4 million in the first quarter of 2014. R&D expenses were $798,000 for the quarter compared to $681,000 in the fiscal first quarter of 2014.
As noted in an earlier call, we are transferring some R&D expenses into cost of goods sold as we complete milestones related to our next generation FOX system development. Those transfers out of R&D expenses were $301,000 in the second fiscal quarter of fiscal 2014 and $127,000 in the preceding quarter. R&D spending is expected to increase during the next quarter.
As mentioned earlier, we reduced some of the deep spending restrictions during the quarter which included bringing back our staff full-time. We even had the manufacturing team working overtime and during the Thanksgiving holiday to meet customer demand. These changes resulted in increase manufacturing spending and operating expenses in this quarter and in subsequent quarters.
Turning to the balance sheet and changes during the second quarter, our cash and cash equivalents increased to $2.5 million at November 30, 2013 up from $2.4 million at August 31, 2013. Sequentially accounts receivable decreased by $125,000, inventory increased by $281,000, our line of credit decreased by $471,000 which means that our net cash, which is cash less our line of credit, improved by $530,000.
A large part of that improvement in net cash was $304,000 that were received for the exercise of stock option and the purchase by our employees of shares through the employee stock purchase plan. That was essentially a mini stock offering without the formalities. As Gayn mentioned, even with our increased investment in R&D we expect to be profitable for the second half of fiscal year 2014.
This concludes our prepared remarks and we are now ready to take your questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Colin Denman, Westerly Capital Management.
Colin Denman - Analyst
So I was hoping you kinds could maybe go into a little bit more detail on the opportunity for the new FOX products. Are these new features that your existing customers are asking for or are these things that you are pushing to kind of address new customer opportunities? Can you just help us understand maybe the extent -- the number of customers that you are in discussions with or kind of how to think about the opportunity for the new products?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
Yes, so on -- this is Gayn, let me go ahead and take that. So I think related to the question of existing versus new, it's a little of both. We -- and you even stated existing FOX customers. Where -- we see opportunities for our FOX products in both our existing FOX customers as well as in our existing ABTS customers. And so -- and for those on the line that aren't that familiar, the ABTS product addresses devices in a more traditional package part burn-in which is a market that we've been a leader in for several decades.
The new opportunities related to wafer level burn in are being presented in some spaces like automotive, some discrete memories, embedded memories where for different reasons, as I mentioned before, such as stacking of those devices, there are cost advantages and manufacturing advantages to do the extended test and burn in at an earlier stage before they are actually packaged up.
So in this case there are opportunities for customers that are current customers of package parts where they see reasons to move burn-in of some of their types of devices to wafer level. But we also have opportunities in what I will say newer customers from a historical perspective. Why they say that is if you actually look at Aehr Test history I think we have sold systems to darn near every company in the world over some period of time.
Particularly we had -- about within a decade ago we had a large portion of our business in the memory package burn-in where today our primary package burn-in is not in memory but is in actually logic and automotive devices. So in terms of new customers in some cases it is relatively new customers, we are talking to customers that we've actually sold systems to in the past.
Colin Denman - Analyst
Okay, thanks. And then a question on your visibility. With some of these customers providing down payments and kind of extending into some of -- more of these development partnerships for some of these new products can you talk about maybe how your visibility has changed kind of over the next -- over the last six months? Kind of how far it extends? And what gives you the confidence that you're going to be able to remain profitable, etc.?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
Okay. Well, I think I hear two things here in the visibility and sort of confidence in the near-term. We engage with a small handful of customers on the definition of some of the new products, some of them at the request of the customer coming to us because they knew us of saying can you make these types of products or these kind of enhancements?
As we are now really in the throw of the development of those new products the definition is squared up and we are in full execution mode, if you will. So we have been going out and talking to, if you will, a second wave and additional customers that we believe are great targets for this kind of application, so, for example, on the FOX-1 customers that are doing low pin count DFT test modes, we offer a unique difference by contrast to standard ATE in our ability to do massive parallel testing at a very low cost.
So in this case we have our visibility of those customers because we've been going out over the last couple of quarters and talking to them. And obviously as the product becomes complete here in the factory and we can show it to customers, there is a wave of customers that are more interested in looking at the product once it is available versus, as we have stated, we have contracts, for example, with customers to develop the machine where they've given us some specific NRE dollars to ensure that the system can be configured in their specific configuration.
On relative to visibility of the -- of moving forward, we maintain a very strong backlog and that gives us the confidence in looking at our forecast moving forward to be able to know we have to revenue and the margins to be able to maintain our spending, yet still forecast a profitability for the second half and the whole year.
Colin Denman - Analyst
Okay. That is all the questions for me. Thank you very much.
