Aehr Test Systems (AEHR) 2023 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good evening, and welcome to the Aehr Test Systems Fiscal 2023 Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jim Byers of MKR Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

晚上好，歡迎參加 Aehr Test Systems 2023 財年第二季度財務業績電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意，正在記錄此事件。我現在想將會議轉交給 MKR 投資者關係部的 Jim Byers。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and welcome to Aehr Test Systems Second Quarter Fiscal 2023 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, Ken Spink. Before I turn the call over to Gayn and Ken, I'd like to cover a few quick items. This afternoon, right after market close, Aehr Test issued a press release announcing its second quarter fiscal 2023 results. That release is available on the company's website at aehr.com.

謝謝你，運營商。下午好，歡迎來到 Aehr Test Systems 2023 財年第二季度財務業績電話會議。 Aehr Test Systems 總裁兼首席執行官 Gayn Erickson 和我一起參加今天的電話會議；和首席財務官 Ken Spink。在我將電話轉給 Gayn 和 Ken 之前，我想簡要介紹一些內容。今天下午，收盤後，Aehr Test 發布了一份新聞稿，宣布了其 2023 財年第二季度的業績。該新聞稿可在公司網站 aehr.com 上獲取。

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 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.

此電話會議通過互聯網向所有感興趣的各方進行現場直播，網絡直播將在公司網站的投資者關係頁面上存檔。我想提醒大家，在今天的電話會議上，管理層今天將根據當前信息和估計做出前瞻性陳述，並受到許多風險和不確定性的影響，這些風險和不確定性可能導致實際結果與報告中的結果大不相同前瞻性陳述。

These factors that may cause 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 are 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?

這些可能導致結果與前瞻性陳述中的結果存在重大差異的因素在公司最近提交給美國證券交易委員會的定期和當前報告中進行了討論。這些前瞻性陳述，包括今天電話會議期間提供的指導，僅在該日期有效，Aehr Test Systems 不承擔更新前瞻性陳述的義務。現在，我想將電話會議轉交給總裁兼首席執行官 Gayn Erickson。蓋恩？

Thanks, Jim. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter fiscal 2023 earnings conference call. Thanks for joining us today. Let's start with a quick summary of the highlights of the quarter and the momentum we're seeing in the semiconductor wafer level test and burn-in market, and then Ken will go over the financials in detail. After that, we'll open up the lines to take your questions.

謝謝，吉姆。大家下午好，歡迎來到我們的 2023 財年第二季度財報電話會議。感謝您今天加入我們。讓我們首先快速總結一下本季度的亮點以及我們在半導體晶圓級測試和老化市場中看到的勢頭，然後 Ken 將詳細介紹財務狀況。之後，我們將開通線路來回答您的問題。

We had a very solid second quarter, reflecting strong sequential and year-over-year growth in our revenue and net income, both ahead of consensus estimates. Revenue for the quarter was $14.8 million, an increase of 39% sequentially and 54% year-over-year. And we generated non-GAAP net income of $4.5 million, slightly over 30% net profit. Our momentum in silicon carbide wafer level test and burn-in continues to grow. And we see this momentum continuing for the next several years as companies are adding significant capacity in silicon carbide semiconductors to address the incredible forecasted demand, particularly for the electric vehicle and electric vehicle charger markets.

我們的第二季度表現非常穩健，反映出我們的收入和淨收入連續和同比強勁增長，均超出市場普遍預期。本季度收入為 1480 萬美元，環比增長 39%，同比增長 54%。我們產生了 450 萬美元的非 GAAP 淨收入，略高於 30% 的淨利潤。我們在碳化矽晶圓級測試和老化方面的勢頭持續增長。我們認為這種勢頭將在未來幾年持續下去，因為公司正在增加碳化矽半導體的大量產能以滿足令人難以置信的預測需求，特別是對於電動汽車和電動汽車充電器市場。

Forecast from William Blair estimate that the silicon carbide market for devices and electric vehicles alone such as traction inverters and onboard chargers is expected to grow from 119,000 6-inch equivalent silicon carbide wafers for electric vehicles in 2021 to more than 4.1 million 6-inch equivalent wafers in 2030. This represents a compound annual growth rate of 48.4%. This equates to almost 35x larger in 2030 than in 2021.

William Blair 預測，僅牽引逆變器和車載充電器等設備和電動汽車的碳化矽市場預計將從 2021 年的 119,000 個 6 英寸當量的電動汽車碳化矽晶圓增長到超過 410 萬個 6 英寸當量2030 年的晶圓。這代表著 48.4% 的複合年增長率。這相當於 2030 年比 2021 年大近 35 倍。

In addition, 6-inch equivalent silicon carbide wafers for other markets such as solar, industrial and other electrification infrastructure are expected to grow to another 3 million wafers by 2030. This expands our silicon carbide test and burn-in market even more. We are excited to have added 2 new customers for silicon carbide test in burn-in during the quarter.

此外，到 2030 年，用於太陽能、工業和其他電氣化基礎設施等其他市場的 6 英寸等效碳化矽晶圓預計將增長到另外 300 萬片晶圓。這進一步擴大了我們的碳化矽測試和老化市場。我們很高興在本季度增加了 2 個碳化矽老化測試客戶。

The first is a major silicon carbide semiconductor supplier that purchased our FOX-NP dual wafer test and burn-in system used for engineering and device qualification during the quarter. And after the quarter closed, has since placed their first orders for 2 of our FOX-XP multi-wafer systems for volume production test and burn-in, other silicon carbide wafers, including the order we just announced today.

第一家是一家主要的碳化矽半導體供應商，它在本季度購買了我們的 FOX-NP 雙晶圓測試和老化系統，用於工程和設備認證。在本季度結束後，他們已經為我們的 2 個 FOX-XP 多晶圓系統下了第一筆訂單，用於量產測試和老化，以及其他碳化矽晶圓，包括我們今天剛剛宣布的訂單。

This company is one of the world's largest suppliers of silicon carbide devices and serves several significant markets, including the electric vehicle industry as well as other industrial applications. We now have 2 of the top 4 silicon carbide market participants as customers. They have indicated to us that they plan to order a significant number of FOX-XP systems for volume production and other silicon carbide devices at facilities around the world to meet the rapidly expanding forecasted market demand for silicon carbide devices for electric vehicles and other industrial markets.

該公司是世界上最大的碳化矽設備供應商之一，服務於幾個重要市場，包括電動汽車行業以及其他工業應用。我們現在有 4 大碳化矽市場參與者中的 2 家客戶。他們向我們表示，他們計劃在世界各地的工廠訂購大量用於量產的 FOX-XP 系統和其他碳化矽器件，以滿足電動汽車和其他工業市場對碳化矽器件快速增長的預測市場需求.

This new customer selected our FOX-XP multi-wafer test and burn-in system configured with our new fully integrated and automated WaferPak Aligner for high-volume hands-free operation. They have told us how important automation is to them across their wafer fabrication and assembly and test and that in addition to the cost effectiveness and scalability of our system, our fully integrated FOX-XP with automated WaferPak alignment and handling is key to meeting their automation needs that are critical to their scalability as well as the quality and reliability goals of the customers and markets they serve.

這位新客戶選擇了我們的 FOX-XP 多晶圓測試和老化系統，該系統配置了我們全新的完全集成和自動化的 WaferPak Aligner，可實現大批量免提操作。他們告訴我們自動化對他們的晶圓製造、組裝和測試有多麼重要，除了我們系統的成本效益和可擴展性之外，我們完全集成的 FOX-XP 與自動化 WaferPak 對準和處理是滿足他們自動化的關鍵對他們的可擴展性以及他們所服務的客戶和市場的質量和可靠性目標至關重要的需求。

The FOX-XP multi-wafer level test and burn-in system can be configured with up to 9 or 18 wafers depending on the customer's specific test requirements. It provides the test electronics and the device contactor technology that enables contact to 100% advices on a single wafer. And the handling and alignment equipment to provide a total turnkey single vendor solution to meet the needed critical test and stress requirements.

FOX-XP 多晶圓級測試和老化系統最多可配置 9 或 18 個晶圓，具體取決於客戶的特定測試要求。它提供測試電子設備和設備接觸器技術，可在單個晶圓上實現 100% 的接觸。處理和校准設備提供了一個完整的交鑰匙單一供應商解決方案，以滿足所需的關鍵測試和壓力要求。

Our automated WaferPak Aligner adds a number of very valuable features to the wafer level test and burn-in process. This new FOX WaferPak Aligner is available in both stand-alone and integrated versions. In the stand-alone version, customers can align the WaferPaks off-line from the FOX-XP systems using our new FOX WaferPak cards that can be docked to the aligner. The aligner will automatically load the WaferPaks with wafers or exchange tested wafers with untested wafers and can be used to support up to 5 or more fully loaded XP systems for an extremely low cost application with long test and burn-in times.

我們的自動化 WaferPak Aligner 為晶圓級測試和老化過程增加了許多非常有價值的功能。這種新的 FOX WaferPak Aligner 有獨立版本和集成版本。在獨立版本中，客戶可以使用我們可以對接至對準器的新型 FOX WaferPak 卡從 FOX-XP 系統離線對準 WaferPak。該對準器將自動將晶圓加載到 WaferPaks 或將已測試的晶圓與未測試的晶圓交換，並且可用於支持多達 5 個或更多滿載的 XP 系統，以實現具有較長測試和老化時間的極低成本應用。

The integrated version of our new aligner docks directly to a FOX-XP chamber that can test and burn-in up to 18 wafers at a time. This can be preferable to customers for lower test and burn-in times or in the case where the customer wants near hands-free operation. The new aligner can work with all types of wafer sizes, including the high-volume runners of 150-millimeter and 200-millimeter use for silicon carbide and can also test 100-millimeter silicon carbide or other wafers.

我們新對準器的集成版本直接與 FOX-XP 腔室對接，一次可以測試和老化多達 18 個晶圓。如果客戶希望縮短測試和老化時間，或者在客戶想要近乎免提操作的情況下，這可能更適合客戶。新的對準器可以與所有類型的晶圓尺寸一起工作，包括用於碳化矽的 150 毫米和 200 毫米的大容量流道，還可以測試 100 毫米碳化矽或其他晶圓。

It can also test 200-millimeter and 300-millimeter wafers typical silicon photonics devices, memories and logic devices. We see automation more typically desired in 300-millimeter fabs, such as silicon photonics and memory devices where automation is much more typical. The automated aligner also allows for unattended changeovers from one product type to the next and the ability to run multiple different product type wafers in parallel.

它還可以測試 200 毫米和 300 毫米晶圓典型的矽光子器件、存儲器和邏輯器件。我們看到 300 毫米晶圓廠通常更需要自動化，例如自動化更為典型的矽光子學和存儲設備。自動對準器還允許無人值守地從一種產品類型轉換到另一種產品類型，並能夠並行運行多個不同產品類型的晶圓。

Adding automation through our new aligner gives our wafer level test and burn-in offering even greater value as well as opens up several large incremental markets to Aehr, such as high-volume processors and chipsets with integrated photonics transceivers, flash and ultimately, DRAM memories, and also higher mixed devices requiring extremely high reliability and 100% burn-in such as automotive microcontrollers and sensors.

通過我們的新對準器增加自動化使我們的晶圓級測試和老化提供更大的價值，並為 Aehr 開闢了幾個大的增量市場，例如大容量處理器和帶有集成光子收發器的芯片組、閃存以及最終的 DRAM 存儲器，以及要求極高可靠性和 100% 老化的更高混合器件，例如汽車微控制器和傳感器。

The new second customer out of this quarter is a multibillion-dollar annual revenue global manufacturer semiconductors that serves multiple markets, including supplying devices to the automotive industry. This new customer has already has the experience in power semiconductors and quickly understood the value proposition of being able to test and burn-in 100% of their devices at wafer level.

本季度的第二個新客戶是年收入數十億美元的全球製造商半導體，服務於多個市場，包括為汽車行業提供設備。這個新客戶已經擁有功率半導體方面的經驗，並很快理解了能夠在晶圓級測試和老化 100% 設備的價值主張。

In a fairly short period of time, they selected our FOX-NP dual wafer test and burn-in system for qualification of their silicon carbide devices for multiple markets, including electric vehicles. We anticipate that this customer will move to high-volume production using our FOX-XP systems after their customer qualifications. Adding 2 new customers now provides more optimism about our ability to gain significant market share of the test and burn-in market for silicon carbide devices.

在相當短的時間內，他們選擇了我們的 FOX-NP 雙晶圓測試和老化系統來驗證其用於多個市場（包括電動汽車）的碳化矽器件。我們預計該客戶在獲得客戶資格後將轉向使用我們的 FOX-XP 系統進行大批量生產。現在增加 2 個新客戶使我們更加樂觀地認為我們有能力在碳化矽器件的測試和老化市場中獲得顯著的市場份額。

These customers expand our penetration beyond our initial lead silicon carbide wafer level burn-in customer. Regarding that lead customer, they continue to ramp their capacity and use of our FOX-XP multi-wafer test and burn-in systems and WaferPaks, which is being driven by increased demand for silicon carbide, particularly for, but not limited to electric vehicles. We expect significant orders from them for the necessary WaferPak full wafer contactors to match their previously purchased FOX-XP systems and they continue to forecast orders for significant numbers of new FOX-XP systems and WaferPak contactors over the next several years to meet growing demand.

