FormFactor Inc (FORM) 2008 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to this FormFactor Incorporated first-quarter financial results conference call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to introduce Mike Magaro, Vice President Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining FormFactor's first-quarter 2008 earnings conference call. With me on today's call are Igor Khandros, Chief Executive Officer, Mario Ruscev, President, and Jean Vernet, Chief Financial Officer. Mario will provide a summary of our first-quarter performance, review our market segments, and provide an update on outlook and long-term strategy. Jean will then take us through the financials and provide guidance. Finally, before I hand the call over to Mario, I will review our safe Harbor statement.

During the course of this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements within meaning of the federal Securities laws, including statements regarding the markets in which we compete, our new product execution, demand for our products, our financial performance and our strategic and operational plans. These statements are based on current information and expectations that are inherently subject to change and involve risks and uncertainties.

Actual events or results may differ materially and adversely to those in our forward-looking statements due to various factors, including but not limited to come up continuing challenges and deterioration in the markets in which we compete, including DRAM; the Company's ability to (technical difficulty) market on a timely basis innovative testing technologies; to realize cost reduction and manufacturing efficiency in connection with its Harmony architecture product line; and to deliver and qualify new products and meet its customers testing requirements on a timely and efficient basis; the demand for certain semiconductor devices; the rate at which customers adopt the Company's newly released products, implement manufacturing capability changes, make transitions to smaller nanometer technology nodes, and implement tooling cycles; the Company's ability to implement and execute measures for enabling efficiencies and supporting growth in its design, applications and other operational activities, including execution of its cost-reduction plan; and the Company's ability to obtain cost advantages as its operations become more global.

The Company assumes no obligation to update the information in this presentation, to revise any forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in our forward-looking statements.

Please refer to the Company's recent filings on Form 10-K for fiscal 2007 and subsequent SEC filings for additional information regarding the relevant risks and uncertainties.

Finally, [updates on its] revenues by market and geography, and the schedule reconciling our GAAP and certain on get financial information and guidance is available on our Web site.

I would now turn the call over to Mario.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us.

The environment continued to be challenging for FormFactor. Since we last reported earnings in February, we have seen market condition worsen for our customers, particularly in the memory segment.

The first quarter proved to be one of our most challenging quarters with revenue decreasing 45% sequentially to $65.7 million. Profitability suffered as our fixed costs combined with lower-than-expected revenue led to wider losses than anticipated.

As we announced in our April 8 release, we've implemented a cost-reduction plan that will, among other things, reduce our overall headcount by 12% in addition to 14% reduction announced in February. We are sizing the organization to deal with the near-term challenges efficiently, but we continue to make investments in research and development and globalization so that, over the long-term, we can maintain and expand our technology and market leadership. Jean will share more information on our cost structure and our financials later in the call.

Now, let me quickly mention some key highlights for Q1 before discussing various market segments and outlook. In DRAM, DRAM revenues and bookings declined significantly during the quarter. Revenues accounted for 59% of total revenues in the first quarter and declined 57% sequentially to $38.9 million. The weakness in DRAM impacted all segments, including commodity DRAM, (inaudible) RAM and special TDRAM during the quarter. We did, however, make progress on the delivery and volume shipment of our Harmony platform to customers. We achieved our goal of shipping twice as many Harmony cards as we did last quarter and gained back some (inaudible) market share with key accounts.

Looking at the second quarter of 2008 thus far, DRAM market conditions continue to be difficult for our customers with prices staying weak. Given the current price of DRAM and customers' need to conserve cash, manufacturers are having difficulty investing sufficiently to yield (inaudible) the next node 65-68 nanometers. Customers focused on improving test efficiency at existing nodes rather than on new designs is increasing in order to extend the life of current products. This is causing them to delay the transition to the next node, leaving the user of 65-68 nanometers (inaudible) altogether. Therefore, we expect some customers to ramp mainly commodity DRAM at 65-68 nanometers. Considerations such as graphics, mobile, PSM and 65-68 nanometers will likely be pushed to the next node at sub-60 nanometers, where profitability can be achieved.

