Ichor Holdings Ltd (ICHR) 2019 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Ichor Systems First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this call is being recorded.

女士們、先生們，美好的一天，歡迎參加 Ichor Systems 2019 年第一季財報電話會議。（操作員說明）謹此提醒，此通話正在錄音。

I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Claire McAdams, Investor Relations for Ichor. Please go ahead.

現在我想介紹今天會議的主持人，Ichor 投資者關係部門的 Claire McAdams。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining today's first quarter 2019 conference call, which will be available for replay telephonically and on Ichor's website shortly after we conclude this afternoon.

謝謝你，接線生。下午好，感謝您參加今天的 2019 年第一季電話會議，今天下午結束後不久，我們將透過電話和 Ichor 網站重播該電話會議。

As you read our earnings press release and as you listen to this conference call, please recognize that both contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities Laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control and which could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. These risks and uncertainties include those spelled out in our earnings press release, those described in our annual report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2018 on file with the SEC and those described in subsequent filings with the SEC. You should consider all forward-looking statements in light of those and other risks and uncertainties. Additionally, we will be providing certain non-GAAP financial measures during this conference call, and our earnings press release contains a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most comparable GAAP financial measures.

當您閱讀我們的收益新聞稿和收聽本次電話會議時，請注意，兩者均包含聯邦證券法含義內的前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述受到許多風險和不確定性的影響，其中許多風險和不確定性超出了我們的控制範圍，可能導致實際結果與此類陳述有重大差異。這些風險和不確定性包括我們的收益新聞稿中闡述的風險和不確定性、我們向SEC 提交的2018 財年10-K 表格年度報告中所述的風險和不確定性以及隨後向SEC 提交的文件中所描述的風險和不確定性。您應該根據這些以及其他風險和不確定性考慮所有前瞻性陳述。此外，我們將在本次電話會議期間提供某些非 GAAP 財務指標，而我們的收益新聞稿包含這些非 GAAP 財務指標與其最具可比性 GAAP 財務指標的調整表。

On the call with me today are Ichor's Chairman and CEO, Tom Rohrs; and our President and Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Andreson. Tom will begin with a review of our results and outlook and then Jeff will provide further detail regarding our growth initiatives, first quarter results and second quarter guidance.

今天與我通話的是 Ichor 董事長兼執行長 Tom Rohrs；以及我們的總裁兼財務長 Jeff Andreson。湯姆將首先回顧我們的業績和前景，然後傑夫將提供有關我們的成長計劃、第一季業績和第二季指導的進一步細節。

After the prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. I'll now turn over the call to Tom Rohrs. Tom?

準備好的發言結束後，我們將開通提問專線。我現在將把電話轉給湯姆·羅爾斯。湯姆？

Thank you, Claire, and welcome to our first quarter conference call. Ichor continues to operate with strength and profitability in the current industry downturn. The first quarter came in above where we expected with revenues above the midpoint of guidance at $138 million. This represents a decline of 2.5% from the fourth quarter, better than what most of our peers and customers are reporting. We think this indicates 2 things: First, that our market share gains are helping to offset the weak spending environment and second, that the inventory corrections are largely behind us as we enter Q2. Our results also demonstrate that our customers are not pursuing a strategy to reduce their outsourcing during a period of weak industry spending.

謝謝克萊爾，歡迎參加我們第一季的電話會議。在當前行業低迷的情況下，Ichor 繼續保持實力和盈利能力。第一季的營收高於我們的預期，達到 1.38 億美元，高於指導中位數。這比第四季下降了 2.5%，優於大多數同業和客戶的報告。我們認為這顯示了兩件事：首先，我們的市佔率成長有助於抵消疲軟的支出環境；其次，進入第二季後，庫存調整基本上已經過去。我們的結果也表明，在產業支出疲軟時期，我們的客戶並未採取減少外包的策略。

During the first quarter, we continued to make progress executing on our strategies to grow our share within our served markets. This gives us increased confidence that our revenue levels will be meaningfully stronger in the second half of the year compared to the first.

在第一季度，我們繼續在執行策略方面取得進展，以擴大我們在所服務的市場中的份額。這讓我們更有信心，我們下半年的收入水準將比上半年顯著增強。

Our first quarter earnings were $0.25 per share, $0.02 shy of the midpoint, but still demonstrating solid profitability at these revenue levels. I feel that we have done well adjusting to weakening business conditions as we executed right-size strategies over the last 2 quarters. Today, we have balanced our resources between the current level of business and the increased sales we expect in the second half.

我們第一季的收益為每股 0.25 美元，比中點低 0.02 美元，但在這些收入水平上仍然表現出穩健的盈利能力。我認為，由於我們在過去兩個季度執行了適當規模的策略，我們在應對疲軟的商業環境方面做得很好。今天，我們已經在目前的業務水平和下半年預期的銷售成長之間平衡了資源。

With our reduced operating expenses and variable manufacturing cost structure, we will be in a position to demonstrate our financial and operating leverage as our revenue rebounds in the second half.

隨著我們減少的營運費用和可變的製造成本結構，隨著下半年我們的收入反彈，我們將能夠展示我們的財務和營運槓桿。

As we look forward to the second quarter, we expect a similar level of revenues as the first quarter. We believe, this reflects continued favorable trends in our results compared to the overall soft wafer fab equipment spending environment. For example, while we believe that the bulk of downward revisions in industry spending are behind us, recent industry reports indicate continued modest sequential declines of about 5% or so in new OEM system deliveries for process tools in the second quarter.

當我們展望第二季度時，我們預期收入水準與第一季相似。我們相信，這反映出與整體軟晶圓廠設備支出環境相比，我們的績效持續呈現有利趨勢。例如，雖然我們認為行業支出的大部分向下修正已經過去，但最近的行業報告表明，第二季度工藝工具的新 OEM 系統交付量繼續小幅環比下降約 5% 左右。

For Ichor, in particular, we are witnessing a 1 quarter drop in sales to our lithography customer before their revenues pick up significantly in the second half. Offsetting these 2 quarter-over-quarter headwinds are the gains we are making in winning incremental business in each of our served markets. We remain on track to achieve incremental revenues from market share gains this year of about $75 million to $80 million as we said last quarter. Our gain to date contributed incrementally -- excuse me, or gains to date contributed incremental revenues in the single digits for the first quarter. We expect to move into double digits for the second quarter and accelerate from there. Consistent with our comments, last quarter, we continued to expect our incremental revenues from market share gains will be strongly weighted to the second half of the year. Jeff will discuss our progress during his prepared remarks. With this trajectory, we really don't need to see much of a recovery in WFE spending in order to see meaningful growth in sales and significant operating leverage as we progress through the back half of the year.

特別是對於 Ichor 來說，我們看到光刻客戶的銷售額下降了 1 個季度，但下半年他們的收入大幅回升。我們在每個服務市場贏得增量業務所取得的收益抵消了這兩個季度環比的不利因素。正如我們上季度所說，今年我們仍有望透過市場份額的成長實現約 7,500 萬至 8,000 萬美元的增量收入。我們迄今為止的收益貢獻增量 - 對不起，或者迄今為止的收益貢獻了第一季個位數的增量收入。我們預計第二季將達到兩位數，並在此基礎上加速。與我們上季度的評論一致，我們繼續預期下半年市佔率成長所帶來的增量收入將受到很大影響。傑夫將在他準備好的演講中討論我們的進展。按照這個軌跡，我們確實不需要看到 WFE 支出大幅復甦，就能在今年下半年看到銷售的有意義成長和顯著的營運槓桿。

Therefore, despite a weak environment for process tools through the remainder of 2019, we are confident in a meaningfully stronger second half driven not only by share gains, but also by our position in EUV lithography, where we will see volumes bounce back to record levels starting in Q3.

因此，儘管2019 年剩餘時間裡工藝工具的環境疲軟，但我們對下半年的強勁增長充滿信心，這不僅是因為份額增長，而且是因為我們在EUV 光刻領域的地位，我們將看到銷量反彈至創紀錄水準從第三季開始。

On top of this, we could begin to see a modest replenishment of inventories in our components business later in the year in preparation for improving demand for etch and deposition tools heading into 2020. While we continue to remain cautious given current business conditions, these factors all contribute to our optimism that our revenue run rate as we exit this year should be a positive indicator for a much stronger period of financial performance ahead. So as we navigate through a challenging business environment in 2019, our strategy is unchanged. We are a semiconductor equipment supplier concentrated on fluid delivery technology. We believe that through the cycle, semiconductor business will continue to grow faster than most other industrial businesses, and that we are very well positioned with our key customer accounts. We also have several strategic foot holds that will help drive increasing share of our served markets, which in a stronger spending year add up to $400 billion (sic) [$4 billion] of total opportunity for Ichor.