這些客戶擴大了我們的滲透範圍，超越了我們最初的領先碳化矽晶圓級老化客戶。關於該主要客戶，他們繼續提高產能並使用我們的 FOX-XP 多晶圓測試和老化系統以及 WaferPak，這是由對碳化矽的需求增加推動的，尤其是對但不限於電動汽車.我們預計他們會收到大量訂單，購買必要的 WaferPak 全晶圓接觸器，以匹配他們之前購買的 FOX-XP 系統，並且他們繼續預測未來幾年會收到大量新 FOX-XP 系統和 WaferPak 接觸器的訂單，以滿足不斷增長的需求。

In addition to the customers that have now placed initial orders with Aehr for silicon carbide wafer level test and burn-in systems, our ongoing benchmarks and evaluations with multiple prospects made great progress during the quarter. These include significant market leaders in silicon carbide as well as several smaller existing and up-and-coming suppliers. We expect several of these companies to place their initial orders with us before the end of this fiscal year ending May 31, 2023.

除了現在已經向 Aehr 訂購碳化矽晶圓級測試和老化系統的初始訂單外，我們正在進行的具有多個前景的基準測試和評估在本季度取得了很大進展。其中包括碳化矽領域的重要市場領導者以及一些規模較小的現有和新興供應商。我們預計其中幾家公司將在截至 2023 年 5 月 31 日的本財政年度結束前向我們下初始訂單。

We also continue to see very positive responses from our discussions with a number of new potential customers in silicon carbide this quarter and have also begun detailed discussions with gallium nitride semiconductor suppliers from around the world. Silicon carbide devices and modules had key advantages for traction inverters and onboard and offboard chargers for electric vehicles as well as other high-power industrial applications. While gallium nitride is generally believed to be superior for lower power applications, particularly under 1,000 watts.

我們在本季度與碳化矽的一些新潛在客戶的討論中也繼續看到非常積極的回應，並且還開始與來自世界各地的氮化鎵半導體供應商進行詳細討論。碳化矽器件和模塊在牽引逆變器、電動汽車車載和非車載充電器以及其他大功率工業應用方面具有關鍵優勢。雖然人們普遍認為氮化鎵更適用於低功率應用，尤其是 1,000 瓦以下的應用。

Both device types are forecasted to grow significantly over the next several years and into the future. Both silicon carbide and gallium nitride semiconductors address the high-voltage power semiconductor markets that are significant opportunities for our FOX wafer level test and burn-in systems and WaferPak for wafer contactors. As we look to further penetrate these markets, we continue to add new capabilities to our wafer level test and burn-in systems. These include the new Bipolar Voltage Channel Module and Very High Voltage Channel Module options that enable silicon carbide and gallium nitride semiconductor manufacturers more flexibility to address a wider variety of stress and burn-in conditions for their engineering qualification and production needs.

預計這兩種設備類型在未來幾年和未來都會顯著增長。碳化矽和氮化鎵半導體都面向高壓功率半導體市場，這對我們的 FOX 晶圓級測試和老化系統以及用於晶圓接觸器的 WaferPak 來說是重要的機會。隨著我們希望進一步滲透這些市場，我們將繼續為我們的晶圓級測試和老化系統添加新功能。其中包括新的雙極電壓通道模塊和超高壓通道模塊選項，使碳化矽和氮化鎵半導體製造商能夠更靈活地應對更廣泛的應力和老化條件，以滿足他們的工程鑑定和生產需求。

These advanced capabilities enable manufacturers to ship product with higher reliability and parametric stability necessitated, easy to say, necessitated by applications such as electric vehicle traction inverters, onboard chargers and several other industrial and power conversion markets. With these new features, test and burn-in at wafer level ensures even better control of yield loss and improved product reliability.

這些先進的功能使製造商能夠交付具有更高可靠性和參數穩定性的產品，這些產品很容易說是電動汽車牽引逆變器、車載充電器和其他幾個工業和電源轉換市場等應用所必需的。有了這些新功能，晶圓級測試和老化可確保更好地控制良率損失並提高產品可靠性。

Many questions have come up on what does the addition of these 2 new silicon carbide customers mean? Both have a history in the automotive space and one is currently a leading supplier of silicon carbide devices to this market. We announced our lead customer about 3 years ago, right before the pandemic started. Silicon carbides massive ramp did not really start until the latter half of the pandemic as electric vehicles, chargers and worldwide electrification of infrastructure really began to take off.

很多人問，這2個碳化矽新客戶的加入意味著什麼？兩者在汽車領域都有悠久的歷史，目前是該市場碳化矽設備的領先供應商。大約 3 年前，就在大流行開始之前，我們宣布了我們的主要客戶。直到大流行的後半期，隨著電動汽車、充電器和全球基礎設施電氣化真正開始起飛，碳化矽才真正開始大規模攀升。

Our lead customer did not place an order for their second system until the middle of 2021. If you aggregate the orders we've announced from them and the WaferPak contactors to support their orders, their choice of Aehr has meant roughly $75 million of business for Aehr already, and they publicly said they have plans to expand. So we're enjoying their success. The new customers can be equally significant.

我們的主要客戶直到 2021 年年中才為他們的第二個系統下訂單。如果將我們從他們那裡宣布的訂單和支持他們訂單的 WaferPak 接觸器匯總起來，他們選擇 Aehr 意味著大約 7500 萬美元的業務Aehr 已經，他們公開表示他們有擴張的計劃。所以我們正在享受他們的成功。新客戶同樣重要。

For the major supplier silicon carbide customer, we first tested their wafers on our machines at Aehr and then they purchased a FOX-NP for engineering qualification 3 months ago and have since tested their wafers at their facility. Since then, they have already purchased 2 of our multi-wafer FOX-XP for production test and burn-in other devices, including the order announced today. And they have told us they'll need a significant number of additional systems.

對於主要供應商碳化矽客戶，我們首先在 Aehr 的機器上測試了他們的晶圓，然後他們在 3 個月前購買了 FOX-NP 用於工程鑑定，此後在他們的工廠測試了他們的晶圓。從那時起，他們已經購買了 2 個我們的多晶圓 FOX-XP 用於生產測試和其他設備的老化，包括今天宣布的訂單。他們告訴我們他們將需要大量額外的系統。

This happened in a fraction of the time that it took to get to this point with our initial customer, as Aehr has now validated our wafer level solution with multiple customers and their end customers that our solution is very effective at screening out defects to automotive qualities. We believe this new customer can be as large as our lead customer. So while we only announce purchase orders as they come in, the fact that this customer is dependent on Aehr for its production volumes going forward should give investors confidence that Aehr is right in the middle of this electric vehicle tsunami.

與我們最初的客戶達成這一點所需的時間相比，這只發生了一小部分，因為 Aehr 現在已經與多個客戶及其最終客戶一起驗證了我們的晶圓級解決方案，我們的解決方案在篩選出汽車質量缺陷方面非常有效.我們相信這個新客戶可以和我們的主要客戶一樣大。因此，雖然我們只在收到訂單時才宣布採購訂單，但該客戶未來的產量依賴 Aehr 這一事實應該會讓投資者相信，Aehr 正處於這場電動汽車海嘯的中心。

The second new customer this last quarter is a very large player in discrete and power semiconductors today and is already qualified for automotive. Interestingly, this company has yet to announce their silicon carbide MOSFETs that they're already characterizing on our FOX wafer level burn-in systems. We believe that most customers of our FOX wafer level test and burn-in systems have the potential to be a significant revenue source for Aehr, and this customer is no different.

上個季度的第二個新客戶是當今分立和功率半導體領域的一個非常大的參與者，並且已經有資格用於汽車。有趣的是，該公司尚未公佈他們的碳化矽 MOSFET，他們已經在我們的 FOX 晶圓級老化系統上對其進行了表徵。我們相信，我們的 FOX 晶圓級測試和老化系統的大多數客戶都有可能成為 Aehr 的重要收入來源，這個客戶也不例外。

We've said in the past that we haven't seen any real competition in terms of cost effectiveness, footprint and manufacturing capacity compared to our proprietary FOX wafer level test and burn-in systems and WaferPak full wafer contactors. We continue to engage with both current suppliers of silicon carbide devices as well as other new entrants into this market. The industry data suggests caterers of close to 50% over the rest of this decade as the electric vehicle and charging infrastructure markets develop.

我們過去曾說過，與我們專有的 FOX 晶圓級測試和老化系統以及 WaferPak 全晶圓接觸器相比，我們在成本效益、佔地面積和製造能力方面沒有看到任何真正的競爭。我們繼續與碳化矽設備的現有供應商以及該市場的其他新進入者合作。行業數據表明，隨著電動汽車和充電基礎設施市場的發展，在本十年餘下的時間裡，餐飲服務商將佔近 50%。

Solar and wind will also be part of this growing market. So naturally, you'd expect lots of new entrants. Some will succeed wildly, some may make niche inroads. We want all of them to come to Aehr for their test requirements. Our use case is compelling. Since their customers such as the automotive companies, requires 0 failures, not 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000, but no failures. So test and screening out early defects becomes very, very important to our customers and prospects. And from the level of interest we're seeing, we believe our message is getting through.

太陽能和風能也將成為這個不斷增長的市場的一部分。所以很自然地，你會期待很多新進入者。有些會大獲成功，有些可能會進入利基市場。我們希望他們所有人都來 Aehr 來滿足他們的測試要求。我們的用例很有說服力。由於他們的客戶（例如汽車公司）要求零故障，而不是萬分之一或十萬分之一，而是沒有故障。因此，測試和篩選出早期缺陷對我們的客戶和潛在客戶來說變得非常非常重要。從我們看到的興趣程度來看，我們相信我們的信息正在傳達。

We set out to be seen as the industry standard for wafer level test and burn-in, a critical piece of the production process for several semiconductors in their target applications, including silicon carbide and silicon photonics. With the momentum we're seeing, we feel we have a very good chance to be recognized as that industry standard and to gain significant market share worldwide.

我們開始被視為晶圓級測試和老化的行業標準，這是多種半導體在其目標應用中的生產過程的關鍵部分，包括碳化矽和矽光子學。憑藉我們所看到的發展勢頭，我們覺得我們有很好的機會被公認為該行業標準，並在全球範圍內獲得重要的市場份額。

Now let me move on to silicon photonics. We're also seeing a strong recovery of our silicon photonics wafer level test and burn-in business after the weakness we saw during the pandemic. Halfway through this fiscal year, we've already shipped over $5 million in systems upgrades in WaferPaks to silicon photonics customers. And that's over 300% of last year's fiscal year's first half revenue for silicon photonics. This jump in revenue is also spread across multiple customers, and much of it is for new product designs and qualifications that we feel will lead to production volumes. We have systems installed at over half a dozen customers testing silicon photonics devices used in 5G infrastructure, data and telecommunications transceivers and a few yet to be introduced applications that we're very excited about. With multiple market leaders announcing plans to integrate photonics transceivers into their microprocessors, graphics processors and chipsets, we believe silicon photons will become a significant market for wafer level test and burn-in over the next several years.

現在讓我繼續談談矽光子學。在大流行期間出現疲軟之後，我們還看到矽光子晶圓級測試和老化業務強勁復甦。在本財政年度的一半時間裡，我們已經向矽光子客戶提供了超過 500 萬美元的 WaferPak 系統升級。這超過了矽光子去年財政年度上半年收入的 300%。收入的這種增長也分佈在多個客戶中，其中大部分用於我們認為將導致生產量的新產品設計和資格。我們為超過六家客戶安裝了系統，用於測試用於 5G 基礎設施、數據和電信收發器的矽光子器件，以及一些我們非常興奮的尚未推出的應用程序。隨著多個市場領導者宣布計劃將光子收發器集成到他們的微處理器、圖形處理器和芯片組中，我們相信矽光子將在未來幾年成為晶圓級測試和老化的重要市場。

Looking ahead, we continue to be very encouraged by our discussions with current and prospect customers and the continued momentum opportunities we are seeing. Europe has a large number of potential customers for power semiconductors, including both silicon carbide and gallium nitride, and the U.S. East Coast has a number of companies that are already in or getting into silicon carbide as well as companies that are making investments in silicon photonics.

展望未來，我們與現有和潛在客戶的討論以及我們看到的持續發展機會繼續令我們感到鼓舞。歐洲有大量的功率半導體潛在客戶，包括碳化矽和氮化鎵，美國東海岸有多家公司已經或正在進入碳化矽領域，以及正在投資矽光子的公司.

And we're also seeing -- starting to see companies in Asia getting into the power semiconductor game. The lifting and COVID-related travel restrictions in Taiwan and Japan is really helping with our new customer engagements in those regions. With the significant increase in market demand we're seeing for our products and in our sales activities, we have been investing in building up our sales and support teams across the globe. During the quarter, we expanded our senior sales leadership with the addition of several proven executives that will manage our sales activities in Asia, Europe and the East Coast of the United States.

我們也看到 - 開始看到亞洲公司進入功率半導體遊戲。台灣和日本取消與 COVID 相關的旅行限制確實有助於我們在這些地區的新客戶參與。隨著市場對我們產品和銷售活動的需求顯著增加，我們一直在投資建立我們在全球的銷售和支持團隊。在本季度，我們擴大了我們的高級銷售領導層，增加了幾位經驗豐富的高管，他們將管理我們在亞洲、歐洲和美國東海岸的銷售活動。

These are experienced semiconductor capital equipment sales veterans with significant expertise in test and direct relationships with our target customers. We're very happy with these additions and have already seen a positive impact from their efforts. In conclusion, we continue to believe that we will receive production orders from additional silicon carbide companies beyond our current customers and begin shipping systems to meet their production capacity by the end of our current fiscal year that ends May 31, 2023.