Where we originally expected the move to sub-70 nanometers (inaudible) to be a strong growth driver in the second half of 2008, we now anticipate a delay in 2009.

On the Flash, looking at our Flash business, revenue felt 19% this quarter as no revenue declined due to the slowness in (inaudible) customer buying patterns. NAND performed well during the quarter as we continue to enjoy share gain with our NAND Harmony one-touch product. Also, bookings fell slightly due to a slowdown in NAND customer production ramps.

SOC Logic -- SOC Logic business declined 11% in the quarter. Also, bookings increased 22%. Our flip-chip business continues to drive the majority of this segment. Also we anticipate that additional growth through the year will come from our further penetration of the wire bond segment, which is now progressing well.

KGD -- KGD (inaudible) DRAM and overall market memory market declining 46% in the quarter as both the DRAM and Flash businesses were also impacted by the difficult market conditions. We expect design activity and volume to pick up when the market moves to sub-60 nanometers node.

Now, I'd like to turn to outlook. As I said it earlier, we continue to experience rather extreme conditions in our markets due to customers' cash flow preservation behavior and very low DRAM price levels. So the overall (inaudible) growth remains positive. Semiconductor CapEx is currently expected to decline by approximately (inaudible) from its 2007 level. The capacity investment (inaudible) manufacturer will hopefully be a step towards balancing market and supply (inaudible). However, with DRAM pricing continuing in its prolongated state below manufacturing customer costs, conditions do not appear likely to improve significantly this year. Therefore, we currently believe the 2008 DRAM probe market could be down 50% from 2007. Also, we do not believe these conditions can persist for a long period of time. We have not yet seen any signs to indicate a market recovery in the near-term.

In light of this market (inaudible) uncertainties, we do not have much visibility. The current market looks very difficult. Jean will give you more details, but we think that the overall market on FormFactor revenues will both be down in the second quarter compared to the first. We're still hopeful that the second half of the year will improve over the first. The precise timing of a recovery is speculative.

On the competition, following the recent improvement in our Harmony execution, we regained some share in full (inaudible) [compactor] market during the quarter. We believe that our industry-leading products are and will continue to be differentiated. As the advanced probe card business is fundamentally a design-based business, every new design presents an opportunity for us to demonstrate our technological differentiation and capture customers (inaudible).

Even in these challenging times, we continue to invest in R&D in order to keep pace with our customers' roadmaps and be prepared to meet both the technological requirements and test efficiency demands when the market recovers.

Having gone through an extended period of rapid growth and expansion over the last several years, our main focus has been on growing capacity and meeting customer mission-critical needs. During this downturn in our market, FormFactor will be focused on reengineering our execution structure to position us for the long-term, profitable growth. First, we are placing more decision-making on resources in territories next to our customer. Second, we're changing our manufacturing structure for shorter cycle time and customer responsiveness. Third, we started restructuring our R&D to make it product-specific based on the lessons we learned in the past years.

We fully realize that our ongoing innovation and close customer relationships are the critical factors to our successes and these guiding principles are reflected in the changes we adopted. As difficult as this period is for the Company, we are committed to build an industry-leading company. Coming out of this period, we anticipate FormFactor to be a very different company. I look forward to speaking with all of you on our progress on this initiative and returning the Company to growth and profitability in the future.

The long-term fundamentals for the advanced probe market card remain healthy despite near-term cyclical issues in the marketplace. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our employees for their commitment and hard work. This will ensure our long-term success.

With that, let me now introduce and welcome our CFO, Jean Vernet, who has joined us most recently from Rio Tinto [y Alcan]. Welcome, Jean.

Thank you, Mario and hello, everyone.

Before I begin, let me remind you that I will be discussing our GAAP P&L results and some key non-GAAP results to supplement understanding of our financials. The schedule that provides GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation is available on the investor portion of our Web site.

