Skywater Technology Inc (SKYT) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon. My name is Audra, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the SkyWater Technology Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)

午安.我叫奧德拉，今天我將擔任你們的會議操作員。在此，我歡迎大家參加天水科技2023年第三季財務業績電話會議。今天的會議正在錄製中。 （操作員說明）

At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Claire McAdams, Investor Relations for SkyWater. Please go ahead.

這次，我想將會議轉交給 SkyWater 投資者關係部門的 Claire McAdams。請繼續。

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and welcome to SkyWater's Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Conference Call. With me on the call today from SkyWater are Thomas Sonderman, Chief Executive Officer; and Steve Manko, Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝你，接線生。下午好，歡迎參加 SkyWater 2023 財年第三季電話會議。今天與我一起參加 SkyWater 電話會議的是執行長 Thomas Sonderman；和財務長史蒂夫·曼科。

I'd like to remind you that our call is being webcast live on SkyWater's Investor Relations website at ir.skywatertechnology.com. The webcast will be available for replay shortly after the call concludes. On our IR website, we have also posted an investor slide presentation as well as a new financial supplement to accompany today's call.

我想提醒您，我們的電話會議正在 SkyWater 投資者關係網站 ir.skywatertechnology.com 上進行網路直播。通話結束後不久即可重播網路廣播。在我們的投資者關係網站上，我們還發布了投資者幻燈片演示以及新的財務補充資料，以配合今天的電話會議。

During the call, any statements made about our future financial results and business are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our earnings release filed on Form 8-K today and our fiscal 2022 10-K. All forward-looking statements are made as of today, and we assume no obligation to update any such statements.

在電話會議期間，有關我們未來財務表現和業務的任何陳述均為前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述存在風險和不確定性，可能導致我們的實際結果出現重大差異。有關這些風險和不確定性的討論，請參閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，包括今天以 8-K 表格提交的收益報告和 2022 財年 10-K 表格。所有前瞻性陳述均截至今日作出，我們不承擔更新任何此類陳述的義務。

During this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures. You can find a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures in our earnings release, our financial supplement and in our Q3 earnings presentation, all three of which are posted on our Investor Relations website.

在本次電話會議中，我們將討論非公認會計準則財務指標。您可以在我們的收益發布、財務補充和第三季度收益演示中找到這些非 GAAP 財務指標與 GAAP 財務指標的調整表，這三者都發佈在我們的投資者關係網站上。

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Tom.

然後，我會將電話轉給湯姆。

Thank you, Claire, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Today, we are pleased to report strong third quarter financial results as SkyWater set another record for quarterly revenues at nearly $72 million. Q3 revenues exceeded our expectations going into the quarter and marked an unprecedented fifth straight quarter of sequential growth.

謝謝克萊爾，祝所有參加電話會議的人下午好。今天，我們很高興地報告強勁的第三季財務業績，SkyWater 創下了季度收入近 7,200 萬美元的新紀錄。第三季營收超出了我們的預期，實現了前所未有的連續第五個季度的連續成長。

Revenues were 3% higher than the previous record set in Q2 and grew 37% from Q3 of last year. We believe the sequential growth in our ATS business demonstrates that our customers' innovation investments remain strong despite the incremental softening in end market demand since our last call. Not surprisingly, the strong growth achieved in our ATS business this year has been partially offset by a lower level of Wafer Services revenue, which has seen a greater impact from the overall macroeconomic weakness and slowing consumer demand environment.

營收比第二季創下的紀錄高出 3%，比去年第三季成長 37%。我們相信，我們的 ATS 業務的連續成長表明，儘管自上次電話會議以來終端市場需求逐漸疲軟，但我們客戶的創新投資依然強勁。毫不奇怪，我們今年 ATS 業務實現的強勁成長已部分被晶圓服務收入水平較低所抵消，整體宏觀經濟疲軟和消費者需求環境放緩對晶圓服務收入的影響更大。

For SkyWater, 2023 has continued to see a robust R&D environment in the face of the current inventory correction facing the broader semiconductor industry and, most recently, the automotive and industrial markets. We expect this will result in a significant increase in ATS revenue mix this year from the 2/3-1/3 split seen in 2022 to an expected 80-20 split for fiscal 2023.