這些都是經驗豐富的半導體資本設備銷售老手，在測試和與我們的目標客戶建立直接關係方面擁有豐富的專業知識。我們對這些添加感到非常高興，並且已經看到他們的努力產生了積極的影響。總之，我們仍然相信，我們將收到當前客戶以外的更多碳化矽公司的生產訂單，並開始運送系統以滿足他們在 2023 年 5 月 31 日結束的當前財政年度末的生產能力。

We expect a strong second half of this fiscal year and are maintaining our guidance for revenues to at least $60 million to $70 million for our current fiscal year that ends May 31, representing growth of at least 18% to 38% year-over-year and also represents revenue growth of between 35% and 75% in the second half of the fiscal year compared to the first half of this year. Additionally, we continue to expect bookings to grow faster than revenues in fiscal 2023 as the ramp in demand for silicon carbide and electric vehicles increases, and we build momentum going into fiscal 2024. With that, let me turn it over to Ken before we open up the line for questions.

我們預計本財年下半年將表現強勁，並將我們對截至 5 月 31 日的當前財年的收入指引維持在至少 6000 萬至 7000 萬美元，同比增長至少 18% 至 38%與今年上半年相比，本財年下半年的收入增長了 35% 至 75%。此外，隨著對碳化矽和電動汽車需求的增加，我們繼續預計 2023 財年的預訂量增長速度將快於收入增長，並且我們將在 2024 財年建立勢頭。因此，讓我在開業前將其交給 Ken在線提問。

Thank you, Gayn, and good afternoon, everyone. As Gayn noted, we had another solid quarter in Q2 with strong sequential and year-over-year growth in our revenue and net income. We also saw improvement in gross margin and beat analyst estimates in both the top and bottom lines. Looking at our financial results in more detail. Net sales in the second quarter were $14.8 million, up 39% sequentially from $10.7 million in the first quarter and up 54% from $9.6 million in the second quarter last year.

謝謝你，蓋恩，大家下午好。正如 Gayn 所指出的，我們在第二季度又迎來了一個穩定的季度，我們的收入和淨收入實現了強勁的環比增長和同比增長。我們還看到毛利率有所改善，並且在收入和利潤方面都超過了分析師的預期。更詳細地查看我們的財務結果。第二季度的淨銷售額為 1480 萬美元，比第一季度的 1070 萬美元環比增長 39%，比去年第二季度的 960 萬美元增長 54%。

The sequential increase in net sales from Q1 includes an increase in WaferPak/DiePak revenues of $6.1 million. For the second quarter, these consumable revenues accounted for 45% or $6.6 million of our total revenue compared to only 5% of revenue in the preceding first quarter. The increase in revenues is primarily due to shipments of WaferPaks to our lead silicon carbide customer in Q2 related to prior quarter system shipments.

第一季度淨銷售額環比增長包括 WaferPak/DiePak 收入增長 610 萬美元。對於第二季度，這些消耗品收入占我們總收入的 45% 或 660 萬美元，而上一季度僅佔收入的 5%。收入的增長主要是由於與上一季度系統出貨量相關的第二季度向我們的主要碳化矽客戶出貨的 WaferPaks。

As noted previously, customers often buy systems and then WaferPaks later after they have completed the WaferPak designs. Gross profit in the second quarter was $7.9 million or 53% of sales, up from gross profit of $4.5 million or 42% of sales in the preceding first quarter and up from gross profit of $4.5 million or 47% of sales in the second quarter of the previous year.

如前所述，客戶通常會在完成 WaferPak 設計後購買系統，然後再購買 WaferPak。第二季度的毛利潤為 790 萬美元，佔銷售額的 53%，高於上一季度的毛利潤 450 萬美元，佔銷售額的 42%，高於第二季度的毛利潤 450 萬美元，佔銷售額的 47%前一年。

Several factors contributed to the improvement in gross margin. The change in product mix had a favorable impact on gross margin. Consumables revenues, which deliver higher gross margins, accounted for 45% of total revenues compared to only 5% of revenues in the prior quarter, resulting in a 4.7 percentage point improvement in gross margin from Q1. We also saw an improvement in unabsorbed overhead costs to cost of goods sold due to higher revenue levels in the second quarter, accounting for a 3.2 percentage point improvement in gross margin over the prior quarter.

多項因素促成了毛利率的改善。產品結構的變化對毛利率產生了有利影響。毛利率較高的消耗品收入佔總收入的 45%，而上一季度僅佔收入的 5%，毛利率較第一季度提高 4.7 個百分點。由於第二季度收入水平較高，我們還看到未吸收的間接費用佔銷售成本的改善，毛利率比上一季度提高了 3.2 個百分點。

With our use of contract manufacturers, we have the ability to keep our costs relatively fixed while revenues grow, which contributes to gross margin. Gross margin also benefited from lower freight, duties and tariffs and lower warranty costs, providing a 3.5 percentage point improvement in gross margin. We are definitely seeing an improvement from the challenging supply chain environment we saw over the last year -- fiscal year. Freight costs have come down substantially.

通過使用合同製造商，我們能夠在收入增長的同時保持成本相對固定，這有助於提高毛利率。毛利率也受益於較低的運費、關稅和關稅以及較低的保修成本，使毛利率提高了 3.5 個百分點。我們肯定看到我們在去年 - 財政年度看到的具有挑戰性的供應鏈環境有所改善。運費大幅下降。

As noted in prior calls, due to the shortage in ocean freight capacity with shipments into the U.S., we were required to ship by Aehr. This is no longer the case. And we are saving over $50,000 per chamber consolidating chambers on ocean shipments. We continue to minimize our use of suppliers in China and use these suppliers only when their total costs, including tariffs, is lower than other suppliers.

正如之前的電話所述，由於運往美國的海運能力不足，我們被要求通過 Aehr 運送。這已不再是這種情況。我們在海運中為每個腔室合併腔室節省了超過 50,000 美元。我們繼續盡量減少對中國供應商的使用，並且僅在這些供應商的總成本（包括關稅）低於其他供應商時才使用這些供應商。

Warranty costs also improved with us actually reversing some warranty reserves as both our quality continues to improve as well as our costs associated with repair has lowered significantly using our repair center in the Philippines. Non-GAAP net income for the second quarter was $4.5 million or $0.16 per diluted share. This compares to non-GAAP net income of $1.3 million or $0.05 per diluted share in the preceding first quarter and non-GAAP net income of $1.4 million or $0.05 per diluted share in the second quarter of fiscal 2022. Non-GAAP net income excludes the impact of stock-based compensation.

保修成本也有所改善，因為我們的質量不斷提高，而且我們在菲律賓的維修中心大大降低了與維修相關的成本，因此我們實際上撤銷了一些保修儲備金。第二季度非 GAAP 淨收入為 450 萬美元或每股攤薄收益 0.16 美元。相比之下，上一季度非 GAAP 淨收入為 130 萬美元或稀釋後每股收益 0.05 美元，2022 財年第二季度非 GAAP 淨收入為 140 萬美元或稀釋後每股收益 0.05 美元。非 GAAP 淨收入不包括基於股票的薪酬的影響。

Operating expenses in the second quarter were $4.4 million, an increase of $403,000 or 10% from $4 million in the preceding first quarter and up $624,000 or 16% from $3.8 million in the second quarter of the previous year. The increase from the preceding first quarter is primarily due to an increase in SG&A of $350,000 related to cost of growing the business, including increases in headcount and corresponding recruiting fees, increases in company-wide salaries and increases in outside commissions, travel, entertainment and trade shows related to our significant increase in selling activities.

第二季度的運營費用為 440 萬美元，比第一季度的 400 萬美元增加 403,000 美元或 10%，比去年第二季度的 380 萬美元增加 624,000 美元或 16%。與上一季度相比增加的主要原因是與業務增長成本相關的 SG&A 增加了 350,000 美元，包括員工人數和相應招聘費用的增加、全公司工資的增加以及外部佣金、差旅、娛樂和與我們的銷售活動顯著增加相關的貿易展覽。

We have invested in human capital with key additions to our sales and marketing staff to expand our customer engagement and marketing reach, customer support and manufacturing staff to support revenue growth and engineering staff for our development programs. The increase from the second quarter last year include increases in SG&A of $386,000 related to the cost of growing the business and R&D of $238,000 related to increased spending on development programs.

我們投資於人力資本，主要增加了我們的銷售和營銷人員，以擴大我們的客戶參與度和營銷範圍，客戶支持和製造人員，以支持收入增長和工程人員，以支持我們的開發計劃。與去年第二季度相比的增長包括與業務增長成本相關的 SG&A 增加 386,000 美元，以及與開發項目支出增加相關的研發費用 238,000 美元。

During the quarter, we announced 2 new enhancements for our FOX-P family of wafer level test and burn-in systems. These include the Bipolar Voltage Channel Module and Very High Voltage Channel Module options, which enable new advanced test and burn-in capabilities for silicon carbide and gallium nitride power semiconductors on Aehr's FOX-P wafer level test and burn-in systems.

本季度，我們宣布了 FOX-P 系列晶圓級測試和老化系統的 2 項新增強功能。其中包括雙極電壓通道模塊和超高壓通道模塊選項，它們可以在 Aehr 的 FOX-P 晶圓級測試和老化系統上為碳化矽和氮化鎵功率半導體提供新的高級測試和老化功能。

Our R&D program initiatives also include a new automated WaferPak Aligner, which can be configured in either a stand-alone configuration or integrated with our FOX-XP systems. We have taken orders for both configurations, including the recent announcement of an order from our new silicon carbide customer for a FOX-XP system, which includes the integrated configuration, which provides hands-free operation of wafer handling and auto loading.

我們的研發計劃舉措還包括一個新的自動化 WaferPak Aligner，它可以配置為獨立配置或與我們的 FOX-XP 系統集成。我們已經接受了這兩種配置的訂單，包括最近宣布我們新的碳化矽客戶訂購 FOX-XP 系統的訂單，其中包括集成配置，可提供晶圓處理和自動裝載的免提操作。

We continue to invest in R&D to enhance our existing market-leading products and to introduce new products to maintain our competitive advantages and expand our applications in addressable markets. These R&D programs include enhancements in all our key markets, including silicon carbide and gallium nitride power semiconductors, silicon photonics and other photonic semiconductors, mobile 2D and 3D sensing devices and memory and data storage semiconductors.

我們繼續投資於研發以增強我們現有的市場領先產品並推出新產品以保持我們的競爭優勢並擴大我們在目標市場的應用。這些研發計劃包括對我們所有主要市場的改進，包括碳化矽和氮化鎵功率半導體、矽光子學和其他光子半導體、移動 2D 和 3D 傳感設備以及內存和數據存儲半導體。

Turning to the balance sheet for the second quarter. We finished the quarter with a strong balance sheet. Our cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments were $36.6 million at November 30, up $437,000 from $36.1 million at the end of the preceding first quarter and up $1.6 million from $35 million at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2022. Also, we are now investing excess cash in short-term investments to take advantage of the recent increases in interest rates.

轉向第二季度的資產負債表。我們以強勁的資產負債表結束了本季度。截至 11 月 30 日，我們的現金、現金等價物和短期投資為 3660 萬美元，比上一季度末的 3610 萬美元增加了 437,000 美元，比 2022 財年第二季度末的 3500 萬美元增加了 160 萬美元。此外，我們現在將過剩現金投資於短期投資，以利用近期利率上升的機會。

Working capital at November 30 was $54.8 million. This represents an increase of $5.4 million from Q1 and $15.3 million from Q2 of the prior year. Inventories at the end of the second quarter were $18 million, an increase of $739,000 from the preceding quarter and up $4.9 million from the second quarter last year. We are increasing inventory to support our expected growth in the second half of fiscal 2023, and we continue to purchase inventory to ensure adequate supply to meet current customer and future customer market demand.

11 月 30 日的營運資金為 5480 萬美元。這比第一季度增加了 540 萬美元，比上一年第二季度增加了 1530 萬美元。第二季度末庫存為 1800 萬美元，比上一季度增加 73.9 萬美元，比去年第二季度增加 490 萬美元。我們正在增加庫存以支持我們在 2023 財年下半年的預期增長，我們將繼續採購庫存以確保充足的供應以滿足當前客戶和未來客戶的市場需求。

Our highly differentiated FOX family of systems allows us to purchase material that is leveraged across many customers and markets, which provides us confidence in our ability to meet the significant market opportunity. Bookings in the second quarter were $10.8 million. Backlog as of November 30 was $15.5 million compared to $19.5 million at the end of the preceding first quarter and $36.1 million at the end of the second quarter last year.

我們高度差異化的 FOX 系列系統使我們能夠購買可用於許多客戶和市場的材料，這使我們對我們迎接重要市場機會的能力充滿信心。第二季度的預訂量為 1080 萬美元。截至 11 月 30 日，積壓訂單為 1550 萬美元，而上一季度末為 1950 萬美元，去年第二季度末為 3610 萬美元。

Effective backlog, which includes backlog as of November 30 and all orders since the end of the second quarter, including the order we announced today, is $23.5 million. Now turning to our outlook for 2023 fiscal year, which ends on May 31, 2023, we are confident in the company's growth trajectory and our unique capabilities and product offerings to meet customer demands. As such, we are reiterating our previously provided guidance for full year total revenue of at least $60 million to $70 million, representing growth of at least 18% to 38% year-over-year with strong profit margins similar to last year.