With that, let we start with a summary of our first-quarter results. Total revenues were $65.7 million, down 45.5% over the fourth quarter and down 35.8% versus the first quarter '07. Gross margins were pressured during the quarter. Our GAAP gross margin was 19.1%. There were two primary reasons for this. First, the decline in revenue combined with our fixed cost structure was the main impact; and second, inventory reserve increased due to a weaker demand and the lower usage. Non-GAAP gross margin was 21.2%.

Looking at our operating expenses, if you take out the $5.3 million in restructuring costs during the quarter related to our February cost reduction, operating expenses were down slightly quarter-over-quarter.

We continued to invest in R&D while SG&A saw a small decline. This resulted in a GAAP operating loss for the first quarter of $31.8 million or 48% of revenue. On a non-GAAP basis, operating loss for the first quarter was 31.7%.

Interest and Other Income for the first quarter declined quarter-to-quarter to $5.7 million. The decrease was attributable to lower interest income on short-term investment. We expect interest income to decline slightly over the next few quarters due to a lower yield on investments.

The effective tax rate for the first quarter was 31.3%. We would expect the rates to remain at these levels for the second quarter.

Net loss for the first quarter was $18 million and a loss of $0.37 per fully diluted share on a GAAP basis. There were $5.3 million of restructuring costs, or $0.08 per fully diluted share, net of tax included in the GAAP loss per share. Approximately $4.6 million of restructuring charge was related to the cost reduction announced in February, while $700,000 is related to impairment costs.

Now, turning to the balance sheet and cash-flow statement, cash and marketable securities totaled approximately $558 million in the first quarter, a decrease of $14 million from the fourth quarter. Cash from operation was -$5.6 million.

DSO rose 16 days in first quarter to 61, compared to 45 days in the fourth quarter. Net inventories, inventory turns were 7.4 in Q1, flat from Q4.

With that, I will now provide guidance for the second quarter. As Mario outlined in his remarks, the market conditions, especially in DRAM, remain depressed. Consequently, we expect revenues for the second quarter to be in the range of $40 million to $55 million. We also expect to have a GAAP net loss in the second quarter. Excluding one-time restructuring costs that will be incurred in the quarter, the net loss is projected to be between $0.60 and $0.43 per share. One-time restructuring costs, which consist primarily of severance costs related to the workforce reduction, will be $3.5 million to $4.5 million or $0.05 to $0.06 per share. The GAAP EPS includes about $0.09 of incremental stock compensation expense. On a non-GAAP basis, excluding stock compensation expense and one-time restructuring costs, we expect an operating loss of between 51% and 100% and earnings per share to be between a loss of $0.34 to $0.50 a share.

Headcount at the end of the first quarter was 1053. The cost-reduction actions we announced will result in a workforce reduction of about 12% from the current level. This will reduce our spending run rate by about $2.9 million per quarter.

With that, let us open the call for questions. Operator?

Thank you. (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS). Jim Covello, Goldman Sachs.

Thanks for taking the question. A couple of things -- I'm sorry if you said this, but how much cash do you expect to burn in the second quarter?

Well, the cash burn run rate is going to depend on the level of revenue. At this time, you know, we do not provide guidance on the cash run rate, but it should be probably in the same order of magnitude as in Q1.

Then more strategically, how much share are you losing as a result of the mis-execution here, and how do you get confident that you're going to be able to recapture that share as the execution hopefully improves over the next couple of quarters?

Okay, if you go back historically, as we went through some ramping issue, we did lose some share in Q4 2007 in (inaudible). We have regained some of this share during Q1 of the year.

Now, on the longer term, the plan to continue to get market share is to continue to push for differentiation. We believe that, with our ability to add more [spring] and put more test results in the (inaudible) electronic on it, we'd like to accelerate the transition from the fact that (inaudible) market now is mostly of (inaudible) to 1/3 and 2/3 down. So through the year, we plan to play an acceleration of this and this, together with our ability to compete on all markets now, will allow us to go back to our position.

Relative to the comment about regaining some of the market share in the first quarter, I mean if I look at some of your competitors, say MJC Probe or someone like that, I mean it certainly seems like they did much better in your markets than you did. Their revenue and profitability was nowhere near as severe as yours. So how are you measuring regaining share during the quarter?