除此之外，我們可能會在今年稍後開始看到我們的零件業務的庫存適度補充，為 2020 年蝕刻和沈積工具的需求增加做好準備。儘管考慮到當前的業務狀況，我們繼續保持謹慎態度，但這些因素都讓我們感到樂觀，即我們今年退出時的收入運行率應該是未來財務業績更加強勁的時期的積極指標。因此，當我們在 2019 年應對充滿挑戰的商業環境時，我們的策略就沒有改變。我們是一家專注於流體輸送技術的半導體設備供應商。我們相信，在整個週期中，半導體業務將繼續以比大多數其他工業業務更快的速度成長，並且我們在關鍵客戶客戶方面處於非常有利的地位。我們還有幾個策略立足點，將有助於推動我們所服務的市場份額不斷增加，在支出強勁的一年中，這些市場將為Ichor 帶來高達4000 億美元（原文如此）[40 億美元]的總機會。

Over the last 4 years, we have outperformed the wafer fab equipment 12% annual growth rate with our own annual growth rate of about 25%, and we fully expect that as we execute on our opportunities for share gains, we will continue to grow faster than the WFE market looking forward.

在過去的4 年裡，我們的年增長率超過了晶圓廠設備12%，而我們自己的年增長率約為25%，我們完全預計，隨著我們抓住份額增長的機會，我們將繼續更快成長比WFE市場更值得期待。

Before turning the call over to Jeff, I'd like to highlight his promotion to President. This promotion recognizes Jeff's significant contributions to the success of Ichor over the past 1.5 years. Jeff's leadership capabilities in financial and operational expertise will be key factors in leading the company through this next important phase of growth within our served markets with a focus on continued improvements in operational execution and financial results. My focus as Chairman and CEO is on executing the company's strategic initiatives for growth. In his new role, Jeff now has responsibility for managing all operating aspects of the business, including sales and marketing, R&D and operations. He will continue to serve as Chief Financial Officer of the company until a new CFO is appointed. As such, I'll have Jeff provide an update of some key highlights of our progress made in the first quarter on our business initiatives before he concludes our prepared remarks with the financial details of our first quarter results and our Q2 guidance. Jeff?

在將電話轉給傑夫之前，我想強調他晉升為總裁的經驗。此次晉升是為了表彰 Jeff 在過去 1.5 年為 Ichor 的成功做出的重大貢獻。傑夫在財務和營運專業知識方面的領導能力將成為領導公司在我們所服務的市場中度過下一個重要成長階段的關鍵因素，重點是營運執行和財務績效的持續改善。身為董事長兼首席執行官，我的重點是執行公司的成長策略舉措。在他的新職位上，傑夫現在負責管理業務的所有營運方面，包括銷售和行銷、研發和營運。在任命新的財務長之前，他將繼續擔任公司財務長。因此，在傑夫用我們第一季業績和第二季度指導的財務細節結束我們準備好的講話之前，我將請傑夫提供我們第一季度在業務計劃方面取得的進展的一些關鍵要點的最新資訊.傑夫？

Thank you, Tom. It's been a seamless transition so far in becoming President, and I'm already encouraged by the strength and collaborative nature of our customer relationships in my meetings with our key customers so far, likewise, in the strength and collaborative nature of the leadership team here at Ichor. I am also encouraged by our progress to date in finding the strong talent to take over for me in the CFO role. As Tom mentioned, with the bulk of the downward revisions in expected 2019 industry spending behind us, we are on track to achieve the $75 million to $80 million of incremental revenues we are targeting this year for market share gains. We are very pleased with the progress made to date and in the first quarter specifically, we recognize revenue related to share wins in gas delivery systems, weldments, chemical delivery systems and components and precision meeting -- machining. I should note here that the SAM Tom mentioned earlier is $4 billion, not $400 billion.

謝謝你，湯姆。到目前為止，成為總裁是一個無縫的過渡，到目前為止，在與我們的主要客戶的會議中，我已經對我們客戶關係的實力和協作性質感到鼓舞，同樣，領導團隊的力量和協作性質也讓我受到鼓舞在靈液。到目前為止，我們在尋找優秀人才來接替我擔任財務長一職方面所取得的進展也讓我感到鼓舞。正如 Tom 所提到的，隨著 2019 年預期行業支出的大部分下調已經過去，我們有望實現今年增加收入 7500 萬至 8000 萬美元的目標，以提高市場份額。我們對迄今為止的進展感到非常滿意，特別是在第一季度，我們確認了與氣體輸送系統、銲件、化學品輸送系統和組件以及精密會議-加工領域的份額贏得相關的收入。這裡要注意的是，前面提到的 SAM Tom 是 40 億美元，而不是 4,000 億美元。

In our gas delivery business, we have 1 incremental share at 2 of our largest customers. The first win came in the fourth quarter and began shipping in Q1, and the 2nd win was awarded in the first quarter with first shipments occurring in late Q1.

在我們的天然氣輸送業務中，我們在 2 個最大的客戶中擁有 1 個增量份額。第一場勝利發生在第四季度，並在第一季開始出貨，第二場勝利是在第一季度獲得的，首批出貨發生在第一季末。

In our Weldments business, we have been qualified on several waves of parts with a new customer and are in process on several more. These phases of qualifications represent well over half of what we are chasing for the year. We now have completed our expansion in Malaysia for both weldments and chemical delivery for plastics products. Our expansion in this low-cost region will allow us to complete more effectively in other segments of the broader chemical delivery market.

在我們的銲接業務中，我們已經獲得了新客戶的幾波零件的資格，並且正在處理更多的零件。這些階段的資格遠遠超過我們今年所追求的資格的一半。我們現已完成在馬來西亞的塑膠產品銲接和化學品輸送業務的擴張。我們在這個低成本地區的擴張將使我們能夠更有效地完成更廣泛的化學品輸送市場的其他領域的工作。

In our precision machining business, this qualification has a longer cycle time than the weldments side of our business. While we are seeing some modest revenue for new wins, the first meaningful revenues are expected in the second half of the year.

在我們的精密加工業務中，這種資格認證的周期時間比我們業務的銲件方面更長。雖然我們看到新勝利帶來了一些溫和的收入，但預計第一個有意義的收入將在今年下半年出現。

In our chemical or liquid delivery business, we have picked up some additional share that is incremental to our proprietary Liquid Delivery Module with revenue expected to begin in the second quarter. The largest growth driver for our chemical delivery business remains our proprietary Liquid Delivery Module. We have begun our revenue ramp, and we expect to see more meaningful levels of LDM revenues in the second half. We continue to make solid strides in our geographic expansion strategy. While our IAN engineering business continues to be negatively impacted by the lower level of memory spending this year, during the first quarter, we completed an extension of our existing supply agreement with our largest customer in Korea, and we are using this slow period to double down on our efforts to penetrate additional Korean OEMs. We are in the early innings, but we continue to see a large opportunity in Korea.

在我們的化學品或液體輸送業務中，我們獲得了一些額外的份額，這些份額是我們專有的液體輸送模組的增量，預計收入將在第二季開始。我們化學品輸送業務的最大成長動力仍然是我們專有的液體輸送模組。我們已經開始增加收入，預計下半年 LDM 收入將達到更有意義的水平。我們繼續在地域擴張策略上取得堅實的進展。雖然我們的IAN 工程業務繼續受到今年內存支出水平較低的負面影響，但在第一季度，我們完成了與韓國最大客戶的現有供應協議的延期，我們正在利用這段緩慢的時期將業務增長一倍我們對滲透更多韓國原始設備製造商的努力感到失望。我們正處於早期階段，但我們仍然在韓國看到了巨大的機會。

In Japan, we continue to make progress on a partnership agreement that will enable us to market our LDM product directly to OEMs in Japan.

在日本，我們繼續在合作夥伴協議方面取得進展，這將使我們能夠直接向日本的 OEM 廠商銷售我們的 LDM 產品。

On the R&D front, we are developing an innovative new gas delivery platform and are in the initial stages of discussions with our customers. This platform will bring both technology and cost improvements to our customers.

在研發方面，我們正在開發一種創新的新型氣體輸送平台，並正處於與客戶討論的初始階段。該平台將為我們的客戶帶來技術和成本的改進。

To summarize, we are making solid progress across the board on our incremental revenue initiatives, with revenues from these share gains strengthening into the second half. These, combined with the backend loaded year for our third largest customer, position us well for a stronger second half and into 2020. I look forward to updating you each quarter on our progress and now I will discuss our financial performance and second quarter outlook.