Operator
Tom Diffely, D.A. Davidson.
Tom Diffely - Analyst
It sounds like things are really starting to heat up here both on the burn-in side as well as some of the new opportunities on FOX. So my question goes back to the competition and what do you think the competitive response is going to be from both the other ATE players and maybe some new players who are looking at this growing opportunity over time?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
I think that is a very good question. And I think for, again, people that aren't aware, some of the opportunities that we are addressing with our new Fox products are very unique. There are not product offerings available from competitors to be able to do the parallelism that we offer in multi-wafer test and burn-in.
And that IP and that technology has been developed here in Aehr Test really over the last decade and a little with a whole wall full of patents and domain knowledge related to the whole test cell of being able to handle and test, in this case 15 wafers in parallel which is what we offer today and we are extending the capability of that in our next generation system.
So in this case how will other people react? I can tell you that from my experience from -- in the ATE industry that Aehr Test has a very unique hardware and software architecture that we are leveraging from our vast experience in burn in and applying it with the technology around contacting of wafers that today does not exist in the ATE suppliers. And so, as we address that we think we have a real competitive advantage to offer our customers and maintain that competitive advantage for some time.
So related to the FOX-1 product we have some examples that are similar to what I just stated and there are other examples where quite frankly we are a less expensive way of testing those devices than some of the other ATE suppliers. And so we are using again our hardware and software architecture to deliver a much lower cost effective solution for these DFT low pin count, DFT and BIST type applications that we are seeing more and more of across the board in the semiconductor industry.
Tom Diffely - Analyst
Okay. So, for some of these unique applications it sounds like the traditional ATE guys don't have a similar solution. Would it take years for them to develop one from scratch?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
I would think that that is a fair estimate. And to be fair I think there is some examples historically where they are not necessarily motivated to go off and build a machine that obsoletes themselves. And we look at this as an enormous opportunity for us with none of the downside that they might experience.
Tom Diffely - Analyst
Yes, sounds good. Do you guys disclose a backlog number? Can you give any information either qualitatively or quantitatively on what the backlog has done recently?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
You know what, we have discussed that and, as we've talked in the past, we have been avoiding talking about bookings. I think I just stated and I will just repeat it, we still have a strong backlog -- let's see, how else might I want to refer to that as?
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
We publicly -- disclosed the backlog as of May 30, the end of our fiscal year, but generally we don't report numbers outside of that, Tom.
Tom Diffely - Analyst
Okay. And then also, Gary, when you look at the OpEx going forward, it sounds like it is going to creep up a bit here both in R&D. Were the changes going back to full pay that was already in effect or that is going into affect going forward, so expecting more of an increase on the (multiple speakers)?
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
That is going into effect currently. So we didn't see any of the pay increases in Q2, but we did see the return to work in Q2.
Tom Diffely - Analyst
Okay, all right. And then what can you give us as far as just share count going forward? It sounds like you had a many offering, but some way to quantify what the diluted share count is going to do?
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
I wouldn't think that the numbers would change dramatically at this point. One of reasons that the many shares were exercised by a stock option is we did have a number of options that were expiring and so that was why we saw a little burst of share.
So I wouldn't expect many additional shares to be added and then the diluted shares would obviously just depend on whatever the stock price is, so you might see some fluctuation there. But I would say what we are looking at right now is probably fairly consistent with what you will see in the next few quarters.
Tom Diffely - Analyst
Okay. And then finally when you look at the testers you sold five years ago, the big slug of [NOR testers], is there any kind of a refresh cycle or obsolescence with the installed base? Or is it just on the spares and service side?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
I'm not sure I totally understood that. Let me take a stab at that. We are not anticipating that the FOX-1's, for example, or FOX-15's that we have installed would be displaced by our next-generation systems, instead they would be augmented. We are looking for a level of compatibility to allow them to sit on the same floor as each other.
One of the byproducts of having products that last for such a long time and are as reliable as they are, they don't tend to wear out and go away that often -- a great thing for our customers and just part of our life. We do have support and service contracts on those systems and we anticipate doing that for several years.
Tom Diffely - Analyst
Okay, no, that is exactly the question. Thanks.
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
And let me just add one more thing. As we noted and I explained in my comments, we actually have seen WaferPak sales uptick on both the FOX and FOX-15 products in the last quarter. So that is a consumable element that is great because it provides us with revenue and margin to be able to continue to support those systems.
Tom Diffely - Analyst
All right, sounds good. Thanks for your time today.
Operator
Geoffrey Scott, Scott Asset Management.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
It is a lot better to see the net income line without those parentheses around them.