We have regained market share as we re-enter the market. If you look, we have sold quite a lot with quite many. We have shipped in Q1 two times as many (inaudible) Harmony as we did in Q4. We have regained some market share with some key accounts. I will not comment on the competition.

I guess the final question for me and then I will go away -- just relative to strategic decisions that the Company is going to have to make, I mean at what point does sort of cutting some headcount and trying to control the operating expenses not get you to where you want to be? I mean, there's a scenario where the DRAM environment stays depressed for an extended period, and there is a lot of -- you would need a lot of improvement in the market to get back to a reasonable level of profitability. At what point do you think you may need to take on a strategic partner in order to get back -- get the Company back to a good level of profitability?

What the Company is going to be focused on, as Mario mentioned in his remarks, is it's a three-legged plan and the management team is very active and (inaudible) the Company in terms of how geographically we are deployed and how decision-making is deployed, the manufacturing structure that should result, as Mario mentioned, and lower cycle times, and a lot better customer (inaudible). We are structured in part in continuing how we do R&D to make it a lot more product-specific.

The Company is going to focus on -- just being very, very focused on the fundamentals.

Also, as Jean mentioned, we will work very hard to bring standing and in line with whatever the revenue outlook, so it just will be basically developing the new products, continuing gaining market share with existing products. We believe we will be well-positioned when the market turns, Jim.

Thank you. Good luck.

Timothy Arcuri, Citi.

A couple of things -- first of all, can you tell us what the operating breakeven is at the end of March, and what the operating breakeven will be at the end of June?

Yes, so at current levels, we are significantly below our breakeven level. I would like to emphasize on the fact that our focus right now is to bridge the gap on a cash flow run-rate basis. Look, the cash we have here is to finance growth and not to (inaudible) operating loss, so we're working very hard to align the costs and the cash burn rates so we achieve a sustainable model and in line with the current market trough.

Okay. I guess can you give some specifics in terms of what the actual breakeven is right now, and what it will be at the end of June?

Well, no, at this time, this is not a number I am prepared to share. But what you need to know is, for us, it's critical that we put ourselves in a sustainable mode in this current market condition.

Okay, I guess let me ask it this way, then. Do you think, given the actions that have already been undertaken, do you think that the current headcount reduction will get your breakeven to, say, $60 million and $65 million or less? Because I think that was a number that was talked about previously, so that's why I'm actually mentioning that number.

You know, the market is dynamic, right? Again, our focus is, while we preserve the strategic legs that Mario and Igor described, we achieve sustainability. The two operations, the two restructurings we have announced in the past are steps in this direction. At the end of the day, we want to bridge the gap.

Okay. I guess a question then for Igor or for Mario -- you know, I know that, at the end of last quarter, there were some very strange things happening in the DRAM market; there were some customers that had literally stopped testing devices in kind of an all-out effort to basically save money. Has the market returned? I mean, even, obviously the market is not good right now, but has even some semblance of normalcy returned to the market with respect to how much they are testing? Have they even begun testing (inaudible) at the same rate that they were before, or are we still in the same kind of abnormal situation that we were three or four months ago?

I would say the biggest impact we see is the customer really is in a cash saving mode. So, instead of seeing what we (inaudible) instead of seeing what we expect as a proliferation of new design as they start ramping up 65 to 68 nanometers, we are seeing that they are delaying this ramp up. They use engineering resources to optimize their older nodes of technology to get better results, so (inaudible) test less. Then they only bring to 65-68 nanometers the nodes which are absolutely necessary. That I would say is the biggest impact that we see (inaudible) in new designs as we go on. I would say this is probably the biggest factor that we can see now in our market.

Okay, thanks.

C.J. Muse, Lehman Brothers.

I guess not to harp on the costs side, but you say it's critical to get to breakeven. I guess aside from the two headcount reductions you talked about, what else are you doing to reduce costs?