總而言之，我們在增量收入計劃方面正在全面取得紮實進展，這些份額收益帶來的收入在下半年將有所加強。這些，再加上我們第三大客戶的後端負載，使我們為下半年和 2020 年的強勁表現做好了準備。我期待著每季向您通報我們的進展情況，現在我將討論我們的財務表現和第二季展望。

First, I'd like to remind you that the P&L metrics discussed today are non-GAAP measures unless I identify the measure as GAAP based. These measures exclude the impact of share-based compensation expense, amortization of acquired intangible assets, nonrecurring charges and discrete tax items and adjustments.

首先，我想提醒您，今天討論的損益指標是非 GAAP 指標，除非我將該指標確定為基於 GAAP 指標。這些措施不包括股權激勵費用、收購的無形資產攤銷、非經常性費用、離散稅項和調整的影響。

I'd also like to note that a schedule which summarizes our GAAP and non-GAAP financial results, as well as key balance sheet and cash flow metrics and revenue by geographic region, can be found on the Investors section of our website.

我還想指出的是，您可以在我們網站的投資者部分找到一份總結我們的 GAAP 和非 GAAP 財務業績以及關鍵資產負債表和現金流量指標以及按地理區域劃分的收入的時間表。

First quarter revenues of $138 million were down 2.5% from the fourth quarter and down 47% from the -- our record quarter 1 year ago. Our first quarter gross margin of 14.9% declined from the fourth quarter primarily due to less favorable product mix as well as slightly decreased volume.

第一季營收為 1.38 億美元，比第四季下降 2.5%，比一年前創紀錄的季度下降 47%。我們第一季的毛利率為 14.9%，較第四季下降，主要是由於產品組合較差以及銷量略有下降。

Operating expenses of $11.7 million increased from the fourth quarter, and while we had forecast a modest increase driven by the timing of payments for employer taxes and variable compensation, OpEx was slightly higher than forecast due to a lower level of customer-funded NRE.

營運支出較第四季度增加了1,170 萬美元，雖然我們預計由於雇主稅和可變薪酬支付時間的推動，營運支出將小幅增長，但由於客戶資助的NRE 水平較低，營運支出略高於預測。

Operating margin of 6.4% represented a 110 basis point decrease from the fourth quarter of 2018 as a result of the slightly lower gross margin and increase in operating expenses in a relatively flat revenue environment.

營業利潤率為 6.4%，較 2018 年第四季下降 110 個基點，原因是在收入相對平穩的環境下毛利率略有下降以及營業費用增加。

Our interest expense in the first quarter was $2.8 million. Our tax rate for the quarter was 7%. The lower rate is primarily the result of a one-time adjustment as well as a slightly lower tax rate compared to forecast.

第一季我們的利息支出為 280 萬美元。我們本季的稅率為 7%。較低的稅率主要是一次性調整以及稅率較預測略低的結果。

First quarter net income of $5.6 million was equal to 4% of revenue, earnings per share was $0.25.

第一季淨利潤為 560 萬美元，相當於營收的 4%，每股收益為 0.25 美元。

Now I'll turn to the balance sheet. Cash of $31.6 million decreased $12.2 million from year-end, reflecting a reduction in debt of $7.4 million, capital expenditures of $4.9 million and the $1.6 million in early quarter share repurchases discussed on our last earnings call.

現在我將轉向資產負債表。現金為 3,160 萬美元，較年底減少 1,220 萬美元，反映出債務減少 740 萬美元、資本支出減少 490 萬美元以及我們上次財報電話會議上討論的季度初股票回購 160 萬美元。

Free cash flow was a use of $5.2 million in the first quarter and was negatively impacted by the backend loaded shipment profile for the quarter, which also increased our days sales outstanding to 36 days from 26 days in the fourth quarter. Inventory decreased 6% from the fourth quarter, down $7 million to $114 million at quarter end.

第一季的自由現金流使用了 520 萬美元，受到本季後端加載出貨情況的負面影響，這也使我們的銷售天數從第四季的 26 天增加到 36 天。季末庫存較第四季下降 6%，減少 700 萬美元至 1.14 億美元。

Now I'll turn to our second quarter guidance. Our forecast is for revenues in the range of $133 million to $143 million, which is flat plus or minus 4% from Q1.

現在我將談談我們的第二季指導。我們預測營收在 1.33 億至 1.43 億美元之間，與第一季持平正負 4%。

Our revenue guidance is better than forecast for new system shipment -- new systems for process tools in the second quarter, demonstrating that our market share gains have an increased contribution to sales compared to Q1. Our earnings guidance of $0.20 to $0.26 per share reflects similar operating profitably compared to the first quarter, but with a higher tax rate of 11% compared to 7% in Q1. We expect improvements in gross and operating margins to commence in the second half of the year.

我們的收入指引優於第二季新系統出貨量（用於製程工具的新系統）的預測，這表明與第一季相比，我們的市佔率成長對銷售的貢獻有所增加。我們每股收益指引為 0.20 美元至 0.26 美元，反映了與第一季相似的營運利潤，但稅率提高至 11%，而第一季為 7%。我們預計毛利率和營業利潤率將在今年下半年開始改善。

Operator, we are ready to take questions. Please open the line.

接線員，我們準備好回答問題。請打開線路。

(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from Sidney Ho with Deutsche Bank.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自德意志銀行的 Sidney Ho。

My first question is, you talked about increased confidence in the second half of '19 will be meaningfully stronger than the first half. Do you mind giving us a range of what you're thinking? Just to be a little more color, are you expecting the core business to be kind of flat -- if there is such a thing as core business, to be flat half over half, meaning the incremental revenue was going to come from the share gains and the new opportunities?

我的第一個問題是，您談到 19 年下半年的信心增強將明顯強於上半年。您介意向我們提供您的一系列想法嗎？再說一點，你是否期望核心業務會持平——如果有核心業務的話，一半以上持平，這意味著增量收入將來自份額收益以及新的機會？

Yes, basically that's exactly right, Sidney. We expect plus or minus the core revenue to be flat. I think we -- last quarter, we used the term bumping along the bottom, and we still feel like we're bumping along the bottom. And I think you probably noted that I think this past quarter, Lam's Q2 guidance was to be down about 4% for the company and that translates into about -- down about 6% for new systems. We don't know exactly what Applied is going to do, but the bottom line is that there's not a lot of -- we don't see a lot of growth out there at this point, so bumping along the bottom is a good way to describe it. There are a couple of exceptions to that. One is, I think you know and most people know that ASML is expecting a strong second half. We had a good year with ASML last year in the first quarter, and I mentioned that the revenue for ASML in the second quarter is down quite a bit for us. If you had listened to their earnings, they talked about actually making some improvements in their first release of the EUV tool and that will start to be produced in the second half. So we'll see a bump in ASML revenue, but the core process tools we think will be bouncing along the bottom. And then the majority of the share gains -- again, we targeted that at $75 million to $80 million, the majority of that revenue will show up in the second half with the third quarter being significantly larger than the second quarter and then the fourth quarter being significantly larger than the third. So you can kind of draw yourself a one year ramp and get an idea of what that might look like.

是的，基本上完全正確，西德尼。我們預計核心收入的正負值將持平。我認為上個季度，我們使用了“觸底”一詞，但我們仍然感覺自己正在觸底。我想你可能注意到，我認為上個季度，Lam 對公司第二季度的指導將下降約 4%，這意味著新系統下降約 6%。我們不知道應用材料公司到底會做什麼，但最重要的是，目前我們還沒有看到太多的成長，所以沿著底部前進是一個好方法來描述它。但也有一些例外。一是，我想你知道而且大多數人都知道 ASML 預計下半年會表現強勁。去年第一季我們與ASML合作度過了美好的一年，我提到ASML第二季的營收對我們來說下降了很多。如果你聽過他們的財報，他們談到實際上在他們的第一個 EUV 工具版本中進行了一些改進，並將在下半年開始生產。因此，我們將看到 ASML 的收入出現成長，但我們認為核心製程工具將在底部反彈。然後，大部分份額收益 - 同樣，我們的目標是 7500 萬至 8000 萬美元，大部分收入將在下半年顯現，第三季度明顯大於第二季度，然後是第四季度明顯大於第三個。所以你可以給自己畫一個一年的斜坡並了解它可能會是什麼樣子。

Great, that's helpful. My follow-up question is, previously you talked about you expect customer inventory levels to normalize by the end of Q1. And your comment today seems to suggest that actually happened. I'm curious, if you think inventories are normalized at your largest customers as well as the other customers. I'm asking because it seems like the data points are still very mixed out there. And maybe just to follow up to that, as you look into your bookings, can you talk about the linearity of Q1 and maybe into April, was there any noticeable pick-up in any of the end markets?