對於 SkyWater 來說，面對更廣泛的半導體產業以及最近的汽車和工業市場目前面臨的庫存調整，2023 年將繼續看到強勁的研發環境。我們預計，這將導致今年 ATS 收入組合大幅增加，從 2022 年的 2/3-1/3 分配到 2023 財年預計的 80-20 分配。

Year-to-date, total revenues of $208 million are up 40% year-over-year, clearly exceeding our expectations entering 2023. While the outperformance we have achieved this year has been primarily driven by the increased demand and improved operational execution, we are also entering a new stage of expected amplified tool revenues within the ATS business. Not only is this a trend we expect to continue but anticipate a significant increase in tool investments over the next several quarters. We believe this is a strong indicator of our customers' desire to make increased investments in SkyWater to enable the production ramp of multiple products and platforms being developed here at our fab in Bloomington as well as in Florida.

年初至今，總營收達到 2.08 億美元，年成長 40%，明顯超出我們對 ​​2023 年的預期。雖然我們今年取得的優異業績主要是由需求增加和營運執行改善所推動的，但我們ATS 業務中的工具收入也進入了預期放大的新階段。我們不僅預計這一趨勢將持續下去，而且預計未來幾季工具投資將大幅增加。我們相信，這強烈表明我們的客戶希望增加對 SkyWater 的投資，以實現我們位於布魯明頓和佛羅裡達州的工廠開發的多種產品和平台的產量提升。

The largest contributor to our ATS growth this year, up over 50%, has been multiple strategic aerospace and defense programs. These have been ramping in scale and scope throughout 2023 and include important progress with phase 2 of our RadHard 90-nanometer platform. Other A&D programs are also moving forward aggressively, which we believe signifies the Department of Defense's increased trust and commitment to SkyWater to provide critical national security technologies.

今年 ATS 成長的最大貢獻者是多個戰略航空航太和國防項目，增幅超過 50%。這些項目的規模和範圍在 2023 年不斷擴大，其中包括我們的 RadHard 90 奈米平台第二階段的重要進展。其他 A&D 計畫也在積極推進，我們認為這表明國防部對 SkyWater 提供關鍵國家安全技術的信任和承諾不斷增強。

The government's increased commitment to SkyWater is enabling us to achieve several important milestones this year. We are on track to exceed our long-term revenue growth target of 25% annually in a year that is otherwise down for the semiconductor industry and where the overall foundry market has seen about a 10% decline from 2022. Our continued progress towards the maturation of our A&D technologies is accelerating our engagement with new customers and partners.

政府對 SkyWater 的更多承諾使我們今年能夠實現幾個重要的里程碑。我們預計在半導體產業低迷的一年中超越每年 25% 的長期收入成長目標，整個代工市場自 2022 年以來下降了約 10%。我們在成熟方面不斷取得進展我們的A&D 技術正在加速我們與新客戶和合作夥伴的接觸。

It is SkyWater's intent to develop some of the most advanced RadHard and imaging platforms in existence. Both platforms serve a similar customer ecosystem. By leveraging our unique technology enablement and product realization model within this community, we continue to see design capture momentum as these technologies are ready for our production ramp in 2025.

SkyWater 的目的是開發一些現有的最先進的 RadHard 和成像平台。這兩個平台都服務於類似的客戶生態系統。透過利用我們在該社區內獨特的技術支援和產品實現模型，我們將繼續看到設計捕捉動力，因為這些技術已為我們在 2025 年的量產做好了準備。

We expect to be able to leverage the A&D investments happening today at SkyWater to support numerous commercial use cases that require reliable CMOS performance in nontraditional applications like extreme environment computation, edge-based AI and focal plane array thermal imaging. These capabilities are needed in a range of use cases, including low-Earth orbit satellites, industrial MCUs, IoT devices and autonomous systems.