So, there are a couple of dimensions. One of them is to focus on operating costs themselves and look at non-essential spending. Another one is to work more efficiently at what we do and use less resources to achieve the same level of energy. Then the third one is to prioritize our capital expenditure. So, we believe it's not just a cost cutting exercise, it's also a way to work smarter, right? We believe that this is something we're starting to work now and we're going to keep working to really to bridge this gap as soon as we can.

Can you put some numbers around what your targets are there?

Well, as I said earlier, we're not ready at this point to give you a number. The situation is quite dynamic.

The only thing I would say is that we want to be sustainable in the trough environment that we are seeing now.

Okay, I guess moving over --

Excuse me. I would like to (inaudible) that we are fully aware that we should not overreact either, right? So we keep that in mind. This is why I'm saying it's a dynamic situation. I mean, we are really wanting to put ourselves in a sustainable mode in this current environment. Sorry.

I guess my next question was assuming DRAM stays depressed here and hence the CapEx budget doesn't help there, what is your strategy to I guess try to retake share? Is it lowering costs to get some of the lower-end business, or is it certain nodes and/or technologies like DDR3 where you think the advanced probe cards will be a requirement? I guess could you elaborate on the timing of where we would see that?

Representative: If you look at the full (inaudible) contact, which is advanced (inaudible), it is still at its beginning where people don't realize that even -- take DRAM, (inaudible) contactor, most of the are still at (inaudible) RAM. So our main drive this year is a combination of high [spring] count and test the resources enhancements of electronics. We believe that these two together will enable us to bring these four touchdowns to one to two touchdowns depending on the tester. So this is the main push to really pull the market up to a more high (inaudible) and regain market share.

The last question for me -- can you tell us what CapEx and G&A was for the quarter, and what you think it will be for June?

So, the cash, the CapEx spend in Q1 was $11.3 million, $7 million of which was related to Q4-related accrued CapEx. The depreciation in Q1 was $7.5 million.

And your outlook?

As far as Q2, this is not that type of number I would give guidance on at this point.

I guess then what's your full-your outlook for CapEx?

This is also not something which I can share with you at this point.

All right, thanks.

Harlan Sur, Morgan Stanley.

Sorry if I missed this, but when does the team expect to realize the quarterly OpEx reduction of $2.9 million from the incremental 12% headcount reduction?

So, the $2.9 million OpEx reduction is coming from the results of (technical difficulty) the first reductions we took in Q1, and the one we announced in early this month. So this run rate, we should be close to this run rate in Q2.

Okay, great. Then maybe you might have answered this in the previous questions, but maybe a little bit more clarity -- so on the share gains, what metrics are your customers looking at that is compelling them to move back to the FormFactor solution? Is it probe density? Is it reliability? Is it uptime? I mean, what are some of the metrics that are allowing you to take back some of this share?

The metrics of our customer is always the same; it's efficiency and how they use our products to gain more efficiency on testing. So, the only metrics they use is efficiency of testing. If we allow them to gain efficiency, they would use us. So typically in a very simple way, if you go from four touchdown to two touchdowns and you keep your testing time right, you will be much more efficient and people will move to you.

Okay. I believe, on the last earnings call, you had mentioned cycle times for Harmony reduced by 30% in the fourth quarter. Can you give us some progress that you made this quarter on cycle times? Then you know, with current operations as you look out over the next few quarters, what is the maximum quarterly Harmony revenue run rate that can be supported with your manufacturing operations now?

Okay, on the cycle time, we announced that in Q4 we had reduced the cycle time by 30%, which we had. We announced that, in 2008, we reduced the cycle time by another 30%, and we are now well into on the path of doing that.

Now, we don't give a revenue product, usually, but we believe that we have an ability to ramp back at peak level in about a quarter if this would be necessary in the future -- when this would be necessary, I'm sorry! (LAUGHTER)

One last question -- can FormFactor receive an order and turn a Harmony probe card within one quarter now?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Christopher Blansett, JPMorgan.

I guess some of my questions about the Harmony line have been answered. I'm just wondering how you expect your margin mix to vary throughout this year as Harmony becomes a bigger portion of your shipments. Will it improve it? Is it neutral?