太好了，很有幫助。我的後續問題是，您之前談到您預計客戶庫存水準將在第一季末恢復正常。你今天的評論似乎表明這確實發生了。我很好奇，您是否認為您最大的客戶以及其他客戶的庫存已正常化。我這麼問是因為數據點似乎仍然非常混亂。也許只是為了跟進這一點，當您調查您的預訂時，您能否談談第一季的線性，也許到四月份，任何終端市場是否有明顯的回升？

Yes. So we believe that overall, the inventory corrections have about run their course, which is excellent news. And, by the way, that's not to say it's run its course in every product and every product line and every customer, because obviously, all of those customers have a number of different products, and they carry different levels of inventory depending upon the product, depending upon where they think things are going for them on a very individual basis. And so, we're not talking about a clean sweep where everything happens at once, that some get better then others get better, then others get better. But in general, we're seeing a situation where a lot of those inventory corrections have taken place, which means that, again, if Lam's shipments are going to be down 3% or 4%, theoretically, our shipment should be down 3% or 4% as well and not more than that, because they're taking it out of inventory. Now we told you, our second quarter shipments are going to be flat. They're not going to be down 3% of 4%, and we also told you that we expect ASML to actually be down quite a bit as they do their improvements on their product, and therefore, that's why this -- the market share gains are so important as they bring those downward headwinds back to a flat level for us in Q2.

是的。因此，我們認為，整體而言，庫存調整即將結束，這是個好消息。順便說一句，這並不是說它在每種產品、每條產品線和每個客戶中都存在，因為顯然，所有這些客戶都有許多不同的產品，並且根據產品的不同，他們擁有不同水平的庫存，取決於他們個人認為事情的發展方向。因此，我們並不是在談論一切同時發生的徹底清除，即有些人變得更好，然後其他人變得更好，然後其他人變得更好。但總的來說，我們看到的情況是，許多庫存調整已經發生，這意味著，如果 Lam 的出貨量要下降 3% 或 4%，理論上，我們的出貨量應該會下降 3%或4%，但不能超過這個數字，因為他們正在將其從庫存中剔除。現在我們告訴你，我們第二季的出貨量將持平。他們不會下降 3% 或 4%，我們也告訴過你，我們預計 ASML 實際上會下降相當多，因為他們對產品進行了改進，因此，這就是為什麼——市場份額收益非常重要，因為它們使我們在第二季將這些下行阻力恢復到持平水平。

And then Sidney, you had a question about bookings. Just keep in mind, our bookings are a couple of weeks long. So it's not a strong indicator of a huge backlog or anything. I'd say our visibility on the business kind of remains about what it was last year -- or last quarter, sorry.

然後西德尼，你有一個關於預訂的問題。請記住，我們的預訂為期幾週。因此，這並不是大量積壓或其他任何事情的強大指標。我想說的是，我們對業務的知名度仍然是去年或上季度的水平，抱歉。

And our next question comes from Tom Diffely with D.A. Davidson.

我們的下一個問題來自 Tom Diffely 和 D.A.戴維森。

I guess first when you're talking about the $75 million to $80 million of incidental, is that a dollar amount or is that a run rate that you expect by the end of the year?

我想首先當您談論 7500 萬至 8000 萬美元的雜費時，這是一個美元金額還是您預計到年底的運行率？

That's a dollar amount, meaning that the run rate at the end of the year will be at a higher level than that, obviously. So it's kind of Tom said it's ramping through the year, and we talked about it being in single digits and then in double digits. So you can infer from that, that it will be pretty heavily weighted to the back half and then will exit that -- the fourth quarter at a much higher level than what the ramp was through the year.

這是一個美元金額，這意味著年底的運行率顯然會高於這個水平。湯姆說，這一數字在這一年中一直在增長，我們討論過它是個位數，然後是兩位數。所以你可以從中推斷，它將在後半段佔據相當大的權重，然後將退出——第四季度的水平比全年的增長水平高得多。

Okay. And then when you look at the new business that you're adding, is there a meaningful difference in the margin structure between gas panel work and weldments and precision machining?

好的。然後，當您查看要新增的新業務時，燃氣面板工作與銲接和精密加工之間的利潤結構是否有有意義的差異？

Yes. I mean some of the share gain obviously is gas panels. But I would say that in the weldments and the precision machining and even later in the year with the LDM, they're all at higher margins than you're seeing in the business today. And probably in general, we've talked about our weldments being around the 20s, or low 20s and the precision machining around the low 30s or so and LDMs will be somewhere in between those. So they'll be incrementally accretive for us.

是的。我的意思是，部分份額增長顯然是燃氣面板。但我想說的是，在焊接零件和精密加工領域，甚至在今年稍後的 LDM 領域，它們的利潤率都比您在今天的業務中看到的要高。可能總的來說，我們已經討論過我們的銲接件在 20 左右，或者低 20 左右，而精密加工在 30 左右左右，LDM 將介於兩者之間。因此，它們將為我們帶來增量收益。

Okay, great. And then when you look at the different segments out there, I mean, Memory, Logic, Foundry, is there a meaningful content difference that you have on the different system types or the different end markets that they are serving?

好的，太好了。然後，當您查看不同的細分市場時，我的意思是，內存、邏輯、鑄造廠，您在不同的系統類型或它們所服務的不同終端市場上是否存在有意義的內容差異？

No. So it's well known that our 3 largest customers are Lam, Applied, and then ASML quite a bit lower than Lam and Applied. AS -- Lam is obviously tilted towards memory, and I believe most people would argue that Applied has a little more tilt towards logic or foundry and then, of course, with ASML, they're used kind of across-the-board. So with all that added in, I would say, just because the industry might have a skew towards logic -- excuse me, towards memory over logic and foundry, we would probably follow the industry segmentation pretty closely.

不。所以眾所周知，我們的3大客戶是Lam、Applied，然後是ASML，比Lam和Applied低很多。AS——Lam 顯然更傾向於記憶體，我相信大多數人會認為應用材料公司更傾向於邏輯或代工，然後，當然，對於 ASML，它們被全面使用。因此，我想說，隨著所有這些內容的加入，僅僅因為該行業可能偏向邏輯——對不起，偏向內存而不是邏輯和代工，我們可能會非常密切地遵循行業細分。

Okay, good. And then finally, you talked about an opportunity in Korea, do you have to ramp a facility there? Or do you have to buy a local company? Or how do you penetrate that market?

好的。最後，您談到了韓國的機會，您是否必須在那裡建立設施？還是一定要收購本地公司？或者說你如何打入這個市場？

We did an acquisition basically a year ago at this time called the IAN Engineering. It came with a footprint, it has a clean room. I would say that for us to significantly grow that business, we will have to do a level of investment in there to increase the capacity.

基本上在一年前的這個時候，我們進行了一次收購，名為 IAN Engineering。它有一個足跡，它有一個潔淨室。我想說，為了顯著發展該業務，我們必須在那裡進行一定程度的投資以提高產能。

And our next question comes from Karl Ackerman with Cowen.

我們的下一個問題來自卡爾·阿克曼和考恩。

Gentleman, I had 2. If I can just go back to a previous question, I appreciate all the color on your opportunities to expand from EUV adoption and the $75 million of incremental design wins this year as well as some longer-term prospects targeting the equipment suppliers in Japan and Korea. Going back to a previous question, I mean, when should we expect to see meaningful revenue from equipment subsidiaries in Japan and Korea. That something of a 2019 event or more of a 2020 event?

先生們，我有 2。如果我可以回到上一個問題，我很欣賞您從 EUV 採用中擴展的機會以及今年 7500 萬美元的增量設計勝利以及一些針對日本、韓國的設備供應商。回到之前的問題，我的意思是，我們什麼時候才能看到來自日本和韓國的設備子公司的可觀收入。這是 2019 年的活動還是 2020 年的活動？

Well, Japan is certainly a 2020 event. The -- I think if you recall what we had said, we're actually moving very close now to having an agreement, but we're now in the second quarter of this year. And while we knew this was going to take a reasonable amount of time, we're kind of right on schedule. So we believe we'll start seeing some amount of revenue in the beginning of 2020 as we start doing different kinds of qualification units and such. Korea we're seeing revenue now, and so the question is more is what is meaningful. I think you need to recall that the company we bought, we basically bought for $4 million upfront and then an earn out. So it's not a terribly large company, although the revenues that we achieved, they'll definitely be double-digit revenues as we move forward. We were a little bit -- well, to be blunt, we kind of -- our timing wasn't very good on that acquisition in that, as Jeff correctly said, we bought them about a year ago and it's just, maybe, a year ago May or June when people began talking about Samsung dropping their spending on memory pretty dramatically. And so the revenue took a hit as we reported I think on a couple of calls and is not at the level we had first thought. But it -- there is ongoing revenue stream there. It is, the customer -- there are a couple of large customers in Korea including over $1 billion of revenue customers. They're our main customer, and we continue to get revenue from them and finally, we continue to work with our smaller potential customers there as well.