有效積壓訂單為 2350 萬美元，其中包括截至 11 月 30 日的積壓訂單和第二季度末以來的所有訂單，包括我們今天宣布的訂單。現在轉向我們對 2023 年 5 月 31 日結束的 2023 財年的展望，我們對公司的增長軌跡以及我們滿足客戶需求的獨特能力和產品充滿信心。因此，我們重申我們之前提供的全年總收入至少為 6000 萬美元至 7000 萬美元的指導，同比增長至少 18% 至 38%，利潤率與去年相似。

We continue to expect bookings to grow faster than revenues in fiscal 2023 as the ramp in demand for silicon carbide in electric vehicles increases and we build momentum going into fiscal 2024. Lastly, looking at the Investor Relations calendar. Next week, we'll be meeting with investors virtually at the 25th Annual Needham Growth Conference on Thursday, January 12. We hope to see some of you virtually at the conference. This concludes our prepared remarks. We're now ready to take your questions. Operator, please go ahead.

我們繼續預計 2023 財年的預訂量增長將快於收入增長，因為電動汽車對碳化矽的需求增加，並且我們在進入 2024 財年時勢頭強勁。最後，看看投資者關係日曆。下週，我們將在 1 月 12 日星期四舉行的第 25 屆李約瑟成長年會上以虛擬方式與投資者會面。我們希望能在虛擬會議上見到你們中的一些人。我們準備好的發言到此結束。我們現在準備好回答您的問題了。接線員，請繼續。

(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from Christian Schwab with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

（操作員說明）第一個問題來自 Craig-Hallum Capital Group 的 Christian Schwab。

Congrats, guys, on continued strong business and new customer momentum. Gayn, it sounds like you're updating the number of customers that you expect to be shipping to by the end of the fiscal year. Can you just clarify how many customers in total you would anticipate selling to by the end of the fiscal year?

恭喜，伙計們，業務持續強勁，新客戶勢頭強勁。 Gayn，聽起來你正在更新你希望在財政年度結束時運送給的客戶數量。您能否澄清一下您預計到本財政年度結束時總共有多少客戶？

Additional from where we're at right now.

來自我們現在所在位置的其他信息。

Right.

正確的。

Yes, I mean we don't intentionally try to be too vague, but getting yourself too accurate can also get you in trouble. But there's a couple of few customers that have not bought production systems from us yet that we believe could be taking -- giving us orders and requesting deliveries even as soon as before the end of the year. And we have capacity to be able to do that. So we have enough inventory and prebuilds against market forecast as well as specific customer forecast to allow us to actually ship systems before the end of May.

是的，我的意思是我們不會有意嘗試過於模糊，但讓自己過於準確也會給您帶來麻煩。但是有幾個客戶還沒有從我們這裡購買生產系統，我們相信他們可能會接受——給我們訂單並要求在年底前盡快交貨。我們有能力做到這一點。因此，我們有足夠的庫存和預構建市場預測以及特定客戶預測，使我們能夠在 5 月底之前實際發貨系統。

That's great. I know you've highlighted this before, but could you just quickly remind us what your capacity is on a yearly or quarterly type of level, whichever way you would like to break it down?

那太棒了。我知道你之前已經強調過這一點，但你能否快速提醒我們你的能力在年度或季度水平上是多少，無論你想用哪種方式分解它？

Okay. That's a good point. It's actually as you seen, it's a combination of capacity and sort of our current reality. And I mean that in terms of just right now, what are we doing and what are we. Right now, we're probably shipping somewhere in the 50 blades or wafers of capacity a month. So if you think of a FOX-XP with 18 blades in it, 2 and a little of those or something, that's about what we're currently doing. We have more capacity than that, but that's actually our build plan that's equal to or a little bit higher than what our current customer requests and demands are.

好的。那是個很好的觀點。實際上，正如您所見，它是容量和我們當前現實的結合。我的意思是就目前而言，我們在做什麼，我們是什麼。現在，我們可能每月運送 50 個刀片或晶圓。所以如果你想到一個 FOX-XP 有 18 個刀片，2 個和一些這樣的東西，那就是我們目前正在做的事情。我們擁有比這更多的能力，但這實際上是我們的構建計劃，等於或略高於我們當前客戶的要求和要求。

Where we have the material and pipeline to be able to ship upwards of maybe 5 systems or 100 wafers of capacity a month by this summer and could actually ship another perhaps even 2x that or 10 systems a month in a year. That is not what we're currently believe in our forecast is candidly, but it's feasible to be that. And so it's an interesting scenario. We're actually using our capacity in our short lead times and our supply chain as one of our believed to be competitive advantages. We have companies in our space that have 52-week lead times, that's not Aehr Test.

到今年夏天，我們擁有的材料和管道能夠每月運送 5 個系統或 100 個晶圓，並且實際上可以在一年內每月運送另一個甚至 2 倍或 10 個系統。這不是我們目前相信我們的預測是坦率的，但它是可行的。所以這是一個有趣的場景。我們實際上正在利用我們在短交貨時間內的能力和我們的供應鏈作為我們認為的競爭優勢之一。我們所在領域的公司有 52 週的交貨時間，這不是 Aehr 測試。

So we've deliberately taken the position that we are putting capacity in infrastructure and material in place to be able to go, say yes to as many customers as we possibly can. And that's why we have this capacity available to us. Now one more thing we have said in the past. We did extend our lease here and finalize that just over the last month or so. We've got plans that were in the works right now to do some facility upgrades and all. That's actually going to help us with some infrastructure in terms of electrical and water to be able to do more in parallel that would be needed, we think, to be able to hit those high end numbers by the end of next year.

因此，我們有意採取這樣的立場，即我們正在將基礎設施和材料的能力投入到位，以便能夠對盡可能多的客戶說“是”。這就是我們擁有這種能力的原因。現在我們在過去說過一件事。我們確實在這裡延長了租約，並在上個月左右完成了租約。我們已經制定了一些正在進行的計劃，以進行一些設施升級等等。這實際上將幫助我們在電力和水方面建立一些基礎設施，以便能夠並行完成我們認為需要的更多工作，以便能夠在明年年底之前達到這些高端數字。

So those are some investments we'll be making over the next 1.5 years or so. We'll gradually do it without being disruptive. But I think we've kind of told the Street that might be a $3 million to $5 million investment or so and then depreciate that over the rest of the lease.

所以這些是我們將在未來 1.5 年左右進行的一些投資。我們會逐漸做到這一點而不會造成破壞。但我認為我們已經告訴華爾街，這可能是 300 萬到 500 萬美元左右的投資，然後在剩餘的租約中貶值。

Fabulous. And then on the new wafer handling technology, which really seems to be a game changer for some of your new customers. Does that come with an ASP that's any materially different than the prior generation product?

極好。然後是新的晶圓處理技術，對於您的一些新客戶來說，這似乎真的改變了遊戲規則。它附帶的 ASP 是否與上一代產品有本質上的不同？

No, it's pretty similar. We had said before that our automated handlers are in about 800,000 range type of thing, whereas the manual liners are significantly cheaper than that. So if you use that kind of number, that's probably fair. And again, you could buy one that could feed 5 XP chambers. If you had 10 chambers on the floor, you might need 2 of them and use WaferPaks and WaferPak cards moving around. And there are some companies that prefer that model that's similar to how packaged part burn-in has operated for years or you could take an aligner and bolt it on to the front of each of those 10 XP systems.

不，它非常相似。我們之前說過，我們的自動處理程序大約有 800,000 個範圍類型的東西，而手動襯管比這便宜得多。所以如果你使用那種數字，那可能是公平的。同樣，您可以購買一個可以為 5 個 XP 腔室供電的。如果您在地板上有 10 個腔室，您可能需要其中的 2 個並使用 WaferPaks 和移動的 WaferPak 卡。並且有一些公司更喜歡這種類似於包裝部件老化運行多年的模型，或者您可以使用對準器並將其用螺栓固定在這 10 個 XP 系統中的每一個的前面。

You think, wow, that's a lot more expensive. It turns out, it's still pretty negligible. If you look at it over, say, 18 wafers. And for some companies, that's a big deal. If people that know me, I'm super passionate about this new aligner. We've stayed steady on the course. We've been heads down working on this thing completely through the entire COVID pandemic and just really happy to -- where it's at right now. And our plans are to be shipping that here over the next -- by the end of the fiscal year to multiple customers.

你認為，哇，那要貴得多。事實證明，它仍然可以忽略不計。如果你仔細看一下，比如說，18 個晶圓。對於一些公司來說，這是一件大事。如果認識我的人都知道我對這款新矯正器充滿熱情。我們在球場上一直保持穩定。在整個 COVID 大流行期間，我們一直在全力以赴地致力於這件事，並且真的很高興——它現在所處的位置。我們的計劃是在下一個財政年度結束時將其運送給多個客戶。

Great. And then my last question, and congrats on the product success during the COVID period. On the recent uptake in silicon photonics, I know it's relatively modest revenue, but materially better than it has been in the most recent time frame. But as you look at that in a multiyear time frame, could those customers be the same size as we've kind of mentioned as your lead silicon carbide customer at $75 million? Or is it materially greater or modestly less? Could you give us any color there?

偉大的。然後是我的最後一個問題，祝賀產品在 COVID 期間取得成功。關於最近矽光子學的發展，我知道它的收入相對適中，但比最近的時間框架要好得多。但是當你在多年的時間框架內看待它時，這些客戶的規模是否與我們提到的 7500 萬美元的主要碳化矽客戶一樣大？或者它在物質上更大或更小？你能給我們任何顏色嗎？

Yes. So we've been kind of holding our cards to our chest for several years on this thing and just recently have started to talk about it. So with the announcements by some major suppliers, the 2 largest microprocessor suppliers in the world, the main graphics processors companies in the world, even some of the large fabs like TSMC and GlobalFoundries have created these consortiums to talk about heterogeneous integration, which is a fancy word for multiple chips in one package that include a fiber optic transceiver ports on it.

是的。因此，多年來我們一直在這件事上把我們的牌擱在胸前，直到最近才開始談論它。因此，隨著一些主要供應商的宣布，世界上最大的 2 個微處理器供應商、世界上主要的圖形處理器公司，甚至一些大型晶圓廠，如台積電和 GlobalFoundries，都成立了這些聯盟來討論異構集成，這是一個一個封裝中的多個芯片的花哨詞，其中包括一個光纖收發器端口。

And what they're saying is servers first are going to start having chipsets that are in communication with processors and disk drives and data storage through fiber optic ports directly. That is a huge deal, okay? Because the fiber optic transceiver itself will still require the stabilization in the burn-in that we have now been doing for years. It's really what all the hubbub has been about and why there are so many companies and so much investment that's been in there. Now having said that, I think there's going to be probably fewer big players than there can be even in silicon carbide, but there'll be lots of smaller players certainly over the next, say, 3 years or something along those lines.

他們所說的是服務器首先將開始擁有芯片組，這些芯片組可以直接通過光纖端口與處理器和磁盤驅動器以及數據存儲進行通信。這是一件大事，好嗎？因為光纖收發器本身仍然需要我們多年來一直在進行的老化過程中的穩定性。這就是所有喧囂的真正原因，也是為什麼有這麼多公司和這麼多投資的原因。話雖如此，我認為大公司的數量可能會少於碳化矽，但在未來，比如 3 年或類似的時間裡，肯定會有很多小公司。

But any one of those big players could be larger than our biggest silicon carbide customer. So the total available market for the silicon photonics when you start talking about it being embedded in servers and chipsets and processors and GPUs, I think is bigger than the silicon carbide business. And so as we start to look at the second half of the decade, when that will really kick in, in particular, that's a huge opportunity, and we are all in on that. So a number of investments that we're already making some we haven't told you about are directed directly at that space.

但這些大玩家中的任何一個都可能比我們最大的碳化矽客戶更大。因此，當你開始談論矽光子學嵌入服務器、芯片組、處理器和 GPU 時，它的總可用市場比碳化矽業務更大。因此，當我們開始著眼於這個十年的下半年時，那將真正開始，特別是，這是一個巨大的機會，我們都在努力。因此，我們已經進行了一些我們尚未告訴您的投資，這些投資直接針對該領域。

The next question comes from Jed Dorsheimer with William Blair.

下一個問題來自 Jed Dorsheimer 和 William Blair。

First off, congratulations on a spectacular quarter. So nice work.

首先，祝賀一個壯觀的季度。這麼好的工作。

Thanks, Jed.

謝謝，傑德。

I guess my first question on the -- your first new silicon carbide customer, the one that's purchased 2 XPs with the automated handler. Is the automated handler going to be shipping at the same time as the shipment of these 2 tools? So will you have both available to ship with that automated handler at the March time frame?

我想我的第一個問題是——您的第一個新碳化矽客戶，即購買了 2 個帶有自動處理程序的 XP 的客戶。自動處理機是否會與這兩種工具同時發貨？那麼你們是否可以在 3 月的時間框架內使用該自動處理程序發貨？

That's a pretty good specific question. Let me leave it a bit. So yes -- well, I'm going to just go out and say it. So we're -- the customers actually requested that we shipped the XP system with the first one, shift the second one integrated with the aligner and then upgrade the first one with the aligner. That's how we are doing. And so there's a little bit of timing, but they're all about the same time frame. So there's like a -- but it's sort of a risk reduction thing for everybody on doing that.

這是一個很好的具體問題。讓我稍微離開一下。所以是的 - 好吧，我要出去說出來。所以我們 - 客戶實際上要求我們將 XP 系統與第一個系統一起運送，轉移第二個與對準器集成的系統，然後升級第一個與對準器的系統。我們就是這樣做的。所以有一點時間安排，但它們都在同一時間範圍內。所以就像 - 但它對每個人來說都是一種降低風險的事情。

Got it. And from a rev rec perspective, is -- or do you expect that these will fall into this fiscal year's revenue recognition? Or is it...