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
I agree.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Gary, quick question. Equity went up by $800,000 from -- during the last three months. And you said about $300,000 of it was the exercise of options, $137,000 of net income, what was the rest?
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
Stock-option compensation expense would be an IM; one of the contributions that we make to our retirement fund is in shares of stock. So that would have been another item, that is probably the majority of the things.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Okay, thank you. To parse the backlog statement, last quarter you said that the backlog was up from year end, would that be the same case for November 30 over August 30?
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
You are always trying to keep -- I don't know how many ways I always say I'm not going to answer it and I always end up answering something for you, Geoff, here so I'm going to get that to you. I will tell you what; we are still up from our end of year backlog.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Up from -- still up from the end of the year?
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
Yes.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Okay. In the press release today the ABTS to Europe, I was trying to parse the sentence where you talked about a new customer order, was that a new customer or a new order or both?
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
Both.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
So it was a new customer.
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
Yes, that's right.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Could you -- have they had some Aehr equipment from years ago? Or was it entirely new?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
No, they don't -- they do not. It's brand-new.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Okay. Can you take us through the competitive element of that sale and what they were looking for that you had that nobody else had?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
Yes, with the exception of trying to tip my hand everything around them my competitors as you always know. But, no, actually the features of the ABTS, which I think we are seeing across the board that made it compelling are -- the systems, we designed them to be cost effective enough for volume production but also scalable enough for being low-volume reliability.
So in this particular case the customer bought several systems that were not full. But they were prewired and preconfigured to be able to add what we call blades to them and test electronics going forward very easily. They like that feature. It allowed them to actually get several chambers but also have them in this case partially populated but upgradability very easily and that wasn't always the case. Our ABTS systems are actually very advanced for logic customers.
So they have a great deal of flexibility with configurations up to 256 or 320 IO. We have more power supplies per BIB than anybody else. We have -- unlike other people we actually -- our test electronics tend to be very dedicated for the burn-in boards.
So we may have one or two burn-in boards per what classically is referred to as a zone, which means that if we have a system that has say 72 burn-in boards in it, you can actually be running 36 different types of devices with two BIBs per device. That is a big deal. Because you have a lot more flexibility and a lot more volume than traditional. And by contrast to our older systems that might be four or eight times more zones than we had in the past.
So those are some of the features that make it very flexible and it is one of the reasons I think we've been winning more than our fair share.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
A quick follow-up for that. How long was the sales cycle for this? And did the order some as a surprise or were you recently counting on it?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
No, it wasn't a surprise to us. Actually the sales cycle if you really -- I think we put some quotes on it and that thing even more than a year ago. So -- and we have been working through the terms and conditions and negotiations and details like that through this. So it wasn't a bluebird.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Okay. Gary, you normally split out the FOX revenue for us.
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
I don't know that I normally do.
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
Yes, I don't think we have normally done that. Sometimes I will give you a hint as to what the service support and accessories might be and I will tell you what, I will do that instead. I think our service and support in WaferPaks for example were over $2 million in that quarter.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Including WaferPaks?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
Including WaferPaks. And the rest was systems and accessories and we have not been breaking out FOX and --.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
But you said the FOX revenue included one machine.
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
In terms of shipment -- yes, that is correct.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Shipment and revenue, right?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
That's right.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
So one machine was FOX.
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
Yes, and in particular why I wouldn't want to break out the revenue for FOX.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Okay. Did you receive any milestone receipts for the FOX development product?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
We had one milestone during the quarter.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Was it of any material cash amount?
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
Most of the milestones are a similar amount, so it is not dramatically different from earlier milestones.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
So we are talking low six figure kind of thing?
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
Low six figures?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
(Inaudible).
Gary Larson - VP of Finance & CFO
Yes.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Okay. The timing for the new FOX development machine, you are still trying to get it out by middle of calendar 2014. Are you still reasonably on scheduled for that?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
Yes. And we are trying to pull that thing in as quickly as we can. We actually had during the last quarter, maybe even a couple of quarters, we have been -- there were some enhancements and requests made to the system and a couple of modifications by our lead customer that I think actually impacted the schedule a little bit.
On one hand I'm not excited about that. On the other hand we think it will be better for them and more competitive for the market. But we're still on track for shipping over the next couple of quarters here.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
And you don't see any major engineering issues that would be difficult to overcome?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
No, no.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Okay. On December 19, Texas Instruments announced they had purchased some 300,000 square foot facility in Chengdu China, which would be their seventh assembly and test facility worldwide. Do you have any idea how that might affect you since Texas Instruments is one of your over 10% customers every year? Is that going to be incremental revenue opportunity for you or will it more likely just replace machines that would have gone elsewhere in the world?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
I don't know the answer to that, and that and it's a good question, something to be asking them when I go talk to them next, although I probably won't tell you when I am done. No, you know what, I mean, TI as I read as well, they are a great Company, I think they been doing really well. They, like other companies in the automotive space I think have been saying this but seems to be across the board uptick in all things semiconductor.