我們希望能夠利用 SkyWater 目前進行的 A&D 投資來支援眾多商業用例，這些用例在非傳統應用（例如極端環境運算、基於邊緣的 AI 和焦平面陣列熱成像）中需要可靠的 CMOS 效能。一系列用例都需要這些功能，包括低地球軌道衛星、工業 MCU、物聯網設備和自主系統。

The ability to execute well on multiple government programs is a key attribute of our CHIPS application framework as we pursue funding to expand our 2 existing fabs and establish a greenfield facility in partnership with Purdue. While this funding is not essential to our long-term growth plans, we do expect it to be an accelerant to our advancement in the second half of this decade.

良好執行多項政府計畫的能力是我們 CHIPS 應用框架的關鍵屬性，因為我們正在尋求資金來擴大我們的 2 座現有晶圓廠，並與普渡大學合作建立一座新建工廠。雖然這筆資金對於我們的長期成長計畫並不重要，但我們確實希望它將成為我們在本十年後半段取得進步的催化劑。

Beyond strategic A&D, there are several important commercial programs underway with our bio health and advanced computing customers, each of which are generating multi-million dollar revenues for us this year. In bio health, we are seeing continued strength in the areas of rapid diagnostics, genetic sequencing and health wearable devices, all high-potential products that are demonstrating a strong demand for innovation services.

除了策略性 A&D 之外，我們還與生物健康和先進計算客戶開展了幾個重要的商業項目，每個項目今年都為我們帶來了數百萬美元的收入。在生物健康領域，我們看到快速診斷、基因定序和健康穿戴式裝置等領域的持續強勢，所有這些高潛力產品都表現出對創新服務的強勁需求。

And SkyWater's differentiated leadership capabilities in superconducting and photonics offer an important value proposition for customers pursuing innovations in the rapidly accelerating artificial intelligence and quantum computing industries.

SkyWater 在超導和光子學領域的差異化領導能力為在快速發展的人工智慧和量子運算產業追求創新的客戶提供了重要的價值主張。

While the very nature of our business as a technology foundry is to work with emerging companies and entirely new product categories, fewer than half of these engagements are with early-stage or start-up companies. As our Technology-as-a-Service business model has matured and developed over the last few years, we have become increasingly selective with our customer engagements. As a result, our commercial business pipeline has never been stronger. All these programs are pursuing emerging and large market opportunities which, while relatively small today, have a path towards high-volume production within the next couple of years.

雖然我們作為技術鑄造廠的業務本質是與新興公司和全新產品類別合作，但其中只有不到一半的業務是與早期或新創公司合作。隨著我們的「技術即服務」業務模式在過去幾年中不斷成熟和發展，我們對客戶參與的選擇性也越來越高。因此，我們的商業業務管道從未如此強大。所有這些項目都在尋求新興的大型市場機會，儘管目前這些市場機會相對較小，但預計在未來幾年內將實現大批量生產。

Fundamental to SkyWater's ability to continue to ramp and scale our business are the transformative investments we are making today in our fab and enterprise operations. These investments are focused on rapidly improving the operational efficiencies needed to achieve even higher outputs from our Bloomington fab, enhance the monetization of our unique value proposition and optimize the utilization of our workforce.

SkyWater 能夠繼續提升和擴展業務的基礎是我們今天在晶圓廠和企業營運中進行的變革性投資。這些投資的重點是快速提高我們的布魯明頓工廠實現更高產出所需的營運效率，增強我們獨特價值主張的貨幣化並優化我們勞動力的利用率。

This approach is already starting to pay dividends. In Q3, we increased wafer velocity, achieved record levels of ATS activities and realized more linear Wafer Services production. These continuous improvements are enabling us to realize a higher concentration of ATS activities, improving the service level we provide to our customers. We expect the transformation to be completed by mid-2024 as these proprietary business processes and systems are integrated across the company.

這種方法已經開始帶來成效。在第三季度，我們提高了晶圓速度，實現了 ATS 活動的創紀錄水平，並實現了更線性的晶圓服務生產。這些持續改進使我們能夠實現 ATS 活動的更高集中度，從而提高我們為客戶提供的服務水準。我們預計轉型將於 2024 年中期完成，因為這些專有業務流程和系統已在整個公司內整合。

Turning to our recent announcement regarding Cadence Design Systems. The world's leading systems design company is now offering a SKY130 PDK to their user base, encouraging and facilitating design work and subsequent tape-outs on one of SkyWater's key CMOS technology platforms. Cadence's incorporation of the SKY130 PDK is an important validation of the key role we are playing in the future of open source design. By leveraging Cadence's substantial global user base, SkyWater's reach continues to expand to new customers, markets and applications. This is a significant milestone for us and the open source community as we continue to enable this capability for the global semiconductor ecosystem.