嗯，日本無疑是 2020 年的盛事。我想，如果你還記得我們說過的話，我們現在實際上非常接近達成協議，但我們現在已經進入了今年第二季。雖然我們知道這將需要相當長的時間，但我們還是按計劃進行了。因此，我們相信，隨著我們開始進行不同類型的資格認證單元等工作，我們將在 2020 年初開始看到一定數量的收入。在韓國，我們現在看到了收入，所以問題更多的是什麼是有意義的。我想你需要記住，我們收購的公司基本上是先付 400 萬美元，然後再獲利的。所以它不是一家非常大的公司，儘管我們實現的收入隨著我們的前進肯定會達到兩位數的收入。我們有點——好吧，坦白說，我們的收購時機不太好，正如傑夫正確地說的那樣，我們大約一年前買了它們，這可能只是一次收購。一年前的五月或六月，當人們開始談論三星大幅削減記憶體支出時。因此，正如我們在幾次電話中報告的那樣，收入受到了打擊，並且沒有達到我們最初設想的水平。但那裡有持續的收入來源。是客戶——韓國有幾個大客戶，其中包括收入超過 10 億美元的客戶。他們是我們的主要客戶，我們繼續從他們那裡獲得收入，最後，我們也繼續與那裡較小的潛在客戶合作。

That's helpful. Going back to Sidney's question, I think you mentioned that their core business would be flat in 2019. But I guess if I recall correctly, I think you're more levered towards memory spending than logic and foundry, and so how do we think about the demand or capital intensity of your gas and chemical modules as the memory producers shift from greenfield investments to conversions in 2019 and perhaps 2020?

這很有幫助。回到西德尼的問題，我想你提到他們的核心業務在2019年將持平。但我想，如果我沒記錯的話，我認為您對內存支出的槓桿作用大於邏輯和代工，因此，隨著內存生產商從綠地投資轉向投資，我們如何考慮天然氣和化學模組的需求或資本強度？ 2019 年甚至 2020 年的轉換？

Well, couple of things. First of all, when we say, this year will be flat, we mean flat from where it began. Wafer fab equipment as you know is down 20% or so year-over-year, and the wafer fab equipment associated with memory is down more than that. So I didn't want to imply that we were flat year-over-year as far as wafer fab equipment. I meant starting from the first quarter and moving through the year, we don't see a big recovery at this point in time whereas we had thought earlier in the year, there might be some recovery in the second half in the core business. So I wanted to be clear about that. And I also think that'll become clearer too -- I believe, that will be the case and if so, we'll probably be seeing people lowering their total wafer fab equipment numbers for the whole year, because most of that original downside number for WFE included some ramp, some increase in the core business in the back half. So having said that, back to the memory and foundry and logic front, no, our connect rate, if you will, on those tools and the spending per tool is about the same. There is not a huge difference. And so we're not too worried if memory is high and say, logic is low and were not too worried if it's vice versa. We're just happy if someone's buying tools and putting in more process equipment. And we're also not too concerned whether it's a greenfield or whether it's technology improvements or add-ons to a current factory. All of it, on a tool basis, is more or less the same for us.

嗯，有幾件事。首先，當我們說今年將持平時，我們的意思是從年初開始持平。如您所知，晶圓廠設備年減了 20% 左右，而與記憶體相關的晶圓廠設備下降幅度更大。因此，我不想暗示我們在晶圓廠設備方面同比持平。我的意思是，從第一季開始一直到今年，我們目前還沒有看到大幅復甦，而我們在今年早些時候曾認為，下半年核心業務可能會出現一些復甦。所以我想澄清這一點。我還認為這也會變得更加清晰 - 我相信，情況將會如此，如果是這樣，我們可能會看到人們降低全年的晶圓廠設備總數，因為大部分最初的下降數字對於WFE來說，下半年核心業務有所成長。話雖如此，回到內存、鑄造和邏輯方面，不，如果你願意的話，我們在這些工具上的連接率和每個工具的支出大約是相同的。沒有很大的差別。因此，如果記憶力高，邏輯性低，我們就不會太擔心，反之亦然，我們也不會太擔心。如果有人購買工具並投入更多製程設備，我們會很高興。我們也不太關心它是否是一片綠地，或者是否是技術改進或現有工廠的附加設施。從工具的角度來看，所有這些對我們來說或多或少都是相同的。

Very helpful, Tom. One last one if I may and I'll cede the floor. Now that the market has softened, do you think valuations for bolt-on deals have receded, or are they prohibitively elevated? And secondarily, how do we think about just the level of buybacks given where the stock is today?

非常有幫助，湯姆。如果可以的話，我會放棄最後一項發言權。現在市場已經疲軟，您認為補強交易的估值是已經下降，還是過高？其次，考慮到該股目前的狀況，我們如何考慮回購水準？

So on the buyback side, we bought back about $90 million of shares last year at a price -- overall average price of just about $20. And so from an economics perspective, that's reasonably successful. And in terms of what we see this year right now, buybacks are not on the top of our list of things to do. With regard to the deals that we see, that's kind of a tough one, because every one's a little bit different. And we've seen all of the deals that have been consummated in recent times by people in the industry and to be honest, we have passed on them. When we look at a deal and the financial capabilities, if you will, of the company, we like to see a deal where the PE ratio of the company is at or below our P/E ratio. And while an M&A, a lot of people like to talk about EBITDA for a lot of good reasons and everyone in the private equity field talks about EBITDA, we tend to talk about P/E ratios, because that's what we deal with and you guys are very interested in earnings per share. And I have to be honest, in 4.5 years of being a public company, no one's ever really asked me on an earnings call, how's my EBITDA doing. So we tend to look at things from a PE perspective, and if people are paying 20x PE -- or people are asking 20x PE and somebody else is willing to pay 20x, say, 2018 PE knowing this is a depressed year from 2018, that's a deal we would pass on.

因此，在回購方面，我們去年以約 20 美元的整體平均價格回購了約 9,000 萬美元的股票。因此從經濟學的角度來看，這是相當成功的。就我們今年所看到的情況而言，回購並不是我們要做的首要事情。就我們看到的交易而言，這是一項艱難的交易，因為每個交易都有點不同。我們已經看到了業內人士最近完成的所有交易，說實話，我們已經放棄了它們。當我們檢視一筆交易和公司的財務能力（如果你願意的話）時，我們希望看到公司的本益比等於或低於我們的本益比的交易。在併購時，許多人出於很多充分的理由喜歡談論 EBITDA，而且私募股權領域的每個人都在談論 EBITDA，但我們傾向於談論市盈率，因為這就是我們要處理的問題，而你們對每股收益非常感興趣。我必須說實話，在成為上市公司的 4.5 年裡，沒有人在財報電話會議上真正問過我，我的 EBITDA 怎麼樣。因此，我們傾向於從PE 的角度來看待事情，如果人們支付20 倍的PE，或者人們要求20 倍的PE，而其他人願意支付20 倍，比如說，2018 年PE 知道這是自2018 年以來的低迷一年，那就是我們會轉達的協議。

And our next question comes from Patrick Ho with Stifel.

我們的下一個問題來自 Stifel 的 Patrick Ho。

Tom or Jeff, in terms of the incremental market opportunities that you have talked about, the $75 million to $80 million, you've talk about in the past, it's very broad-based from your fluid delivery systems to weldments to precision machining. Can you give a little bit of color of where you may have been most surprised, whether you're seeing maybe faster gains than you thought? And how some of the gains that you've made in 2019 can also, I guess, expand or carry over into 2020?

湯姆或傑夫，就您談到的增量市場機會而言，您過去談到的 7500 萬美元至 8000 萬美元，範圍非常廣泛，從流體輸送系統到銲接件再到精密加工。您能否透露一下您最驚訝的地方，您是否看到了比您想像的更快的收益？我想，您在 2019 年取得的一些成果如何能夠擴大或延續到 2020 年？

Yes. So I guess, a surprise. I think we're actually tracking quite well. I'd say, the one area that's maybe moving faster than we initially thought was weldments. I think we have a very strong pull there from our customer base on weldments, and I would say that even today and even in this quarter, we're seeing additional kind of strengthening in that area that will probably be a little more 2020 as you go through qualifying and stuff. But I'd say, the gas panel share wins, we had a very good feeling of that but that actually accelerated a little bit in Q1. I said we won another piece of share and that executed within the quarter, so that's been a bit more positive that brought some of this forward a little bit, lessening the back-end spike, but it's still going to be very heavily weighted to the back-end. So in essence, we're really happy with where we're at and the opportunities we're continuing to work, and we're actually seeing more opportunities, I would say, today, than we actually initially saw as we entered the year.