I'm actually not personally clear exactly what that facility is or if it is a broad-based facility like the ones they have down in the Philippines for all other products. But I can tell you that when my customers are doing well and adding capacity that would seem to be good for all of us.
Geoffrey Scott - Analyst
Okay, I will drop off and let somebody else on. Congratulations again.
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Marty Cawthon, ChipChat Technology Group.
Marty Cawthon - Analyst
My question is about the technological progress that you see in the testing area. And as a background often we hear about progress in CPU capacity and people refer to Moore's Law in that CPU will double its capacity every 18 months. So my question is I would like to hear some discussion about how the progress is going and the test area in general for the industry and specifically from Aehr Test Systems?
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
Okay, Marty. And Marty your phone was breaking up but I definitely caught it all just as an awareness. So, always dangerous throwing out these very open ended questions to a guy as passionate about the test industry as me. But let me maybe hum a couple of bars. If we are looking for are there broad trends, are there Moore's Law equivalent things that you can look at the test and see whether it's?
You know, I can probably make the following couple of statements and be representative of the broader industry I believe. And that is I think that there's a couple of areas where there is a lot of change and a lot of growth and opportunities within the semiconductor test space.
One of them we are not in, and that is high-end SoC, the integration of a lot of components coming together into a single integrated circuit which is driving a lot of the revenue and the semiconductor space for the likes of the Verigy's who was acquired by Advantest. Advantest, Teradyne, LTX-Credence, and they have high-end platforms that are testing one, two, three, four devices in parallel -- never three maybe four or eight devices in parallel. Very complex new products are driving a lot of technology and drives a lot of the revenue in the semiconductor space. That is not a space that we are in.
What we have is really kind of two broader areas. And that is we are in the reliability testing where people using design for test, low-pin count test methodologies are able to exercise the cores of the devices to be able to test them over some extended period of time to prove out their reliability and the quality during process monitoring development and early device production. Or in some cases like automotive and some industrial applications and even some new applications we're seeing in consumer where they need to be very reliable and so they want to remove the infant mortality.
We are applying some of those same test methodologies and concepts, as are our customers, to be able to lower their overall cost of test of many devices in the industry that have very long test times. And typical devices that have very long test times are anything that is either a discrete or an embedded memory or certain types of logic devices, microprocessor types and things that are going into automotive applications where they need to have a very extended test coverage which you can read as long test times.
So it has been discussed for a couple of decades, but really starting to come to fruition over the last 10 years and even heating up more and more each year where people are being able to drop in embedded test methodology engines, MBIST engines from the likes of a mentor or cadence that actually allowed the devices to assist in actually testing themselves. And as a result the requirements on the tester is very different than the broad-based ATE platforms I described for example in high-end SoC test systems.
Those test methodologies are actually a real challenge for the semiconductor ATE players. Their architectures, their software, their interfacing, their pin count don't lend themselves very well towards that. Interestingly they are not -- they are closer to our burn-in test systems than they are to an ATE system.
So we developed first with the FOX-1 several years ago and with the new FOX products we are taking the technology of our hardware and software and applying it into new applications where these customers can take these advanced test methodologies and very cost-effectively test these devices, for example, in a wafer level form in massive parallelism.
And so that is an area that is also I think as much as the industry is being stretched towards these high-performance SoC's, the industry is being stretched in how do you address these low-pin count test modes. And that is an area that we are really trying to address with these new FOX products and where we think this is not an anomaly but a long-term trend that is going to be sustained.
And as devices shrink and processes shrink there is more and more reason to embed these designs for test methodologies and to use test systems like our new FOX. So those are a couple of major trends and I think we are participating in one of the big ones.
Marty Cawthon - Analyst
Good. Okay, thank you for your comments.
Operator
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the call back to management for closing remarks.
Gayn Erickson - President & CEO
All right. Well, thank you very much, folks. We are happy to been able to announce some positive earnings for our shareholders and at the same time making the key investments we think are necessary moving forward. And we will look forward to our next earnings conference call. As always we offer anyone the invitation if they would like to stop by and visit us here in the bay area, we would love to give you a tour of some of the new products that we're working on. Thank you.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Aehr Test Systems' second-quarter fiscal 2014 earnings conference call. If you would like to listen to a replay of today's conference please dial 303-590-3030 or 1-800-406-7325 with the access code 465-6941. We thank you for your participation and at this time you may now disconnect.