轉向我們最近關於 Cadence Design Systems 的公告。全球領先的系統設計公司現向其用戶群提供 SKY130 PDK，鼓勵並促進 SkyWater 關鍵 CMOS 技術平台之一上的設計工作和後續流片。 Cadence 納入 SKY130 PDK 是我們在未來開源設計中發揮的關鍵作用的重要驗證。透過利用 Cadence 龐大的全球用戶群，SkyWater 的影響力不斷擴展到新的客戶、市場和應用。這對我們和開源社群來說是一個重要的里程碑，因為我們將繼續為全球半導體生態系統提供這種功能。

Now turning to our outlook for Q4 and the year ahead. We expect to achieve a similar level of core ATS activities in Q4 after well exceeding our forecast in Q3. At the same time, we anticipate a further increase in our Q4 tool revenue. We expect that offsetting this ATS growth will be another sequential decline in Wafer Services revenue, which is materializing due to the inventory corrections taking place in the automotive and industrial sectors. Altogether, we expect Q4 revenue in the mid-$70 million range.

現在轉向我們對第四季和未來一年的展望。繼第三季的預測之後，我們預計第四季的核心 ATS 活動將達到類似的水平。同時，我們預計第四季工具收入將進一步成長。我們預計，晶圓服務收入的再次連續下降將抵消 ATS 的成長，這種下降是由於汽車和工業領域的庫存調整而實現的。總的來說，我們預計第四季的營收將在 7,000 萬美元左右。

As we look ahead to 2024, SkyWater's core ATS activities are anticipated to show solid growth after the 50% growth forecasted for 2023. We believe our continued momentum in ATS, coupled with a strong year of customer tool investment, will result in continued outperformance in SkyWater's revenue growth in 2024 compared to the overall industry even with the expected decline in Wafer Services. Steve will provide further details on 2024 during his remarks.

展望2024 年，SkyWater 的核心ATS 活動繼2023 年預測成長50% 後，預計將呈現穩健成長。我們相信，我們在ATS 方面的持續成長勢頭，加上今年強勁的客戶工具投​​資，將導致我們的ATS業務繼續表現出色。儘管 Wafer Services 預計會下降，但與整個行業相比，SkyWater 2024 年的收入仍將增長。史蒂夫將在演講中提供有關 2024 年的更多詳細資訊。

In summary, we believe that the distinction of our business model, the highly differentiated, innovative technologies we are bringing to market and the strong customer pipeline we continue to build position SkyWater for several years of above-industry growth and continued strong operating leverage.

總而言之，我們相信，我們獨特的業務模式、我們向市場推出的高度差異化的創新技術以及我們繼續建立的強大客戶管道，使SkyWater 能夠在數年中實現高於行業的成長和持續強勁的營運槓桿。

I'll now turn the call over to Steve.

我現在將把電話轉給史蒂夫。

Thank you, Tom. Before I begin my review of our third quarter results, I will direct you to a new financial supplement available on our IR website, which summarizes our quarterly financial results for the last 3 years. Starting in Q3, we have changed our policy regarding a couple of our non-GAAP financial metrics, namely tool revenues and margins are no longer excluded from our non-GAAP results, while the consulting fees incurred year-to-date are now excluded from our non-GAAP results. These helpful supplements on our IR website is where you can find the current non-GAAP treatment applied to prior periods.

謝謝你，湯姆。在開始審查我們第三季的業績之前，我將引導您查看我們的 IR 網站上提供的新財務補充資料，其中總結了我們過去 3 年的季度財務業績。從第三季開始，我們改變了關於一些非公認會計準則財務指標的政策，即工具收入和利潤率不再排除在我們的非公認會計準則業績之外，而今年迄今產生的諮詢費現在也排除在我們的非公認會計準則績效之外。我們的非公認會計準則績效。我們的 IR 網站上有這些有用的補充資料，您可以在其中找到適用於前期的當前非 GAAP 處理方法。

The reasons for the non-GAAP changes are as follows. First, tool sales have historically been infrequent and viewed by management as secondary to ATS development revenue, which is why they previously were excluded from our non-GAAP results. Recently, our ATS customers have stepped up their commitment to fund tool purchases, and we expect this trend to continue going forward. As tool sales are expected to be a material and frequent component of our financials for the foreseeable future, we are no longer excluding their impact in the calculation of our non-GAAP financial measures.