是的。所以我想，一個驚喜。我認為我們實際上跟踪得很好。我想說，發展速度可能比我們最初想像的要快的一個領域是銲接件。我認為我們對焊接件的客戶群有非常強大的吸引力，我想說，即使在今天，甚至在本季度，我們也看到該領域有更多的加強，這可能會在2020 年有所加強.參加排位賽之類的事情。但我想說的是，燃氣面板份額獲勝，我們對此有很好的感覺，但實際上在第一季有所加速。我說我們贏得了另一塊份額，並在本季度內執行，所以這有點更積極，使其中一些提前了一點，減少了後端峰值，但它仍然會非常重地權重後端。因此，從本質上講，我們對我們所處的位置以及我們繼續工作的機會感到非常滿意，我想說，今天我們實際上看到了比我們進入今年時最初看到的更多的機會。

Patrick, I would add just the precision machining is probably the late bloomer and the qualifications there are just more strenuous. It's not just qualifications around the precision measurements that you'd make the actual part with and meeting them all. But there are all sorts of special coatings going on inside the precision machined parts, especially, as they come in contact, say, with process critical gases, et cetera. And that just takes a little bit more work and a little more time on the qualification process to try a myriad of different gases through the passageways, if you will, within a precision machined part.

派崔克，我想補充一點，精密加工可能是大器晚成，而且那裡的資格條件更加艱苦。製造實際零件並滿足所有要求的不僅僅是精密測量的資格。但精密加工零件內部存在各種特殊塗層，特別是當它們與製程關鍵氣體等接觸時。如果您願意的話，在精密加工零件內的資格認證過程中，如果您願意的話，需要多做一點工作和多一點時間來嘗試多種不同的氣體通過通道。

Great, that's helpful. Maybe as my follow-up question, your model has shown the resiliency you've talked about in the past in its ability to deliver profitability. Gross margins have actually held up also pretty well, right around this 15% level as revenues have declined. As we look on a going forward basis, is absorption going to be the biggest influence for those margins on a going forward basis? Or are there still issues of product mix and things like that can impact gross margins on a going forward basis?

太好了，很有幫助。也許作為我的後續問題，您的模型顯示了您過去談到的在實現盈利能力方面的彈性。由於收入下降，毛利率實際上也保持得很好，大約在 15% 左右。當我們展望未來時，吸收將是未來對這些利潤率影響最大的因素嗎？或者是否仍然存在產品組合問題以及類似的問題可能會影響未來的毛利率？

Yes, I mean, obviously, product mix can swing you within a quarter. We have -- you look within gas, but it could be between chemical and gas and stuff, but that's not going to be the biggest swinger for us. Getting -- once we lever up, we're going to get the fixed cost infrastructure that we have with leverage. We've also done -- we focused a lot on our non, call it, direct labor people in our operations, and they're doing a really good job of driving process improvements and things like that. And then largely as we kind of continue to grow these, and I think this goes back to one of the earlier questions is, the new market share gains are at high -- generally at higher gross margins than the core business today. So that's going to be accretive as well.

是的，我的意思是，顯然，產品組合可以在一個季度內改變你。我們有——你可以看看天然氣，但它可能介於化學品和天然氣之類的東西之間，但這對我們來說不會是最大的搖擺因素。一旦我們提高槓桿率，我們將獲得具有槓桿作用的固定成本基礎設施。我們也做了——我們非常關注我們營運中的非直接勞工，他們在推動流程改進等方面做得非常好。然後很大程度上，隨著我們繼續成長這些業務，我認為這又回到了先前的問題之一，即新的市佔率收益很高——通常比今天的核心業務毛利率更高。所以這也將是增值的。

And our next question comes from Quinn Bolton with Needham.

我們的下一個問題來自奎因·博爾頓和李約瑟。

Jeff, congratulations on the promotion. I apologize, if a question has been asked. I got bumped from the conference call about halfway through the Q&A. But just wanted to first ask on the weldments side of the business, your biggest competitor in gas panels recently acquired a weldments business and wondering what you think that potentially does for the competitive landscape in the weldments business? And then I've got a follow-up question.

傑夫，恭喜你升職了。如果有人提出問題，我深感抱歉。在問答進行到一半的時候，我被趕出了電話會議。但我只想先問一下銲接業務方面，您在瓦斯面板領域最大的競爭對手最近收購了銲接業務，想知道您認為這對銲接件業務的競爭格局可能有何影響？然後我有一個後續問題。

Yes, of course, we are aware of that, and we know that company reasonably well. We had spent -- and I had personally spent a reasonable amount of time talking with them previously. There are a couple of things that are important there from our perspective and has nothing to do with how other people would view the deal but there are couple of things there. One is that -- and in the weldments space, what we see now is, and what we're taking advantage of is the idea that customers are beginning to understand that weldments come in a number of different flavors. And to make it simple, there is orbital welding, which is largely done with a machine and is a low -- kind of low technical requirements in terms of the labor force and pretty easy to do. And then there's more hands-on, it's called TIG welding but it's hands-on, very, very skilled operators and more difficult to do. And so our strategy became, when we saw the opportunity to add weldment capacity through an acquisition, we decided not to do that. What we decided to do is build capacity for ourselves in Malaysia. We decided to have it dominated mostly by the low end orbital welding, which would have been the bulk of the capacity we would have been purchasing if we chose M&A. We believe, were able to add about $50 million, if you will, of capacity for about $5 million, $6 million of capital. And then what we'll do is take orbital welding where we can gain share and put it there knowing that the labor cost in Malaysia is probably 25% of what the labor cost is in the United States. So the customers are seeing these low end weldment things as being a little more price competitive. We wanted to be in the area where we could compete that way and still make even more margin for ourselves, and we chose to put our money to work in building capacity instead of buying it.

是的，我們當然知道這一點，而且我們對那家公司相當了解。我們之前花了——而且我個人也花了相當多的時間與他們交談。從我們的角度來看，有幾件事很重要，與其他人如何看待這筆交易無關，但也有幾件事。一是－在銲接領域，我們現在看到的是，我們正在利用的是這樣的想法：客戶開始理解銲接件有多種不同的風格。簡單來說，軌道焊接主要是用機器完成的，對勞動力的技術要求很低，而且很容易完成。然後還有更多的動手操作，稱為 TIG 焊接，但它需要動手操作，操作員非常非常熟練，而且更難做。因此，我們的策略是，當我們看到透過收購增加銲接產能的機會時，我們決定不這樣做。我們決定要做的是在馬來西亞建立自己的能力。我們決定主要以低端軌道焊接為主，如果我們選擇併購，這將是我們購買的大部分產能。我們相信，如果您願意的話，我們能夠增加約 5000 萬美元的產能，大約 500 萬美元、600 萬美元的資本。然後我們要做的就是在我們能夠獲得份額的地方採用軌道焊接，並將其放在那裡，因為我們知道馬來西亞的勞動力成本可能是美國勞動力成本的 25%。因此，客戶認為這些低階焊接件的價格更具競爭力。我們希望進入一個既能以這種方式競爭，又能為自己賺取更多利潤的領域，因此我們選擇將資金用於建立產能，而不是購買產能。

And then the second question, it sounds like in the prepared script you said that you're starting now to ship first delivery of the Liquid Delivery Module to your sort of lead customer. And I believe you said that there may be some expansion in that business. Just wondering if you can clarify, is that tool now being shipped to multiple device manufacturers? Or is the ramp still what the -- sort of with the lead customer?

然後是第二個問題，聽起來就像在準備好的腳本中您說的那樣，您現在開始向您的主要客戶運送第一批液體輸送模組。我相信你說過該業務可能會有所擴展。只是想知道您是否可以澄清一下，該工具現在是否已交付給多個設備製造商？或者，對於主要客戶來說，坡道仍然是這樣的嗎？

It's still with the lead customer, and I suspect it'll be that way through almost the end of the year. In the third and fourth quarter, we'll start qualifying at new customers, which takes a little bit of time. The good news is, the lead customer is a big customer with a big appetite and it could end up being a lot of tools. And so normally -- it's a little strange in that you normally don't go -- the first dance isn't usually with the best player in town. But in this case, it is, and so we're happy about that, and we're not concerned about it. But to answer your question, it means for the most of this year we'll be dealing with one customer.

它仍然是主要客戶的，我懷疑這種情況會持續到今年年底。在第三和第四季度，我們將開始對新客戶進行資格審查，這需要一些時間。好消息是，主要客戶是一個胃口很大的大客戶，最終可能會產生很多工具。所以通常情況下——這有點奇怪，因為你通常不會去——第一支舞通常不是由鎮上最好的球員參加的。但在這種情況下，確實如此，因此我們對此感到高興，並且對此並不擔心。但要回答你的問題，這意味著今年的大部分時間我們都會與一個客戶打交道。

And our next question comes from Mitch Steves with RBC.