Well, you know, (inaudible) part of the answer. The first part of answer is, in Q4 and Q1, most of our focus was to make sure that we can solve all the of ramp issues and the product can be shipped. When this is achieved, we will end up with a product which is not fully optimized on the cost, and now we're working pretty heartily on that to optimize the cost structure.

The second one is, you know, as Harmony comes, when you come second, the second supplier, you always feel a price pressure. But now, if you come on a product which are more advanced and more demanding, the differentiation factors kick in. So this will leave the value (inaudible) that will affect us as we go on.

So basically it sounds like some of the final prices at some of your customers really haven't been nailed down yet. Is that a fair statement?

Again, like I say, each -- it's difficult to (inaudible) pricing because really each design has a different demand, different [spending], and in fact you can say that the price gap is restarting for each new design.

right. One thing here that comes to mind is, you know, the stocks are down quite a bit and you guys have a lot of cash. I mean, what about doing a share buyback here sometime in the near-term?

Yes, so thanks for the question. I understand this, where you're coming from here. I am aware of the communication that Ron Foster, my predecessor, gave at the last call.

I'd like to emphasize that my priority right now is to focus on stabilizing the financials of the Company. The cash we have currently on our balance sheet is not to fund operating losses. This cash is to fund growth opportunities.

Now, at the same time, during this period, my role is to ensure that an adequate review and a careful selection of investment opportunities are achieved, together with the management team, and both organic and nonorganic investments which will lead us to a situation of profitable growth.

That said, we are considering all options for the use of cash, including a stock buyback at this point.

Would it be fair to say that, once you feel you've stabilized the business and kind of reduced your breakeven levels, at that point in time you would probably look more towards maybe buying back some shares?

You know, as I say, the priority and the focus right now is stabilizing the Company and while doing that, really considering how the Company would look like after this difficult period, by doing a very disciplined and value-based review of our investment. You know, that said, the use of cash is something we're looking at and the buyback is part of this equation.

One quick one for me, the last one -- you know, all of the activity about moving manufacturing to Singapore -- are we still on the same time schedule from the past quarter, or should we maybe think about that changing a bit, given the weak market conditions that are occurring?

You know, on the last calls, we said that due to the market conditions and the focus that we need from our team, that Singapore has been put on a kind of on standby for now until sometime during the summer, and this is still true.

Okay, just checking. Thank you very much.

[Kevin Rossity], Pacific Crest Securities.

Yes, hi. Can you comment on kind of the delta between Q1 and Q2? I mean, it looked like the fall in Q1 from Q4 levels was primarily on the back of your DRAM customers. Are we seeing a similar pattern? If so, when was the last time your DRAM revenues were in the $20 million-or-so range?

It was a long time ago! Basically, the fact is, in terms of market outlook, what we need to look for -- I mean, by far the largest share was (inaudible) is clearly the cash preservation behavior of our customers. When DRAM price stays this slow, below manufacturing costs, basically what customers do is that they take no risks, they take no investments in ramping new nodes, and they run the same design and curtail their use of cash wherever they can.

So, what we need to look for here, in terms of DRAM going up again, is customers going to 60-65 nanometer. When customers go to 60-65 nanometer ramps, they will also ramp various architectures that will become really cost effective. At that node we would be looking DDR 3, and the big opportunity at some point will be coexistence of DDR 2 and DDR 3 which always favors our business.

So if you look historically, in 2001, there was a little period when manufacturing, when DRAM manufacturing costs were above price. But right now what we're witnessing is really a prolonged period, and it's not sustainable. You already see movement in the industry in terms of alliances, in terms of some consolidation that clearly will take care of some of that. As we go to the next design node, the next technology node ramp, as we go to DDR 3, you will a design proliferation that is the biggest driver for our business historically. So, this is a very, very unusual situation. What we're witnessing is really is a very unusual situation in DRAM and some unusual situation also in NAND Flash business.