知道了。從 rev rec 的角度來看，是 - 或者你預計這些將屬於本財年的收入確認？或者是...

Another good question. Yes, no, that's the advanced question there too, Jed. Folks, we did not see, Jed, with these questions, okay? So -- no, Jed, that's dead on. So as you understand, we seldom if ever get into rev rec things. But our policy, which is extremely conservative for a hardware company, is that if we have a new product going to a new customer until that customer says, I've accepted it, we do not score revenue, even if they pay us for it entirely.

另一個好問題。是的，不，這也是高級問題，傑德。伙計們，傑德，我們沒有看到這些問題，好嗎？所以 - 不，傑德，這已經結束了。因此，如您所知，我們很少參與 rev rec 事情。但是我們的政策對一家硬件公司來說是極其保守的，如果我們有一個新產品要賣給一個新客戶，直到那個客戶說，我已經接受了，我們就不會獲得收入，即使他們為此付錢給我們完全。

So the interesting thing here and embedded in our kind of weird range of forecast for the $60 million to $70 million includes the timing of when one or both of those systems would get rev rec. So -- but it could very well happen that we don't get revenue recognition for those systems until Q1 when they're finally accepted even though we ship them in Q4.

因此，這裡有趣的事情嵌入在我們對 6000 萬至 7000 萬美元的奇怪預測範圍內，包括其中一個或兩個系統何時獲得 rev rec 的時間。所以 - 但很可能會發生，即使我們在第四季度發貨，我們也不會在第一季度最終接受這些系統之前獲得收入確認。

Got it. That's helpful. And I guess, I was wondering if you could just outline if the material quality of silicon carbide [the million] resistance, it's coming down in the material, it enables for a multiple shrinks. Every time you would have a shrink or your customer would have a shrink in terms of chip design, that will trigger new consumables from a WaferPak contactors...

知道了。這很有幫助。而且我想，我想知道您是否可以概述一下碳化矽 [百萬] 電阻的材料質量，它在材料中下降，它可以實現多次收縮。每次你會縮小或你的客戶在芯片設計方面會縮小，這都會觸發來自 WaferPak 接觸器的新耗材......

Right. That's right. Yes, WaferPak full wafer contactors are unique to the wafer design, which is unique to the device design. So the very nature of the word shrink means that it's going to -- the X by Y square area would get smaller. And as such, the pads would change and it would require a new WaferPak. This is very similar to what the test business is referred to as a probe card. And so the probe cards become the consumables. And even if they don't need more capacity, if they simply change all their wafer patterns, they would buy only probe cards or WaferPaks in our case.

正確的。這是正確的。是的，WaferPak 全晶圓接觸器是晶圓設計獨有的，是器件設計獨有的。所以收縮這個詞的本質意味著它會——X乘Y的正方形區域會變小。因此，焊盤會發生變化，需要新的 WaferPak。這與測試業務所稱的探針卡非常相似。因此探針卡成為消耗品。即使他們不需要更多的容量，如果他們只是改變他們所有的晶圓圖案，在我們的案例中他們也只會購買探針卡或 WaferPaks。

Got it. So when you look at and you talk about capacity needs simply for silicon carbide from a wafer start perspective, there's a third that presumably if this industry gets on a similar to -- I hesitate to say it more as well, but a shrink scale, you would have a 30% recurring revenue stream associated with that, not to mention sort of the movement over of additional machines for different diameters.

知道了。因此，當你從晶圓開始的角度來看和談論碳化矽的產能需求時，有三分之一的人可能會認為如果這個行業變得類似於——我也不願多說，但規模縮小了，您將有 30% 的經常性收入流與此相關，更不用說用於不同直徑的額外機器的轉移。

Yes. So let me put better numbers around that. So in a typical purchase upfront for our tool, we've talked about these ASPs in the like $2 million, $2.5 million or so for a tool and then a set of WaferPaks might be $1.5 million or somewhere in there. So there's sort of this 2/3, 1/3 rule. So if you use the 1/3 rule and call that 30%, I'm with you, okay? So upfront, they would buy 67% tester and 33% consumable or WaferPaks.

是的。因此，讓我圍繞它給出更好的數字。因此，在我們工具的典型前期購買中，我們談到了這些 ASP 大約為 200 萬美元，一個工具的 250 萬美元左右，然後一套 WaferPaks 可能是 150 萬美元或那裡的某個地方。所以有這種 2/3、1/3 規則。因此，如果您使用 1/3 規則並將其稱為 30%，我同意您的意見，好嗎？因此，他們會提前購買 67% 的測試儀和 33% 的消耗品或 WaferPak。

But in some point in time, they would then -- those WaferPaks would be no longer valuable or useful because they no longer sell those wafers. They would then buy all new WaferPaks from us. So the one thing that's still going on with us is trying to get our arms around what is that cycle going to be. On one hand, automotive devices tend to last longer. So they might be the ones that might last multiple years, whereas something like a consumer device or memory might only have a 1.5- or 2-year life, meaning every other year, all of the probe cards are replaced on a fab, okay?

但在某個時間點，他們會——那些 WaferPaks 將不再有價值或有用，因為他們不再銷售這些晶圓。然後他們會從我們這裡購買所有新的 WaferPak。因此，我們仍在做的一件事就是試圖讓我們了解這個週期將會是什麼。一方面，汽車設備的使用壽命往往更長。所以它們可能會持續多年，而消費設備或內存之類的東西可能只有 1.5 或 2 年的壽命，這意味著每隔一年，所有的探針卡都會在工廠更換，好嗎？

In our case, though, with silicon carbide, there's multiple things that are going on. Everyone is talking about Gen 2, Gen 3, Gen 4 shrinks. They're talking about a planar versus trench. They're talking about going from 150 to 200- millimeter, each of those create dynamic transitions that would actually accelerate the obsolescence of the previous generation device.

但是，在我們的案例中，對於碳化矽，有很多事情正在發生。每個人都在談論第 2 代、第 3 代、第 4 代縮水。他們在談論平面與溝槽。他們正在談論從 150 毫米到 200 毫米，每一個都會產生動態過渡，這實際上會加速上一代設備的淘汰。

So we've been using maybe every 4 years right now, and they're still yet to see it. But there's no doubt that when you look out 4, 5 years, a significant amount of our revenue is going to be coming from WaferPaks of the installed base. And we're already seeing that with our silicon photonics customers, for example. So -- and as our installed base grows, that number would grow as an absolute value as well.

所以我們現在可能每 4 年使用一次，但他們還沒有看到它。但毫無疑問，當你展望 4、5 年時，我們收入的很大一部分將來自已安裝基礎的 WaferPaks。例如，我們已經在我們的矽光子客戶中看到了這一點。所以——隨著我們安裝基數的增長，這個數字的絕對值也會增長。

Got it. That's helpful. Last question for me, I'll jump back in the queue. The -- did I hear you correctly when you talked about your second new customer, did they have not announced products in silicon carbide? I was wondering if you could just help clarify that comment...

知道了。這很有幫助。最後一個問題，我會跳回到隊列中。當你談到你的第二個新客戶時，我沒聽錯嗎，他們沒有發布碳化矽產品嗎？我想知道你是否可以幫助澄清那個評論......

Yes. I'm choosing my words very specifically. They have not introduced silicon carbide MOSFETs, and I looked at their website again last night just to double check. They still have not -- they still have not said it. So they have figured out a program to come stealthily at this. They have multiple devices I know because we have their wafers. And so I -- we're being pretty elusive. I realize someone -- I think someone asked to why you guys can't never mention about customers? I'm telling you that customers do not want to be mentioned. It's the biggest secret around.

是的。我非常具體地選擇我的話。他們沒有推出碳化矽 MOSFET，我昨晚又看了他們的網站，只是為了仔細檢查。他們仍然沒有——他們仍然沒有說出來。所以他們想出了一個程序來悄悄地來這裡。他們有多種我知道的設備，因為我們有他們的晶圓。所以我 - 我們非常難以捉摸。我意識到有人——我想有人問為什麼你們不能永遠不提客戶？我告訴你客戶不想被提及。這是周圍最大的秘密。

And we always try to be very careful. I don't even mention the name of the customer outside of the context anymore because they will get back at me for mentioning the name. So it's a difficult thing, I realize. We've said we have 2 of the big guys. I will be bold and I mean, I think because of them being a 10-K -- 10% customer in our 10ks, I think people understood that. On Semiconductor was one of our biggest customers. Everybody is trying to guess who the next big guy was -- is. And we're -- I'm not sure exactly how that's all going to play out.

我們總是非常小心。我什至不再在上下文之外提到客戶的名字，因為他們會因為我提到這個名字而報復我。所以這是一件困難的事情，我意識到。我們說過我們有兩個大個子。我會很大膽，我的意思是，我認為因為他們是我們 10ks 中 10% 的 10-K 客戶，我認為人們理解這一點。安森美半導體是我們最大的客戶之一。每個人都在猜測下一個大人物是誰——是誰。而且我們 - 我不確定這一切將如何發揮作用。

Right now, burden is very clear. I'm just going to win them all, and then we can say we have all of them. So -- but in the meantime, I apologize that you guys don't have better insight as to who they are.

現在，負擔非常明確。我只是想贏得他們所有人，然後我們就可以說我們擁有了所有人。所以 - 但與此同時，我很抱歉你們沒有更好地了解他們是誰。

No apologies, it's job security for us. We have to do some real research. So I like it.

不用道歉，這是我們的工作保障。我們必須做一些真正的研究。所以我喜歡它。

The next question comes from Dylan Patel with SemiAnalysis.

下一個問題來自 SemiAnalysis 的 Dylan Patel。

Gayn, I wanted to ask the WaferPaks, the various burn-in equipment on both a silicon carbide side and photonics side, is that going to be in the wafer fab or can it be in the test fab? Because I was just trying to think about it from my perspective, and I think it could be an either.

Gayn，我想問 WaferPaks，碳化矽側和光子學側的各種老化設備，是要在晶圓廠還是在測試廠？因為我只是想從我的角度考慮它，我認為它可能是兩者之一。

Yes. You know what, it absolutely can be an either. People -- the closest analogy is what's referred to as known good die, where people sell die sales, okay? In that case, the final test of the die often happens in what we would refer to in the test communis the back-end operation where packages are, okay, versus the front end where the wafers are.

是的。你知道嗎，它絕對可以是兩者之一。人——最接近的類比是所謂的已知好模具，人們在那裡銷售模具銷售，好嗎？在那種情況下，芯片的最終測試通常發生在我們在測試通信中提到的後端操作中，封裝所在的後端操作與晶圓所在的前端相對。

In this case, the wafer level burn-in process step feels like a known good die step. So it would be reasonable for somebody to put it in their back end. Having said that, most of our equipment today, if not all of it, is in the front end. It naturally fits in the wafer fab right next to the fab. Our systems are rated for clean room specifications. They're intended to go into clean rooms. And so we'll see both for sure. But I've heard both. I think we'll have systems both places.

在這種情況下，晶圓級老化工藝步驟感覺就像一個已知的良好模具步驟。所以有人把它放在他們的後端是合理的。話雖如此，我們今天的大部分設備（如果不是全部）都位於前端。它自然適合晶圓廠旁邊的晶圓廠。我們的系統符合潔淨室規格。他們打算進入潔淨室。所以我們肯定會看到兩者。但我都聽說過。我認為我們將在兩個地方都有系統。

It's burn-in and then simulation next, right? Or is there anything else in the middle?

先是老化，然後是模擬，對吧？或者中間還有什麼？

No, there's test after burn-in on your wafer always. So our recommended process is take a raw wafer, no need to test it. We will test it and tell you which are the good and bad die, we will burn it in and we'll let you know which ones die during the process and exactly what time it did. And then you would correlate that with a functional final test of that singulated die because you can get tighter accuracies and some other things that you might want to do.

不，總是在晶圓上進行老化測試。所以我們推薦的工藝是拿一塊raw wafer，不需要測試。我們將對其進行測試並告訴您哪些芯片是好的和壞的，我們會燒掉它，我們會讓您知道在這個過程中哪些芯片會死掉，以及它死掉的確切時間。然後您會將其與單個芯片的功能最終測試相關聯，因為您可以獲得更嚴格的精度和您可能想要做的其他一些事情。

But you would do a single insertion test with a test system like the likes of a Teradyne, there's a handful of little companies that are out there that test 1, 2, 3, 4 devices at a time. And then on a wafer with 1,000 devices, they might test 250 to 500 insertions of about 1 second, a piece. And then they would singulate the good die -- singulate, separate the good die and oftentimes been that die, so they will pick and choose die with matching parametrics.

但是您可以使用 Teradyne 之類的測試系統進行單次插入測試，有一些小公司可以同時測試 1、2、3、4 個設備。然後在具有 1,000 個設備的晶圓上，他們可能會測試 250 到 500 次大約 1 秒的插入，一塊。然後他們會挑選好的模具——挑選、分離好的模具，通常是那個模具，所以他們會挑選具有匹配參數的模具。

One of the things that people -- I've spent more time on in the past is part of the process of silicon photonics today and silicon carbide. And I did this in a white paper in Munich in a presentation of it. There's also a bunch of technical white papers out there. Silicon carbide devices age and actually their parametric voltage threshold, the threshold at which the device turns on, changes in time over multiple hours and then stabilizes.