非公認會計原則變更的原因如下。首先，工具銷售歷來並不常見，管理層將其視為次要的 ATS 開發收入，這就是為什麼它們之前被排除在我們的非 GAAP 業績之外的原因。最近，我們的 ATS 客戶加大了為購買工具提供資金的承諾，我們預計這一趨勢將持續下去。由於在可預見的未來，工具銷售預計將成為我們財務的重要且頻繁的組成部分，因此我們不再排除其在計算我們的非公認會計準則財務指標時的影響。

That being said, the supplement on our IR website does provide the gross margin impact of tool sales every quarter and year since fiscal 2021, and we will continue to provide the detail regarding the impact of tool sales on our financial results.

話雖如此，我們 IR 網站上的補充確實提供了自 2021 財年以來每個季度和每年工具銷售的毛利率影響，我們將繼續提供有關工具銷售對我們財務業績影響的詳細信息。

Next, in the second quarter of 2023, we have incurred project-based management consulting fees related to the long-term transformation activities focused on improvement in automation and operational efficiency. Similarly, we have also incurred project-based specialist fees associated with our CHIPS Act application. Neither of these types of fees are required to run our business and, therefore, are incremental to ongoing operations and are not a normal operating expense. Beginning in Q3 2023, we began excluding these fees in the calculation of our non-GAAP earnings, non-GAAP earnings per share and adjusted EBITDA. The supplement on our website likewise shows a resulting retroactive non-GAAP earnings and adjusted EBITDA for prior quarters after excluding these fees. We hope you find this supplement a helpful guide as we compare results to future periods.

接下來，在 2023 年第二季度，我們產生了與專注於提高自動化和營運效率的長期轉型活動相關的基於專案的管理諮詢費用。同樣，我們也產生了與 CHIPS 法案申請相關的基於專案的專家費用。這些類型的費用都不是我們業務營運所必需的，因此都是持續營運的增量費用，而不是正常的營運費用。從 2023 年第三季開始，我們開始在計算非 GAAP 收益、非 GAAP 每股盈餘和調整後 EBITDA 時將這些費用排除在外。我們網站上的補充文件同樣顯示了扣除這些費用後得出的追溯性非公認會計原則收益和調整後的前幾季度的 EBITDA。我們希望您能在我們將結果與未來時期進行比較時發現本補充資料能夠為您提供有用的指導。

Now turning to our Q3 results. Third quarter revenues reached another record for us, exceeding our expectations to total $71.6 million, which was up 3% from Q2 and up 37% from the third quarter of last year. Record ATS revenue of $57.1 million was up 8% from Q2 and up 62% compared to Q3 of last year and included $3.2 million of tool sales. The sequential growth in ATS revenues exceeded our earlier expectations, especially considering the $3.6 million revenue pull-in recorded in Q2. Offsetting the strong sequential growth was a 14% decline in Wafer Services revenue as a result of the softening demand environment in the automotive and industrial markets.

現在轉向我們的第三季業績。第三季營收再創新高，超出我們的預期，達到 7,160 萬美元，比第二季成長 3%，比去年第三季成長 37%。 ATS 營收達到創紀錄的 5,710 萬美元，比第二季成長 8%，比去年第三季成長 62%，其中包括 320 萬美元的工具銷售額。 ATS 收入的連續成長超出了我們先前的預期，特別是考慮到第二季記錄的 360 萬美元的收入拉動。由於汽車和工業市場需求環境疲軟，晶圓服務收入下降 14%，抵消了強勁的環比成長。

The decline in Wafer Services volumes, along with the increased tool sales, resulted in a sequential decline in non-GAAP gross margin, which was 20.4% for the quarter.