So, Igor, to that point, at least one of your major customers -- and I presume their process roadmap looks fairly similar to some of the other leading companies -- are talking about a 50 nanometer migration in the second half of the year, and they were talking about this as recently as four weeks ago. Has something changed in the last four weeks that you expect those migrations, even if they are minimal in terms of tooling, to start in the second half? Are those migrations being delayed as well?

I would say what you see right now, that the 70 nanometer pretty much ramped. Maybe of all the major DRAM producers, maybe there is one that is a little bit behind but basically, those ramped.

Then if you look at the half node ramp of, say, 68 nanometers, people are just -- most companies are not willing to make the investment, because as you ramp, although you get more (inaudible) wafer but you have some period of time where you have very low yields. And right now, it's just people just don't see doing that. So then you have to wait until the next node. Most companies will start making some purchases in the second half, but now it looks like '09 at the end.

Yes, if you look at all if the companies, there may be one company that will be a little bit ahead, but the majority of the market is probably going to do it. Now it looks like it will be '09. It probably will coincide with a very hard ramp of DDR 3.

Once that happens, then it becomes for them very advantageous to start doing mobile RAM, and PSRAM, and different graphic chips on that major next (inaudible) technology transition. If we didn't see this very, very prolonged period of manufacturing costs being above price, you would have seen half node ramp. This would have seen it much, much stronger, and we would have seen it starting now. (multiple speakers) going to happen at this point.

50 nanometer, you know, it's -- that's really not the next node. The next node will the around 60 nanometers, plus give or take where most of the ramps will be. I'm sure people are experimenting with something else, but that's not what the main business will be.

So I mean if you want to go back and use 2001 as a kind of semi-proxy for this period, how long can the customers stand still, in terms of minimal design migrations, and wait for pricing to recover? I mean, I understand the need to preserve cash, but their designs nor the value prop of those devices they make gets any better as people sit around and wait, particularly as we might be facing slightly tougher macroeconomic conditions.

Well, some of these guys bifurcation and take the lead and push a little harder because they are certainly not getting any pricing lift waiting around.

Yes, there are a lot of theories on what's going to happen and how quickly. We have zero control over that, right? We just -- yes, I don't believe this is a sustainable situation; nobody believes. I don't think DRAM makers and Flash makers believe that what's going on is a sustainable situation. So we will just -- as soon as it gets back to a sustainable situation of manufacturing costs at significantly below price, or the low price, then it should all be different.

Okay, just let me -- I don't want to monopolize the time -- one last question, and kind of going back to the original question. So you know, is it fair to say that the bulk of the delta between Q2 guidance and Q1 levels still rests on the back of your DRAM customers?

Yes.

Yes.

Gary Hsueh, Oppenheimer Company.

I'm just wondering if you guys are at a little bit of denial here. You know, revenues are definitely imploding here. If I kind of model the full year out, you're down 50%; you're down to $230 million. It looks like gross margin will be roughly around 25%. Last time you are at this revenue level, you hit 45%. We are clearly in a different leg of the market, but why aren't fixed costs kind of cut on the table? Why isn't fixed asset consolidation on the table here?

Well, I think you know where we are. As Jean mentioned, this is a very dynamic situation, and we of course are looking at being able to respond to that. There are customers who rely on FormFactor to run their fabs, and these customers plan to shrink their technology nodes and plan to ramp new products. So, we have to be there to respond to that. So of course, it's not really an option for us to go and try to structure the Company (inaudible) at this revenue level sometime in the past because we are looking at an opportunity to grow the Company. Having said all of that, as Jean mentioned I think several times, that there's a lot of hard work going on in how to balance spending and revenue outlook dynamically.

I'm just wondering, Igor, why you can't cut your fixed asset base here in Livermore and grow it back in Singapore at a 0% tax holiday over the next ten years, when you do need it.

You know, your question is you can cut it in many pieces, huh?

We are restructuring manufacturing, and you know, there have been two actions (inaudible) population. There still a plan over the next few weeks to cut many other costs on it.