人們——我過去花更多時間研究的一件事是當今矽光子學和碳化矽工藝的一部分。我在慕尼黑的一份白皮書中介紹了它。還有一堆技術白皮書。碳化矽器件會老化，實際上它們的參數電壓閾值（器件開啟的閾值）會在數小時內隨時間變化，然後穩定下來。

If you put that into a module like you would do in, say, a module that goes into even from Tesla, but Lucid or Ford's or any of the automotive modules that are going on. You -- and you put, say, 8 devices in there. The devices would all be turning on at different times, if you do not cherry pick them. So let's say, you cherry pick them and put them in, during the first 24 hours of use, the threshold voltage varies. So then the one that turns on the fastest will wear out the fastest and can become a reliability problem.

如果你把它放到一個模塊中，就像你會做的那樣，比如說，一個甚至來自特斯拉的模塊，但 Lucid 或福特或任何正在進行的汽車模塊。你 - 你在那裡放了 8 個設備。如果您不挑選它們，這些設備都會在不同的時間打開。比方說，您挑選並放入它們，在使用的前 24 小時內，閾值電壓會發生變化。因此，開啟最快的那個會磨損得最快，並可能成為可靠性問題。

So when people use our tools, they're not just binding good from bad or weeding out what we call infant mortality or early life failures, we're actually stabilizing the threshold voltage, which takes a period of time such that they can cherry pick them and then sell them to the likes of the VWs of the world or Danfoss or BorgWarner, who are going to be purchasing known good die from all of the suppliers with specified threshold voltages and RDS on voltages -- RDS on impedances or resistances to catch all that.

因此，當人們使用我們的工具時，他們不僅僅是將好的與壞的結合起來，或者剔除我們所說的嬰兒死亡率或早年失敗，我們實際上是在穩定閾值電壓，這需要一段時間，以便他們可以挑選然後將它們賣給世界上的大眾汽車或丹佛斯或博格華納之類的公司，他們將從所有具有指定閾值電壓和 RDS 電壓的供應商處購買已知良好的裸片——RDS 阻抗或電阻所有這些。

I'll have to reread it for sure. But one quick last question was about the China's reopening. I'm curious if you've been scheduling any travel there because there's a ton of companies like TankeBlue, SICC and SEMISiC and on, so on and so forth that are all there that are investing a ton and -- yes.

我肯定會重讀它。但最後一個問題是關於中國的重新開放。我很好奇你是否一直在那里安排任何旅行，因為有很多公司，如 TankeBlue、SICC 和 SEMISiC 等等，等等都在那裡投資了大量——是的。

So we've had multiple conversations with several of the China suppliers. We have people in country, okay? So other than the restrictions on the local travel or intercountry travel, our team has been able to move around with customers throughout this entire period, and that includes both sales and support people. Most of the Chinese suppliers are behind relative to other folks.

因此，我們與幾家中國供應商進行了多次對話。我們在鄉下有人，好嗎？因此，除了當地旅行或跨國旅行的限制外，我們的團隊在整個期間都能夠與客戶一起走動，其中包括銷售和支持人員。大多數中國供應商都落後於其他供應商。

And in many cases, what we're doing today is we're working with companies outside of China who are building silicon carbide devices to ship to those China automotive suppliers. So right now, that's where we see the primary opportunity from us. Over time, the Chinese industry may also pose a real opportunity for us. I'd say that the bulk of our energy has been in the U.S., Europe and Asia outside of China to date.

在許多情況下，我們今天正在做的是與中國以外的公司合作，這些公司正在製造碳化矽設備以運送給那些中國汽車供應商。所以現在，這就是我們看到我們的主要機會的地方。隨著時間的推移，中國工業也可能為我們帶來真正的機會。我想說，迄今為止，我們的大部分精力都在中國以外的美國、歐洲和亞洲。

The next question comes from Bradford Ferguson with Halter Ferguson Financial.

下一個問題來自 Bradford Ferguson 和 Halter Ferguson Financial。

The way I understand is the FOX-XP system allows for 18 wafers to be burned out -- burn-in at the same time. In this system with all the WaferPaks costs of $4.5 million, what's the next closest competition look like? I've heard the commodity system is one wafer at a time $900,000.

我的理解是 FOX-XP 系統允許同時燒毀 18 個晶圓 - 預燒。在這個所有 WaferPak 成本為 450 萬美元的系統中，下一個最接近的競爭是什麼樣的？我聽說商品系統一次是一個晶圓，價格為 900,000 美元。

Yes. So $700,000 to $1 million for the equivalent per wafer cost. So it would be -- there's an equivalent -- please go ahead.

是的。因此，相當於每個晶圓的成本為 700,000 到 100 萬美元。所以它會是——有一個等價物——請繼續。

So essentially, you're like a 70% off potentially.

所以從本質上講，您可能會享受 70% 的折扣。

We are significantly lower than the other folks. There are people that have $1 million per wafer cost, and we might be $200,000 in kind of one of the -- in some of the silicon carbide cases, for example. And people usually go, "Well, why are you giving them away? Well, we don't feel we're giving them away. We're pretty open with our margins with our customers. They know what we're doing. I think we have a good relationship with them that allows us to continue to invest.

我們明顯低於其他人。有些人每片晶圓的成本為 100 萬美元，而我們可能是其中一種成本 200,000 美元——例如，在某些碳化矽案例中。人們通常會說，“好吧，你為什麼要把它們送人？好吧，我們不覺得我們在送人。我們對客戶的利潤率非常開放。他們知道我們在做什麼。我認為我們與他們有良好的關係，使我們能夠繼續投資。

And at the same time, our goal was not to just be cheaper than the other guy. In fact, to some extent, we were ignoring them. What we're trying to do is be as cheap as back-end production burn-in, which we have also been a supplier up for 30-plus years, almost 40 years. And if you look at our cost to test, the cost of test of us at wafer level is the same as a package level, which people in our industry are shocked to see.

同時，我們的目標不僅僅是比其他人便宜。事實上，在某種程度上，我們忽略了它們。我們正在嘗試做的是像後端生產老化一樣便宜，我們也是 30 多年的供應商，將近 40 年。如果你看我們測試的成本，我們在晶圓級的測試成本和封裝級的測試成本是一樣的，我們行業的人都看到了。

And if you go up to 2,000 die per wafer like you would with an onboard charger, it's half the cost. And so they not only get the yield advantage, which is more than the cost of test, they also get it cheaper than they would any other way. And we've chosen to position this product that was its initial intent. We think we've successfully done it, and we're focusing now on being able to ship enough to everybody in the world if we need to.

而且，如果您像使用車載充電器一樣將每個晶圓的芯片數量提高到 2,000 個，成本就會減半。因此，他們不僅獲得了比測試成本更高的良率優勢，而且比其他任何方式都更便宜。我們選擇將這個產品定位為它的初衷。我們認為我們已經成功做到了，我們現在專注於在需要時能夠向世界上的每個人運送足夠的貨物。

And tagging on to Jed Dorsheimer's last question, there's (inaudible) also a second customer with no silicon carbide announced plans that is kicking the tires with Aehr.

關於 Jed Dorsheimer 的最後一個問題，還有（聽不清）第二個沒有碳化矽的客戶宣布了與 Aehr 一起踢輪胎的計劃。

Yes. Okay. So specifically, if you want to call it, the third customer that bought an NP system, they also -- they have not actually announced -- they haven't publicly announced that they're selling silicon carbide MOSFETs yet. We know they're talking to customers. So we don't really understand the strategy on that, but that's okay. They're a big player, they're serious, and they are very well qualified to be a big customer of ours.

是的。好的。所以具體來說，如果你想稱它為購買 NP 系統的第三個客戶，他們也——他們實際上還沒有宣布——他們還沒有公開宣布他們正在銷售碳化矽 MOSFET。我們知道他們正在與客戶交談。所以我們並不真正理解這方面的戰略，但這沒關係。他們是大玩家，他們是認真的，他們非常有資格成為我們的大客戶。

We also have benchmarks. We've talked about it before in our last previous calls. We've had an ongoing benchmark with one of the other large suppliers for well over a year now. That's a very extensive automotive benchmark that has gone very well during the quarter, and we would hope to give you guys some updates on that over the next -- at our next call.

我們也有基準。我們之前在上次通話中已經討論過它。一年多以來，我們一直在與其他大型供應商之一進行基準測試。這是一個非常廣泛的汽車基準，在本季度表現非常好，我們希望在下一次電話會議上為大家提供一些更新。

Okay. And then I have a moonshot question, which is -- in medical testing, there's LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics where they would actually run the test for the customers. What does Aehr Test Systems think about running the burn-in for the customer and/or like having an Aehr Test Systems certification where it's a best practices? This is a known good -- not only a known good die, but this has been best practices burn-in in Aehr certified way?

好的。然後我有一個大膽的問題，那就是——在醫學測試中，有 LabCorp 和 Quest Diagnostics，他們實際上會為客戶進行測試。 Aehr Test Systems 如何看待為客戶運行老化和/或喜歡在最佳實踐中獲得 Aehr Test Systems 認證？這是一個已知的好——不僅是一個已知的好管芯，而且這是以 Aehr 認證的方式進行老化的最佳實踐？

There's multiple things to that. I like everything you're saying, okay? So first of all, we actually do -- we do customer wafers inside in one of our secure labs here. We have multiple labs that are secured with cameras and lockouts, et cetera, to ensure that there's no cross-pollinization of IP. And we've done that with multiple customers so that we can give them a risk-free demonstration of show their failures on their wafers with the equipment. That has proven 100% successful so far.

這有很多原因。我喜歡你說的一切，好嗎？所以首先，我們實際上是這樣做的——我們在這裡的一個安全實驗室裡做客戶晶圓。我們有多個實驗室，這些實驗室使用攝像頭和鎖定裝置等進行保護，以確保 IP 不會交叉授粉。我們已經與多個客戶一起這樣做了，這樣我們就可以給他們一個無風險的演示，展示他們使用設備在晶圓上的故障。到目前為止，這已被證明是 100% 成功的。

So we do that. Second, we actually have -- we haven't announced our name yet, which is kind of an odd thing to. But we have a partnership with one of the largest subcons in the world who has our tools both in their front-end engineering as well as in production. Stay tuned for some announcements on that during the year. But we -- during this next half, but we already are working with them to qualify them to be able to do silicon photonics-based or silicon carbide-based burn-in addition to the silicon photonics that they're doing today. And that would allow us to direct someone towards them if they wanted to do services, et cetera, different than us trying to actually be in the services business.

所以我們這樣做。其次，我們實際上已經 - 我們還沒有宣布我們的名字，這有點奇怪。但我們與世界上最大的分包商之一建立了合作夥伴關係，他們在前端工程和生產中都使用了我們的工具。請繼續關注這一年的一些公告。但是我們——在下半年，我們已經在與他們合作，使他們有資格進行基於矽光子學或基於碳化矽的燃燒，除了他們今天正在做的矽光子學之外。如果他們想要提供服務等，這將允許我們將某人引向他們，這與我們試圖實際從事服務業務不同。

We're still kind of focused on capital equipment engineering support services and the consumables themselves. Related to an endorsement by Aehr, there's something to that. We get to see a cross-section of all of the wafer -- many of the wafers around the world and see kind of the good and the bad and the whole thing, I have some very strong opinions about what burn-in time should be, what test conditions should be.

我們仍然專注於資本設備工程支持服務和消耗品本身。與 Aehr 的認可有關，這有一定的道理。我們看到了所有晶圓的橫截面——世界上許多晶圓，看到了好的和壞的以及整個事情，我對老化時間應該是什麼有一些非常強烈的看法，應該是什麼測試條件。

And we -- what I will tell you is we've started working with the -- what's referred to as OEMs, which is the end customers related to, can there be an industry standard for what those burn-in times should be in order to achieve a specific level of quality? And I would hope to try and drive that in the industry if nothing else for the good of the overall industry because there is a difference.

我們——我要告訴你的是，我們已經開始與——所謂的原始設備製造商合作，這是與最終客戶相關的，是否有一個行業標準來規定這些老化時間應該是多少？達到特定的質量水平？如果沒有別的為了整個行業的利益，我希望嘗試在行業中推動這一點，因為存在差異。

And if people want to cut some corners or something along those lines, candidly, I'd prefer they don't do it on my machine. So that's -- thank you for the thoughts there, Brad.

如果人們想偷工減料或沿著這些路線做些什麼，坦率地說，我希望他們不要在我的機器上這樣做。那就是——謝謝你的想法，布拉德。

And those subcontractors are where the die maker, the wafer makers shipping out the whole wafer to Asia or whatever to get burned in and then it goes on (inaudible) with those...

那些分包商是模具製造商，晶圓製造商將整個晶圓運往亞洲或其他任何地方進行燒製，然後繼續（聽不清）那些......

Yes -- I didn't mean to confuse that. We are working with companies that will use their own subcons and they will buy the tool and put it there and it's dedicated for them, okay? What I was referring to is we've actually identified a generic subcon who would make themselves available for just services to anybody and their brother kind of thing. And so we've kind of kept that to ourselves candidly, deliberately.

是的——我不是故意混淆的。我們正在與將使用自己的 subcons 的公司合作，他們將購買該工具並將其放在那裡並且專用於他們，好嗎？我指的是我們實際上已經確定了一個通用的 subcon，他們可以讓自己為任何人和他們的兄弟提供服務。所以我們有點坦率地、故意地把它留給自己。

So I know that we mostly have investors on the call. Any customers or potential clients that are interested in potentially using the subcon, they can contact us and we'll be happy to make an arrangement in a proprietary way to enable that -- the ability to test your wafers at a secure subcon.

所以我知道我們主要有投資者在電話會議上。任何有興趣使用 subcon 的客戶或潛在客戶都可以聯繫我們，我們很樂意以專有方式做出安排，以實現這一點——能夠在安全的 subcon 中測試您的晶圓。

The next question comes from Tom Diffely with D.A. Davidson.