晶圓服務銷量的下降以及工具銷售的增加導致非 GAAP 毛利率連續下降，本季為 20.4%。

Tool gross profit was $0.4 million, which negatively impacted gross margin by 40 basis points.

工具毛利為 40 萬美元，對毛利率產生了 40 個基點的負面影響。

Non-GAAP operating expenses declined $13.4 million, reflecting the normalized quarterly run rate of our ongoing business cost structure.

非 GAAP 營運費用下降了 1,340 萬美元，反映了我們目前業務成本結構的正常化季度運作率。

Management consulting fees were within the range of our earlier expectations at $3.5 million in Q3.

第三季的管理諮詢費用在我們先前預期的 350 萬美元範圍內。

Non-GAAP operating income was $1.2 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $8.3 million.

非 GAAP 營業收入為 120 萬美元，調整後 EBITDA 為 830 萬美元。

Interest expense was $2.5 million. And with nominal tax, the GAAP net loss was $0.16 per share, and the non-GAAP net loss was $0.05 per share.

利息支出為 250 萬美元。扣除名目稅後，GAAP 淨虧損為每股 0.16 美元，非 GAAP 淨虧損為每股 0.05 美元。

Now turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $17.3 million in cash and cash equivalents, a net increase of about $1 million from Q2. As a reminder, we have been generating positive cash flow from the P&L for the last 4 straight quarters. And in Q3, this amount was about $4.5 million, essentially equal to adjusted EBITDA less interest and CapEx.

現在轉向資產負債表。本季結束時，我們的現金和現金等價物為 1,730 萬美元，比第二季淨增加約 100 萬美元。提醒一下，我們在過去連續 4 個季度從損益表中產生了正現金流。第三季度，這筆金額約為 450 萬美元，基本上等於調整後的 EBITDA 減去利息和資本支出。

We added an additional $8 million in proceeds from our ATM early in the quarter at an average price of just under $10 a share. We reduced total debt by nearly $4 million, and the remaining use of cash was about $8 million of changes in working capital.

本季初，我們以每股不到 10 美元的平均價格從 ATM 機上額外獲得了 800 萬美元的收益。我們減少了近 400 萬美元的總債務，剩餘的現金使用量約為 800 萬美元的營運資金變動。

Turning to our outlook for Q4 and our expectations for various financial metrics as we enter 2024. As Tom mentioned, with our current visibility, we expect Q4 revenue levels in the mid-$70 million range. This reflects our assumption of a 15% to 20% sequential decline in Wafer Services revenue, a similar level of core ATS revenues and a significant increase in tool sales, which could grow to as much as $10 million.

談到我們對第四季度的展望以及進入 2024 年時對各種財務指標的預期。正如 Tom 所提到的，根據我們目前的可見性，我們預計第四季度的收入水平在 7000 萬美元左右。這反映了我們對晶圓服務收入環比下降 15% 至 20%、核心 ATS 收入水平相似以及工具銷售額顯著增長（可能增長至 1000 萬美元）的假設。

Given the changes in the Wafer Services outlook and the expected revenue profile for Q4, we expect non-GAAP gross margin will decline sequentially between 14% and 15%. With our outlook for Wafer Services revenue in the range of $10 million to $12 million for the next several quarters, we expect Q4 gross margin will be impacted by factory under absorption before returning to the 20% range in Q1. We also expect the higher level of low-margin tool sales will impact gross margin by approximately 100 basis points. We expect to continue to manage non-GAAP operating expenses within the range of $13 million to $14 million per quarter.

鑑於晶圓服務前景和第四季度預期收入狀況的變化，我們預計非 GAAP 毛利率將連續下降 14% 至 15% 之間。我們對未來幾季晶圓服務收入的預期在 1,000 萬美元至 1,200 萬美元之間，我們預計第四季度毛利率將受到工廠吸收的影響，然後再回到第一季 20% 的範圍。我們也預期低利潤工具銷售水準的提高將影響毛利率約 100 個基點。我們預計將繼續將非 GAAP 營運費用管理在每季 1,300 萬美元至 1,400 萬美元的範圍內。

As we look ahead to fiscal 2024, as Tom mentioned, we expect another year of strong revenue growth outperforming the overall industry driven by a significant customer-funded tool investments and continued solid growth in core ATS activities, which we expect will partially offset by a lower level of Wafer Services business.