我們的下一個問題來自 RBC 的 Mitch Steves。

I had 2. The first one is just on as it relates to your biggest customer. So my understanding is that Lam benefits more from the transitions from 96 layers, they're probably spending earlier? And so then how do I kind of compare that to your comments now about how the back half is going to be similar even though we have comments from Lam saying that thing are going to start picking up in 2H?

我有 2 個。第一個剛剛打開，因為它與您最大的客戶有關。所以我的理解是 Lam 從 96 層的過渡中受益更多，他們可能會更早花錢？那麼我該如何將其與您現在關於後半部分將如何相似的評論進行比較，儘管我們有林的評論說事情將在 2H 開始好轉？

Well, first of all, I hope the comments from Lam that they're going to start picking up in the second half are absolutely correct, because if they do, then we'll benefit. And I'd be very, very happy to be wrong about that because we would definitely benefit if Lam -- the core business of Lam picks up in the second half, and we'll only tell you that I'm not seeing it yet. And I -- we'll kind of keep our eyes peeled and we'll probably be amongst the first to actually start seeing it, since we have good insights into their build plans, et cetera, et cetera. So I hope you're right, and I hope Lam has a great second half.

嗯，首先，我希望林鄭月娥關於他們將在下半年開始回升的評論是絕對正確的，因為如果他們這樣做，那麼我們就會受益。如果我的判斷是錯誤的，我會非常非常高興，因為如果 Lam 的核心業務在下半年有所好轉，我們肯定會受益，但我們只能告訴你，我還沒有看到這一點。 。我——我們會保持警惕，我們可能會是第一批真正開始看到它的人，因為我們對他們的建設計劃等有很好的洞察力。所以我希望你是對的，我希望林有一個偉大的下半場。

Okay, got it. And then in terms of the kind of WFE expectations, I think it's -- I think people are kind of already expecting it to be around $40 billion. So can you maybe help me under -- walk through what you mean by people having to take their numbers down more than that? Because I think that most people are already at $40 billion or even a little bit less even though they may not be in print there yet?

好，知道了。然後就 WFE 的預期而言，我認為人們已經預計它將達到 400 億美元左右。那麼你能幫我解釋一下你所說的人們必須減少更多的數字是什麼意思嗎？因為我認為大多數人已經擁有 400 億美元甚至更少，儘管它們可能還沒有被印刷出來？

Well, I think $40 billion or $40.5 billion or whatever the number is, is exactly where everyone is today. And basically when I do the math, if there is no upturn in the second half in terms of the core business, in other words, if the second half is exactly equal to the first half, then I believe, if you do the math on that scenario, WFE will be down a little bit more than below -- it will be little bit below $40 billion. Now the wildcards in that are ASML and once again, I hope ASML blows the roof off the numbers in the second half, because we'll be a beneficiary of that. But in the absence of at least some kind of an uplift in the second half, I think it's going to be hard for WFE to hit $40 billion.

嗯，我認為 400 億美元或 405 億美元或無論什麼數字，正是每個人今天的處境。基本上，當我計算時，如果下半年核心業務沒有好轉，換句話說，如果下半年完全等於上半年，那麼我相信，如果你計算在這種情況下，WFE 的下降幅度將略高於400億美元。現在，其中的通配符是 ASML，我再次希望 ASML 在下半年的數字上取得突破，因為我們將成為受益者。但在下半年至少沒有某種提升的情況下，我認為 WFE 很難達到 400 億美元。

Okay, got it. And last one for me, just in terms of -- I don't need any numbers or anything like that, qualitative is perfectly fine. So when I look at your 10-K, you said that, Lam is about a 56% customer for the full year. So if I look at March and June, do you -- are you saying that you think that Lam was less than that in March quarter in addition to June based on the implied guidance?

好，知道了。對我來說，最後一個問題是──我不需要任何數字或類似的東西，定性就完全沒問題。因此，當我查看您的 10-K 時，您說 Lam 全年的客戶比例約為 56%。因此，如果我看看 3 月和 6 月，您是否認為根據隱含指導，除了 6 月份之外，您認為 Lam 的業績還低於 3 月份季度的業績？

No.

不。

No. It wouldn't be much different, actually.

不。實際上，情況不會有太大不同。

And our next question comes from David Duley with Steelhead.

我們的下一個問題來自 Steelhead 的 David Duley。

Thanks for taking my questions. Many of them have been answered, but I wanted to kind of address the first half, second half revenue issue here. You've guided the first half revenue to basically 2 quarters of $138 million, that's like $275 million or so for round numbers. And you've talked about this $75 million to $80 million incremental opportunity and it sounds like $15 million or so is going to happen in the first half. And so that would leave, let's say, $60 million in second half. I'm trying to check my math, that sounds like your revenue would grow in the second half by 20% or so versus the first half? Is that the way we should think about the ramp-up in these market share gains that you're referring to?

感謝您回答我的問題。其中許多問題已經得到解答，但我想在這裡解決上半年、下半年的收入問題。您已將上半年的收入引導至基本上兩個季度的 1.38 億美元，以整數計算，相當於 2.75 億美元左右。您談到了這個 7500 萬至 8000 萬美元的增量機會，聽起來大約 1500 萬美元將在上半年發生。這樣一來，下半年就剩下 6,000 萬美元了。我正在檢查我的數學，聽起來你們下半年的收入將比上半年成長 20% 左右？這就是我們應該考慮您所指的市場佔有率成長的方式嗎？

Well, it's a right way, but you're a little low on the first half side when I said single digits in the first quarter and double digits in the second quarter. That doesn't mean $5 million and $10 million necessary, but you're on the right track and that does exactly -- that's exactly what it does mean. So if you actually said that the first half was $20 million or $25 million, or $15 million, or any of those numbers and you subtracted it from $75 million, that would be the number that we'd be plugging into the second half as incremental revenue.

嗯，這是一個正確的方法，但是當我說第一節是個位數，第二節是兩位數時，你在上半場有點低。這並不意味著需要 500 萬美元和 1000 萬美元，但你走在正確的軌道上，而且確實如此——這正是它的含義。因此，如果你實際上說上半年是2000 萬美元、2500 萬美元、1500 萬美元，或者這些數字中的任何一個，然後你從7500 萬美元中減去它，那麼這就是我們將作為增量插入下半年的數字收入。

Correct me, if I'm wrong, but I don't think the ASML revenue was part of the $75 million to $80 million, so wouldn't that be a little bit higher?

如果我錯了，請糾正我，但我不認為 ASML 的收入是 7500 萬至 8000 萬美元的一部分，所以這不會高一點嗎？

No, there is no part of ASML in that number.

不，該數字中沒有 ASML 的部分。

So if ASML does turn on then you should have second half growth that's more than 20% higher than the first half?

那麼，如果 ASML 確實啟動，那麼下半年的成長應該會比上半年高出 20% 以上嗎？

I think Dave, we're not being overly specific, but you're a little light in the process. Indirectly, you are right, you're thinking about it correctly. But we don't want to be any more specific.

我認為戴夫，我們並沒有過於具體，但你在這個過程中有點輕鬆。間接地，你是對的，你的想法是正確的。但我們不想說得更具體。

You're on the right track.

你走在正確的軌道上。

Okay. And I haven't heard you guys talk about this before, so I just wanted to broach the question. As far as your overall cost structure, what percentage do you think is fixed and what percentage do you think is variable?

好的。我之前沒有聽你們談論過這個問題，所以我只是想提出這個問題。就您的整體成本結構而言，您認為固定的百分比是多少，您認為可變的百分比是多少？

Well, I mean, well, if you take the material content, we're very highly variable. In other words, I'm not going to give you exact percentages, but it's going to be 80-ish is pretty variable and the rest is either fixed infrastructure or the operations that you need to run the business so -- in broad numbers.

嗯，我的意思是，如果你考慮材料內容，我們的變化非常大。換句話說，我不會給你確切的百分比，但它會是 80 左右，變化很大，其餘的要么是固定的基礎設施，要么是你運行業務所需的運營——數量很大。

And our next question comes from Graham Tanaka with Tanaka Capital Management.

我們的下一個問題來自田中資本管理公司的格雷厄姆·田中。

On market share gains, what might you in the year add as a per-anum rate in this market share gains because, well -- as well as trying to guess the ramp but really the importance into 2020?