下一個問題來自 Tom Diffely 和 D.A.戴維森。

I guess a couple of follow-ups here. So Gayn, when you talk about -- and I can appreciate that you have capacity to do even a couple more clients by the end of the year. But when you look at the 15, 20, maybe more silicon carbide players that are ramping right now, do you have capacity to serve a majority of them?

我想這裡有幾個後續行動。所以 Gayn，當你談到 - 我很感激你有能力在年底前為更多的客戶提供服務。但是當你看看現在正在崛起的 15 家、20 家，甚至更多的碳化矽玩家時，你有能力為他們中的大多數人服務嗎？

I think so, yes because I don't think not all of them will be -- most of them will not be anywhere near as big as the first one. So it's -- we do actually look at the total capacity need. And to some extent, we only need to have enough for everybody and then the inefficiencies, right? Because guess what, people will over buy at some point because they're all thinking they'll have more market share. But you sure don't need to be 10x the total market. So we are focusing on all of it, if you will, and who wins that were kind of -- doesn't really matter to us.

我認為是的，是的，因為我不認為不是所有的 - 他們中的大多數都不會像第一個那麼大。所以它 - 我們確實在看總容量需求。在某種程度上，我們只需要為每個人提供足夠的東西，然後就是效率低下，對吧？因為你猜怎麼著，人們會在某個時候過度購買，因為他們都認為他們將擁有更多的市場份額。但你肯定不需要是整個市場的 10 倍。所以我們正在關注所有這一切，如果你願意的話，誰贏了——對我們來說並不重要。

Yes. Okay. Great. And I know, obviously, this is a very early stages of this market growth. But just curious if there's been any kind of a slowdown from any of the customers just based on China's EV market and some of the broader concerns in the marketplace?

是的。好的。偉大的。而且我知道，顯然，這是這個市場增長的非常早期的階段。但只是好奇是否有任何客戶僅僅基於中國的電動汽車市場和市場上的一些更廣泛的擔憂而放緩？

We haven't seen it at all. And I obviously pay attention to it all the time. I think -- remember that -- okay, there's -- I'm going to simplify the categories of silicon carbide players. They're the multinational or multi-segment large players, big automotive guys, et cetera. I mean obviously, the folks like the STs and Infineon's and ON Semiconductors of the world and TIs or whoever, I'm trying to just make it generic, please don't quote me, they have a big product portfolio.

我們根本沒見過。而且我顯然一直都在關注它。我想 - 請記住 - 好吧，有 - 我將簡化碳化矽玩家的類別。他們是跨國或多部門的大型企業、大型汽車企業等。我的意思是，很明顯，像世界上的 ST、英飛凌和安森美半導體以及 TI 或其他任何人，我只是想讓它變得通用，請不要引用我的話，他們有一個很大的產品組合。

And what they've seen, I mean, across the board, they're just slowing down. There's cancellations out there. There's just stuff where the -- this is the 17 cycle in semiconductors if people aren't paying attention, okay? And there will be in 18, okay? As they contract, what they'll do is they'll figure out where the hot markets are and they redirect their energy, okay?

他們所看到的，我的意思是，他們只是在全面放緩。那裡有取消。如果人們不注意的話，這就是半導體的第 17 個週期，好嗎？ 18 年會有，好嗎？當他們收縮時，他們會做的是弄清楚熱門市場在哪裡，然後重新調整他們的精力，好嗎？

I've always referred to as waves. It came back to my HP days, right? We're in a hot wave right now. Customers are pouring their energy towards silicon carbide right now, even though, obviously, there's other business units that aren't doing very well. And so for those companies that have multiple products and all they focus that are in silicon carbide, the pure players are pure and they're all in, right?

我一直稱之為波浪。這又回到了我的 HP 時代，對吧？我們現在正處於熱潮中。客戶現在正將精力傾注在碳化矽上，儘管顯然其他業務部門表現不佳。因此，對於那些擁有多種產品並且專注於碳化矽的公司來說，純粹的參與者是純粹的，他們都在，對吧？

I think some of the discussion that's been going on at Tesla stock or what's happening, Tesla is going to lose market share. Of course, they are. Guys, they have a dominant market share. There's no way they're going to ship that many to the rest of the world. That doesn't matter. There's way more opportunity in lower-cost EVs than they're in the high-end ones, but they all have traction inverters, they all have engines, they all need silicon carbide, if they want to go for efficiency mileage and charging times.

我認為特斯拉股票一直在進行的一些討論或正在發生的事情，特斯拉將失去市場份額。當然，他們是。伙計們，他們擁有主導的市場份額。他們不可能向世界其他地方運送那麼多。那沒關係。低成本電動汽車比高端電動汽車有更多機會，但它們都有牽引逆變器，它們都有發動機，它們都需要碳化矽，如果他們想提高效率里程和充電時間。

And so we think there's going to be tons of players out there. And the more the merrier, the more -- the faster they're going to get market penetration of all the BBs. So we have not seen it. It has picked up right now. Vernon is so excited about having. We have these 3 new senior guys. I've had a chance to meet and be in front of customers with them, they're fantastic. And that's going to be a big deal to help us to get to more people.

所以我們認為會有大量的玩家在那裡。越多越好，越多——他們就會越快地獲得所有 BB 的市場滲透。所以我們還沒有看到。它現在已經回升。弗農對擁有它感到非常興奮。我們有這 3 名新的高級人員。我有機會與他們見面並出現在客戶面前，他們太棒了。這對於幫助我們接觸到更多人來說意義重大。

All right. That sounds good. And final question. I was quite frankly shocked when you said earlier today that the silicon photonics customer could be bigger than your current silicon carbide customer. I was always under the assumption that after the initial set of orders, they're doing 100% burn-in and then it goes down to like a 5% sampling over time such that, that market itself is apparently would be a lot smaller.

好的。聽起來不錯。最後一個問題。當您今天早些時候說矽光子學客戶可能比您當前的碳化矽客戶更大時，我感到非常震驚。我一直假設在最初的一組訂單之後，他們會進行 100% 的老化，然後隨著時間的推移下降到 5% 的採樣率，這樣，市場本身顯然會小得多。

All right, two things. First of all, silicon photonics as we -- it's different than when we talk about maybe photonics 2D, 3D sensing. And it is -- they're very different. Our 2D, 3D sensing in mobile, those applications that people understand what 2D and 3D sensors are the things that recognize fingerprint or facial recognition or proximity sensors, et cetera, okay? Those actually have a reasonably high infant mortality rate, but they also sometimes have redundancy. It has proven so far that because of the life of those devices, they may only be on for 10 seconds lifetime because they're only on for a millisecond at a time -- times 100,000 or whatever the math is.

好吧，兩件事。首先，矽光子學——這與我們談論光子學 2D、3D 傳感不同。它是——它們非常不同。我們在移動設備中的 2D、3D 傳感，那些人們了解什麼是 2D 和 3D 傳感器的應用程序是識別指紋或面部識別或接近傳感器等的東西，好嗎？那些實際上有相當高的嬰兒死亡率，但他們有時也有冗餘。到目前為止，已經證明，由於這些設備的使用壽命，它們可能只能開啟 10 秒，因為它們一次只能開啟 1 毫秒——乘以 100,000 或任何數學公式。

They have -- the customers that are using it, we have multiple installed base applications, they're all doing sampling, okay? So they only sample 1% or 2% or some number. And as such, they don't do 100% for that application, okay? That's one thing. We actually didn't spend any time until now talk about 2D, 3D sensing, which is still an ongoing business that we get annuities from, et cetera.

他們有——正在使用它的客戶，我們有多個已安裝的基礎應用程序，他們都在做抽樣，好嗎？所以他們只抽取 1% 或 2% 或一些數字。因此，他們不會為該應用程序做 100%，好嗎？那是一回事。事實上，直到現在我們才開始討論 2D、3D 傳感，這仍然是一項持續的業務，我們從中獲得年金等等。

Silicon photonics is actually the definition of where they are actually putting a photonics transceiver, fiber optic transceivers a way of thinking about it on to a piece of silicon bypassing the normal discrete modulators, demodulators and infrastructure that's required to create transition electricity to optical and back again. This has been the holy grail that people like IBM and Intel have been working on for over 20 years for several reasons.

矽光子學實際上是他們實際將光子學收發器、光纖收發器放置在矽片上的一種思考方式，繞過正常的分立調製器、解調器和基礎設施，這些是創建光到光的轉換電和返回電所必需的再次。由於多種原因，這一直是 IBM 和 Intel 等人 20 多年來一直致力於實現的目標。

One is to continue to meet the shrinks of silicon and the process improvements over time. Electrical signals can only travel so fast, and we're very close where within people say a generation of it cannot go faster. About 240-gigabit is the upper high end range of an electrical signal on a conductive path. SerDes is 112 today. So we're like one generation or double from that's it. So the folks that have been writing the white papers have been saying, what we're going to need to do is we're going to have to switch to photonics transmission, which if you remember from your business class, photons are neither waves nor particles. In the case that they're not a particle, they have no mass, therefore, there's no limitation to go to the speed of light and you can modulate it at much faster rates than you can in the electrical signals. So where electrical signals completely cannot go faster than 200 gig, photonics is just getting started.

一是繼續滿足矽的縮小和工藝改進的需求。電信號只能傳播這麼快，我們已經非常接近人們所說的一代人不能傳播得更快的地方。大約 240 吉位是導電路徑上電信號的高端範圍。 SerDes 今天是 112。所以我們就像一代人或兩倍。所以那些一直在寫白皮書的人一直在說，我們需要做的是我們必須切換到光子傳輸，如果你還記得你在商務艙的經歷，光子既不是波也不是粒子。在它們不是粒子的情況下，它們沒有質量，因此，光速沒有限制，你可以以比電信號快得多的速率調製它。因此，在電信號完全不能超過 200 gig 的地方，光子學才剛剛起步。

And so Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, IBM, TSMC, GlobalFoundries, these guys have all been making announcements recently to talk about their investments in what is referred to as silicon photonics to put that photonics transceiver on to chipsets, microprocessors, graphics processors, okay? When you do that, instead of the traditional market that I said 2 years ago, you would have heard me say on these calls, I do not believe silicon photonics is going to be bigger than silicon carbide.

所以英特爾、AMD、NVIDIA、IBM、台積電、GlobalFoundries，這些人最近都在發佈公告，談論他們在所謂的矽光子學領域的投資，以便將光子學收發器安裝到芯片組、微處理器、圖形處理器上，好的？當你這樣做時，而不是我 2 年前所說的傳統市場，你會聽到我在這些電話會議上說，我不相信矽光子學會比碳化矽更大。

When I said that, I meant it related to transceivers. Now that there's been public announcements for leading suppliers of intent to put those transceivers into chipsets, the market is 100x -- 1,000 -- 100x larger than silicon photonics and the test times are longer okay -- I'm sorry, yes, longer -- 100x larger than the silicon photonics transceivers. And I believe -- and I've now stated, I believe it is ultimately larger than the silicon carbide market. It is way more devices. It is a 100% burn-in and it is much longer test times.

當我這麼說時，我的意思是它與收發器有關。既然領先供應商已經公開宣布有意將這些收發器放入芯片組，市場比矽光子學大 100 倍 - 1,000 - 100 倍而且測試時間更長 - 對不起，是的，更長 - - 比矽光子收發器大 100 倍。我相信——我現在已經說過，我相信它最終會比碳化矽市場更大。這是更多的設備。這是 100% 的老化，測試時間要長得多。

And so because of the stabilization of silicon photonics is very real, and it's been around for 20 years, this is not a 4-hour burn-in time or 6 or 12, nobody is going to be that low. And so with these long burn-in times, that's a big opportunity. And we're -- like you said, we're all over that. And then if you make an investment in us, you are making investment in that as well as some of the other markets we've talked about like memory.

因此，由於矽光子學的穩定性是非常真實的，它已經存在了 20 年，這不是 4 小時或 6 或 12 小時的老化時間，沒有人會那麼低。因此，隨著這些長時間的老化，這是一個很大的機會。我們 - 就像你說的，我們已經結束了。然後，如果您對我們進行投資，那麼您就是在投資那個市場以及我們談到的其他一些市場，例如內存。

And one of the leading edges of that is the -- is our new automated aligner.

其中的領先優勢之一是——我們的新型自動對準器。

The next question comes from Larry Chlebina with Chlebina Capital.

下一個問題來自 Chlebina Capital 的 Larry Chlebina。

Guys, great quarter. Ken, your beat on the gross margin, which drove the bottom line. Is that sustainable? I know the mix was a factor, but since the revenues are going to be going up, you feel confident that you can beat 53%, maybe 55%...

伙計們，很棒的季度。肯，你的毛利率超過了利潤，這推動了底線。這是可持續的嗎？我知道混合是一個因素，但由於收入將上升，你有信心你可以超過 53%，也許 55%......

So Larry, I would think that the Q2 was an unusual quarter. We had some benefits that were onetime benefits like we talked about, we had some reversal costs that were previously accrued. We had the mix issue we also had labor and overhead going to inventory with some of the growth in inventory that we had as well as the mix like we talked about in the context.

所以拉里，我認為第二季度是一個不尋常的季度。我們有一些福利是我們談到的一次性福利，我們有一些以前應計的逆轉成本。我們遇到了混合問題，我們也有勞動力和管理費用去存貨，我們擁有的一些庫存增長以及我們在上下文中談到的混合。

But I think mix would be pretty consistent in the second half though.