We decided that we will keep the cost of R&D active. We believe it is a technology company and the future of the company relies on our ability to come up with new products all of the time. As the market becomes in fact more and more difficult, we have to increase the speed at which we introduce new technologies. So, this is one of the costs that we did not cut.

Then, of all of the other cuts are being looked at and adapted to our level. That's what we are saying. When we say that we want to come to a sustainable run rate and we want to bridge the gap that we are at now, this is what we mean.

Okay, thank you. A last housekeeping question -- you talked about taking a greater inventory reserve in Q1. Can you quantify the inventory reserve or the step-up in inventory reserve that you did take in Q1?

The second question -- do you expect to kind of reserve at that same run rate in Q2?

Well, let me just qualify the fact that the inventory reserves were mostly driven by the sudden drop in revenue, right? So you know, that's something now -- the magnitude of that amount in the total gross margin deterioration is about just under a third of the total. But this is really driven by this sudden drop of revenue.

Your question, it's going to depend on the revenue dynamic going forward, right?

Right.

So if the market bounces back, the inventory reserves will be lower.

Okay, thank you.

Raj Seth, Cohen & Company.

This is a question for Igor. Igor, in one of the previous questions, somebody pointed out that it appears that some of the DRAM guys aren't doing much probe testing at all. I'm curious if there's some kind of potential secular shift here. Given extreme cost pressure, you hear more and more about the FT techniques, (inaudible), etc.

I thought one of the reasons, aside from stacking and some of the other applications that you do, probe testing is you don't want to package bad parts. Is there something changing here, or does that necessarily come back and people test again at probe? Or does something on a secular basis change, given this downturn?

People test. I do not think that would be the right impression, that people stop testing.

Of course, when you have an (inaudible) for very long time, right? So when you have an opportunity to stay at the same technology node with the same failure modes and as you learn more and more as you ramp your technology about yield of your product and what happens, you can actually optimize your test times.

Of course, if you transition to new technologies, every new technology presents a new challenge and you are not in a position to do it. But as long as you, say, skip to half node, you have all this time to reduce the test time, for example.

There are cases when people shift output -- directly to your question -- when people shift output to, say, white boxes or some applications where there is less, indeed there is less testing done, significantly less. But that is not the major factor. The major factor is that customers chose to keep the next node, they will stay with the existing node for a longer time, and they will figure out how to do less testing, right? That would be an impact.

So you're suggesting that people have just become more efficient, given we are not moving to the new nodes, but not that people are in a meaningful way shifting the strategy for doing probe testing?

(multiple speakers). Right. It basically is the same trade-off as it would be when a company -- a company could stay at 130 nanometers and get to 99.9% yield. Instead what companies do is they ramp 100 to 90, 70, 50, 32, right? They are doing that, and they are not doing it when they reach in a previous node 99%; they do it when yield gets to some point and they get new technology, the point here being if, however, you have a choice or -- it's not a choice, it's just a necessity for them in terms of cash preservation -- to stay much, much longer to a node, you can actually optimize efficiencies, right, of staying. You've learned a lot about your failure modes. You even need to learn new things so you can put engineering into reducing test times, which is not an option as soon as you start ramping the new technology, the new node.

Anything happening discontinuous with BIST, which we keep hearing more and more about from some other memory players?

That is really not a big impact right now on our market. As a matter of fact, BIST in the future will enable more one-touch (inaudible) wafer compactors and we have products and we will have more products in the future. We will play in those markets. So right now, we don't see it as a factor.

Okay, thank you.

Operator, we will take one more question.

Doug Reid, Thomas Weisel Partners.

Thank you. A couple of questions -- short, though. First, I am wondering if you could share the percent of DRAM revenue that was mobile-related.

We usually do not cut our markets in such a high granularity.

Okay. The second question is on the linearity of orders in Q1, and whether or not that's changed at all going into late April here.

What?

I think the main impact was that orders were lower, not necessarily that linearity was very unusual.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks.

Well, we would now like to conclude the call. Thank you again for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you soon.

This does conclude our conference call and we do thank everyone for your participation.