關於市場佔有率的成長，您今年可能會在市佔率成長中添加什麼作為每年的成長率，因為，以及試圖猜測成長速度，但實際上到 2020 年的重要性是什麼？

Graham, I know you're trying to guess the ramp, but we're not going to be overly specific. I think what we're alluding to is you kind of know that we're kind of seeing -- single digits. So somewhere between $5 million and $10 million in the first quarter and we'll be in the double digits. And if you imply that ramp you'll kind of see that it's a pretty strong exiting rate for those new share gains. But I wouldn't say it's like a super big hockey stick in the fourth quarter. It's going to -- third quarter is going to grow on top of the second quarter and then grow again.

格雷厄姆，我知道你想猜測坡道，但我們不會太具體。我認為我們暗指的是你知道我們看到的是個位數。因此，第一季的營收在 500 萬到 1000 萬美元之間，我們將達到兩位數。如果你暗示這種成長，你會發現對於那些新股收益來說，這是一個相當強勁的退出率。但我不會說這就像第四節的超級大曲棍球棒。第三季將在第二季的基礎上成長，然後再次成長。

And then just to get a feel for next year, what big picture changes might there be incrementally or maybe decrementally for next year? Or are there any other big, you mentioned, Japan and Korea...

然後，為了感受明年，明年可能會出現哪些重大的變化，或者是增量變化，或者可能是減量變化？或者還有其他大的，你提到的，日本和韓國......

No, the big picture change next year is that after -- well literally by next year it will be 6 quarters of slow down, we fully expect to see a very strong rebound in the -- what we've been calling the core business but in wafer fab equipment spending. And I don't mean if that means it goes back to $50 billion or not, but that would be very, very big and very, very significant. And I think we fully expect to see that.

不，明年的大變化是，從字面上看，到明年，這將是 6 個季度的放緩，我們完全期望看到我們所說的核心業務出現非常強勁的反彈，但是晶圓廠設備支出。我並不是說這是否意味著它會回到 500 億美元，但這將是非常非常大、非常非常重要的。我認為我們完全期待看到這一點。

Right. And So you would expect share gains next year as well?

正確的。那麼您預計明年的股價也會上漲嗎？

Well, we would expect the share gains that we made this year, obviously, and Jeff already said, the run rate of those gains coming out of the end of this year multiplied by 4 is going to be a lot higher than $75 million. So we would expect to see them carry through, and we have every reason to believe that we'll continue to work very hard to have additional share gains on top of that.

嗯，顯然，我們預計今年我們獲得的股票收益，傑夫已經說過，今年年底這些收益的運行率乘以 4 將遠高於 7500 萬美元。因此，我們希望看到它們得以實現，並且我們有充分的理由相信，我們將繼續努力工作，在此基礎上獲得額外的份額收益。

Right. Great, just want to ask you a more minutia type question. But how are cost increases going in terms of purchased materials versus your price and in-price increases for our change and whether it's steel or anything else?

正確的。太好了，只是想問你一個更細節的問題。但是，與您的價格相比，採購材料的成本增加情況如何，以及我們的更改的價格增加情況，無論是鋼材還是其他東西？

We're not really seeing any -- steel in particular, it's not going up for us. We're not seeing a bunch of commodity pricing increases today.

我們並沒有真正看到任何東西——特別是鋼鐵，它對我們來說不會上漲。今天我們沒有看到大宗商品價格大幅上漲。

And we've been reasonably well isolated from the -- or insulated I should say from the tariff wars up till now. So that's a good thing.

到目前為止，我們已經相當好地免受關稅戰的影響，或者我應該說，沒有受到關稅戰的影響。所以這是一件好事。

And our next question comes from Sidney Ho with Deutsche Bank.

我們的下一個問題來自德意志銀行的 Sidney Ho。

I only have 1. Just wanted to circle back on this gross margin question earlier. If I look at your -- last time you were at these revenue levels, your gross margin was about 100 basis points higher, but yet with the product mix that now mixing in weldment and precision machining, which -- I don't know how big these are -- they are -- these businesses today, but can you help us bridge the gap between then and now? And the follow-on to that is, maybe, more forward-looking at what revenue level and what kind of mix do you see gross margin going to, say, the low end of your target range, which I believe is 19% to 20% is the long term range.

我只有 1。只是想早些時候回顧一下這個毛利率問題。如果我看看您上次處於這些收入水平時，您的毛利率大約高出 100 個基點，但由於現在混合了焊接件和精密加工的產品組合，我不知道如何今天這些企業規模很大，但是您能幫助我們彌補過去和現在之間的差距嗎？下一步可能是更具前瞻性，您認為毛利率將達到什麼水平和什麼樣的組合，例如目標範圍的低端，我認為是 19% 到 20% % 是長期範圍。

I mean, there's a lot of, honestly, going back, Sidney. There is a lot, obviously, moving pieces. Do recognize it's a little bit different than pure gas back in those days. But since then we've got a higher content. We've got a few businesses that have been affected kind of more by the fixed overhead rate and that's in our precision machining, some of our plastics machining and some of our weldments. And those are kind of the ones that as we lever out of this and grow, you'll see the bigger increment. And we haven't put a revenue target on -- when we get into the model but like-for-like, we were almost at $1 billion run rate in the first half of last year. Gross margin was just a hair under that in total, less than a margin point or so in that. When we get back to those similar levels, we're going to have a higher mix of our weldments and precision machining and some of the other market share gains that will help us get there, hopefully. So next time we're at that kind of $1 billion run rate, we would hope that we would be in the gross margin range.

我的意思是，老實說，有很多人會回去，西德尼。顯然，有很多令人感動的事情。請務必認識到它與當時的純天然氣有些不同。但從那時起我們有了更高的內容。我們的一些業務受到固定間接費用率的影響更大，其中包括我們的精密加工、一些塑膠加工和一些銲接件。這些都是當我們擺脫困境並成長時，你會看到更大的增量。我們還沒有設定收入目標——當我們進入模型時，但去年上半年我們的運行率幾乎達到了 10 億美元。毛利率只比總利潤低一點點，不到一個利潤點左右。當我們回到類似的水平時，我們將擁有更高的焊接零件和精密加工組合，以及其他一些市場份額的成長，希望這將幫助我們實現這一目標。因此，下次當我們達到 10 億美元的運行速度時，我們希望能夠處於毛利率範圍內。

Yes, I think there are a couple of things if I could add to that and it's a good question. Normally -- the last time we were at that level, we were headed up and it's normally the case that when your business is growing, as you grow through certain revenue levels, your margin is actually going to be higher than when you hit those same levels on the way down. And the reason is that on the way up, you are stressing your organization more so in terms of squeezing more output out of a particular property or particular asset or particular tool, and you do that with all sorts of crazy amounts of overtime et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And when all is said and done, you're slightly more productive on the way up than you are on the way down. Regardless of how much you try to right size on the way down, it's just kind of how it is. But the real analysis behind that is -- and I think Jeff was saying this, but as we headed up, we did add fixed costs. And while the margin on all those items will be higher at certain levels of loading, all of those levels of loading are now about half of what they had been. And so when all is said and done, it's not that surprising to us that we would be, say 100 basis points below and that some of those items that would normally have higher margins aren't quite as high as they would be, simply because they're the ones with the higher fixed costs. So Sidney, I think that makes some sense.

是的，我認為有幾件事我可以補充，這是一個很好的問題。通常情況下，上次我們達到這個水平時，我們是在前進的，通常情況下，當你的業務增長時，當你通過一定的收入水平增長時，你的利潤率實際上會比你達到相同水平時更高水平在下降。原因是，在晉升的過程中，你在從特定財產、特定資產或特定工具中榨取更多產出方面給你的組織帶來了更大的壓力，並且你通過各種瘋狂的加班等等來做到這一點，等等，等等。總而言之，你在上升的過程中比在下降的過程中更有效率。不管你在下降過程中如何努力調整尺寸，它就是這樣。但背後真正的分析是——我認為傑夫是這麼說的，但隨著我們的前進，我們確實增加了固定成本。雖然所有這些項目的利潤在某些裝載水平下會更高，但所有這些裝載水平現在大約是以前的一半。因此，當一切都說了又做了之後，我們並不感到驚訝，例如低於 100 個基點，而一些通常具有較高利潤率的項目卻沒有那麼高，僅僅是因為他們的固定成本較高。所以西德尼，我認為這是有道理的。

Ladies and gentlemen, this now concludes our Q&A portion of today's conference. I would like to turn the call back over to Tom Rohrs for any closing comments.

女士們、先生們，今天會議的問答部分到此結束。我想將電話轉回湯姆·羅爾斯（Tom Rohrs）以徵求結束意見。

Well, thank you very much for joining us on the call this quarter. And once again, we look forward to updating you on our second quarter call in August.

非常感謝您參加本季的電話會議。我們再次期待向您通報八月第二季電話會議的最新情況。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

女士們、先生們，感謝你們參加今天的會議。這確實結束了程序，你們都可以斷開連接。大家，祝你有美好的一天。