但我認為下半場的組合會非常一致。

Kind of more close, yes. There's lots of items driving the margin. So in terms of 53% saying, are we going to get up to 55% that was what your question? I would not plan on that. In fact, I'd reiterate what I talked about in previously and said I think we forecasted for an overall gross margin for the fiscal year being about 50%, and I think that's what the plan should be.

有點接近，是的。有很多項目推動了利潤率。因此，就 53% 的人而言，我們是否要讓 55% 的人回答您的問題？我不打算那樣做。事實上，我會重申我之前說過的話，我認為我們預測本財年的整體毛利率約為 50%，我認為這就是計劃應該是的。

All right. So the automated aligner, the automated XP, I know, ideally, you want a long burn-in to drive more equipment sales. But I think there could be a heck of a market out there for -- as you mentioned parametric testing of all sorts, whether it's threshold mortgages and silicon carbide and figure out how many cells are operable on a 3D NAND wafer? What is -- do you have a sense of what the maximum throughput is on a fully automated XP if that thing was constantly moving wafers and WaferPaks? What's -- and...

好的。所以我知道自動對齊器，自動 XP，理想情況下，你想要長時間的老化來推動更多的設備銷售。但我認為可能會有一個巨大的市場——正如你提到的各種參數測試，無論是門檻抵押貸款和碳化矽，還是計算出有多少單元可在 3D NAND 晶圓上運行？什麼是——如果全自動 XP 不斷移動晶圓和 WaferPak，您是否了解其最大吞吐量是多少？什麼是——還有……

Yes, that's a good question. Maybe I'll come back. I'm not sure I want to get into all that with all of the introductions, Larry, and I'm not trying to skirt it or something. But there is an indexing time as we would refer to it, how long it takes to index a WaferPak. And if you had 18 wafers -- but if you -- yes, I mean if you're looking at 6 hours or 2 hours or 2.5-hour burn-in times, it's negligible in the background, okay?

是的，這是個好問題。也許我會回來。我不確定我是否想通過所有的介紹來了解所有這些內容，拉里，我並不是想迴避它或其他什麼。但是有一個索引時間，正如我們所說的，索引一個 WaferPak 需要多長時間。如果你有 18 個晶圓 - 但如果你 - 是的，我的意思是如果你正在看 6 小時或 2 小時或 2.5 小時的老化時間，它在背景中可以忽略不計，好嗎？

At some time, you would start to notice it. I mean if you had 1 win at test times or something like that, then that would -- you would start to eat into the overall throughput because of the indexing time. But your first comment is dead on though. This changes things. You would never do -- trying to do a 2-hour test time on a burn-in system is would never work because it takes 15 minutes or 30 minutes to ramp up the chamber and 30 minutes to ramp it down before you can pull the devices out, and it takes hours to exchange all the devices on what's called the burn-in boards.

在某個時候，你會開始注意到它。我的意思是，如果您在測試時間或類似時間獲得 1 次勝利，那麼您將開始因為索引時間而消耗總吞吐量。但是你的第一條評論是死的。這改變了事情。你永遠不會這樣做——試圖在老化系統上進行 2 小時的測試是永遠行不通的，因為在你可以拉動設備出來，並且需要數小時才能更換所謂的老化板上的所有設備。

The whole processing of the historical package part burn-in has so much overhead associated with it that I'd tell you people resisted at all costs. Not to mention the cleanliness and the quality implications of package for burn-in of having to scratch the leads and have these in these processes where they could actually introduce a failure into, trying to get to 0 PPM defects where the package for burn-in system is extremely difficult. Whereas in a clean wafer environment, where we can make a contact with that wafer 100,000 times with the same WaferPak and never have a different measurement result, you can't do that in a packaged part burn-in system.

歷史包部分老化的整個處理有如此多的相關開銷，我會告訴你人們不惜一切代價抵制。更不用說用於老化的封裝的清潔度和質量影響，因為必須劃傷引線並在這些過程中使用這些引線，它們實際上可能會引入故障，試圖在用於老化的封裝中達到 0 PPM 缺陷系統極其困難。在乾淨的晶圓環境中，我們可以使用同一個 WaferPak 與該晶圓接觸 100,000 次並且永遠不會有不同的測量結果，而在封裝部件老化系統中則無法做到這一點。

So there's opportunities that will expand by us taking this tool, making it look now as a high-volume production tool where you can walk up to it, with [FOPs] or use overhead material handling and drop it down without even touching or we have systems that use robots that move FOPs onto our auto liners today. So you can actually be hands free. And using a (inaudible) interface front end into a wafer fabrication, you don't even need to touch the tool.

因此，我們將通過使用此工具來擴展機會，使其現在看起來是一種大批量生產工具，您可以使用 [FOP] 走到它身邊，或者使用高架材料處理並在不接觸的情況下將其放下，或者我們有使用機器人將 FOP 移動到我們今天的汽車襯墊上的系統。所以你實際上可以解放雙手。在晶圓製造中使用（聽不清）接口前端，您甚至不需要接觸工具。

I think the wafer level burn-in from the 1980s into the 21st century. I think it's just a huge advancement.

我認為晶圓級老化從 1980 年代到 21 世紀。我認為這只是一個巨大的進步。

I'm so with you.

我很支持你。

There's process engineers sitting around with problems, trying to figure out how to characterize their devices for either sorting purposes or whatever. And I think if they had a sense that there's a system out there that could stress them and then get a measurement and if the throughput was, say, 30 wafers per hour. If that cycle time of moving a WaferPak, unloading it, putting a new wafer in aligning it, putting it back into the system.

有工藝工程師坐在那裡解決問題，試圖弄清楚如何表徵他們的設備以用於分類目的或其他目的。而且我認為，如果他們感覺到那裡有一個系統可以給他們施加壓力，然後進行測量，並且吞吐量是否為每小時 30 個晶圓。如果移動 WaferPak、卸載它、將新晶圓放入對齊、將其放回系統的周期時間。

If that's on the order of 2 minutes, that's a 30-minute wafer per hour system. That probably would raise some eyebrows and probably drive demand from places you and I and anybody else hasn't thought of yet. So anyway, it's just...

如果這是大約 2 分鐘，那就是每小時 30 分鐘晶圓的系統。這可能會引起一些人的注意，並可能會推動您和我以及其他任何人尚未想到的地方的需求。所以無論如何，這只是...

Yes. I'm obviously a big believer. It's one of my absolute pet projects, and I'm very passionate about it. I mean, Larry, one of the subtle things too is, remember that we're putting these systems into large multinational, multiproduct line companies, okay? there is no such thing as a broad wafer-level burn-in system out there. There are companies in the memory side that are doing kind of a wafer level burn-in step using standard probers, okay? But they again -- they're all memory guys. They either do flash or DRAM or both. I mean there's not much.

是的。我顯然是一個堅定的信徒。這是我絕對喜歡的項目之一，我對它充滿熱情。我的意思是，拉里，其中一件微妙的事情是，請記住我們正在將這些系統放入大型跨國、多產品線公司，好嗎？那裡沒有廣泛的晶圓級老化系統這樣的東西。內存方面的一些公司正在使用標準探針進行晶圓級老化步驟，好嗎？但他們又一次——他們都是記憶力強的人。他們要么做閃存，要么做 DRAM，要么兩者兼而有之。我的意思是沒有多少。

You put one of these systems into a silicon carbide floor in one of the big multinationals and deploy it in a large scale, they're going to know about it. I mean, their CEOs are signing off on the money for it. So they're going to know that it exists and they can say, "wait a minute, could we use it over here." So I'm completely on board with you. And really excited that we're turning the corner, not just for Aehr Test, but really wafer level burn-in for the first time in history.

你將其中一個系統放入大型跨國公司之一的碳化矽地板中並大規模部署，他們會知道的。我的意思是，他們的首席執行官正在為此簽字。所以他們會知道它存在並且他們可以說，“等一下，我們可以在這裡使用它嗎？”所以我完全支持你。真的很興奮我們正在轉彎，不僅僅是為了 Aehr 測試，而是歷史上第一次真正的晶圓級老化。

Great. Are you going to update your website to show this beast you still have that old clunker...

偉大的。你打算更新你的網站來向這個野獸展示你仍然有那個舊的舊車......

Yes. Yes, well, I'll go beat up, Vernon and his team about a little bit. We've got the systems here and there -- if you're a tester guy, they're beautiful. It's like -- they've got pictures out next to my children. But yes, I think it's about time for us to put something out there, but stay tuned.

是的。是的，好吧，我會打敗弗農和他的團隊。我們到處都有系統——如果你是測試人員，它們很漂亮。就像——他們在我的孩子旁邊拍了照片。但是，是的，我認為我們是時候放一些東西了，但請繼續關注。

And one last quick question. As you know, being in the industry as long as you have, a slowdown in, say, the memory space is the opportune time to get your foot in the door for new technology, certainly an automated wafer level burn-in system, particularly as they're getting money from the Feds to at least break ground on new fabs that probably won't come online for years. But -- now is the time to get your foot in the door for tool of record designation. And I just -- I wonder if one of your sales guys is oriented towards that goal.

最後一個快速問題。如你所知，只要你在這個行業中，內存空間的放緩就是你涉足新技術大門的最佳時機，當然是自動化的晶圓級老化系統，特別是作為他們從美聯儲那裡獲得資金，至少可以破土動工建設可能多年都不會上線的新晶圓廠。但是——現在是時候踏上記錄指定工具的大門了。我只是——我想知道你們的銷售人員是否以這個目標為導向。

That's a fair statement. I also concur with you. We used to refer to as straights and turns. During the straightaways, it's really tough to sell test equipment or any new process tool of record. They are just ramping. And that's what we saw over the last few years. And scenario with these new products and customers were selling the heck out of the old stuff. And we were not seeing that strength in the turns that happened now the straightaway for silicon carbide, we're super excited about it. But you're right, the memory guys who are right now relooking at their business models and their cost structure and everything else, I think, would be -- have a vested interest to review what we have as a product offering.

這是一個公平的說法。我也同意你的看法。我們過去常稱其為直道和轉彎。在直道上，銷售測試設備或任何新的記錄過程工具真的很困難。他們只是在爬坡。這就是我們在過去幾年中看到的情況。這些新產品和客戶的場景正在大量銷售舊產品。而且我們沒有看到現在碳化矽直接發生的轉彎中的那種力量，我們對此感到非常興奮。但你是對的，現在正在重新審視他們的商業模式和成本結構以及其他一切的內存人員，我認為，有既得利益來審查我們提供的產品。

Right. So hopefully, we get an announcement here soon that -- would the process be an eval tool. Would you announce that somebody got an eval tool to run it through its paces...

正確的。所以希望我們能很快在這裡得到一個公告——這個過程會是一個評估工具嗎？你會宣布有人得到了一個評估工具來運行它嗎？

I'll -- I'm always cautious about getting too far out ahead of our skis and giving people a heads up of what we're up to. But there'll be -- when the timing is right, as people know from my background, I came from a memory business. I've always been extremely passionate about memory, and we -- Aehr is always getting into the memory business. We have some examples and some wins of proof of concept of us to be able to do flash or NOR memory on these tools.

我會——我總是很謹慎，不要在我們的滑雪板之前走得太遠，讓人們知道我們在做什麼。但是會有 - 當時機成熟時，正如人們從我的背景中知道的那樣，我來自內存業務。我一直對內存充滿熱情，而我們——Aehr 一直在涉足內存業務。我們有一些例子和一些概念證明的勝利，我們能夠在這些工具上做閃存或 NOR 存儲器。

We've even done prototype proof of concepts for DRAM in the past as well. And I believe that, that is an opportunity. There is also a sense right now, candidly, of us making sure that the bulk of our resources are focused on the obvious immediate opportunities in front of us are trying to win every single company we possibly can in silicon carbide, gallium nitride and the silicon photonics where our strengths are, but we do have energy into the memory as well. So I'll better leave it at that, okay, Larry?

我們過去甚至還為 DRAM 做過原型概念驗證。我相信，這是一個機會。坦率地說，我們現在也有一種感覺，我們要確保我們的大部分資源都集中在我們面前明顯的直接機會上，我們正在努力贏得我們可能在碳化矽、氮化鎵和矽方面的每一家公司光子學是我們的優勢所在，但我們也確實在內存中投入了精力。所以我最好就此打住，好嗎，拉里？

There are no further questions in the queue. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

隊列中沒有其他問題。我們的問答環節到此結束。我想將會議轉回管理層聽取任何閉幕詞。

All right. Well, thank you, everybody, for attending. I wish everyone a happy new year. As always, we'd love to take your calls. We're located here in the Bay Area, just around the quarter from Tesla. And if you happen to be in town, feel free to reach out to us or the IR folks will be happy to take a short meeting. We're really proud of what we're doing here, the manufacturing production floor, which is sort of blowing at the seams right now is pretty exciting to look at too.

好的。嗯，謝謝大家的出席。祝大家新年快樂。一如既往，我們很樂意接聽您的電話。我們位於灣區，距離特斯拉僅四分之一。如果您碰巧在城裡，請隨時與我們聯繫，否則 IR 人員會很樂意進行一次簡短的會面。我們真的為我們在這裡所做的事情感到自豪，製造生產車間，現在有點像接縫一樣，看起來也很令人興奮。

So I would encourage you, if you'd like to reach out to us. And if not, we'll either see you at the Needham Conference or talk to you at the next quarterly call. Have a nice day. Good afternoon to you.

因此，如果您想與我們聯繫，我會鼓勵您。如果沒有，我們要么在李約瑟會議上見到你，要么在下一個季度電話會議上與你交談。祝你今天過得愉快。下午好。

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

會議現已結束。感謝您參加今天的演講。您現在可以斷開連接。