正如Tom 所提到的，在展望2024 財年時，我們預計又一年強勁的收入增長將超越整個行業，這主要得益於客戶資助的大量工具投資以及核心ATS 活動的持續穩健增長，我們預計這將被晶圓服務業務水準較低。

While we expect tool sales will decline sequentially in Q1 '24, we believe customer-funded tool investments could increase significantly in Q2 2024 and beyond. This strong level of customer-funded CapEx would drive an increased mix of tool revenues and modulate our typical ATS margin flow-through performance, which has well exceeded 50% since last year.

雖然我們預計 2024 年第一季工具銷售額將連續下降，但我們相信客戶資助的工具投資可能在 2024 年第二季及以後大幅增加。這種由客戶資助的資本支出的強勁水平將推動工具收入組合的增加，並調節我們典型的 ATS 利潤流動績效，自去年以來，該績效已遠遠超過 50%。

At the same time, after Q1 of 2024, approximately $3.7 million of quarterly depreciation from purchase accounting will phase out of our cost of revenue, reducing our total depreciation expense by about half. This will be a significant tailwind to our gross margin performance, which will help to offset the headwind of a greater mix of tool sales in 2024. We also expect to turn the corner to positive non-GAAP EPS in 2024 and look forward to discussing our success on this key milestone in future calls.

同時，在 2024 年第一季之後，採購會計中約 370 萬美元的季度折舊將逐步淘汰我們的收入成本，使我們的總折舊費用減少約一半。這將是我們毛利率表現的一個重要推動因素，這將有助於抵消2024 年更多工具銷售組合帶來的不利影響。我們也預計2024 年非GAAP 每股盈餘將轉為正值，並期待討論我們的在未來的電話會議中取得這一關鍵里程碑的成功。

There is no doubt that our CapEx-light model is unique and brings some complexity to modeling our forward-looking financial performance. However, it's important to come away from today's call with an understanding of all the significant benefits of customer-funded tool investment. For example, we anticipate over 80% of our planned capacity expansion in 2024 will be funded by our customers. This means that we expect our quarterly depreciation will remain at these very low, approximately $3.5 million levels as revenues grow. Compared to typical semiconductor foundry depreciation levels of around 15% to 20% of revenues, for us, we expect to see depreciation shrink to less than 5% of our revenues, which is one of the reasons we believe we can be so confident in our long-term margin target of 40%.

毫無疑問，我們的輕資本支出模式是獨一無二的，並且為我們的前瞻性財務績效建模帶來了一些複雜性。然而，在結束今天的電話會議後，了解客戶資助的工具投資的所有顯著優勢非常重要。例如，我們預計 2024 年計畫產能擴張的 80% 以上將由客戶提供資金。這意味著，隨著收入的成長，我們預計季度折舊將保持在非常低的水平，約為 350 萬美元。與典型的半導體代工廠折舊水準約佔收入的 15% 至 20% 相比，對我們來說，我們預計折舊將縮減至收入的 5% 以下，這是我們對我們的業務充滿信心的原因之一長期利潤率目標為40%。

With that, we can transition the call to Q&A.

這樣，我們就可以將通話轉換為問答。

(Operator Instructions) We'll go first to Krish Sankar at TD Cowen.

（操作員指示）我們先去 TD Cowen 的 Krish Sankar。

This is Steven calling on behalf of Krish. Just a first question on certain picture on the ATS business, Thomas, if you could. I guess just given the commentary about 2024, along with the customer tool revenues, just wondering like in terms of the underlying ATS revenue growth, I understand that you guys expected to potentially outperform the broader market, but should we be expecting a moderation in that growth because customers are potentially focusing more on moving their R&D design activities towards commercial production in 2025? Or is there additional layering on of new ATS programs? And also in terms of tool revenues, is that driven more by commercial customers? Or is it primarily or largely government-related type projects?

這是史蒂文代表克里什的電話。湯瑪斯，如果可以的話，我想問關於 ATS 業務的第一個問題。我想，鑑於對 2024 年的評論以及客戶工具收入，只是想知道潛在的 ATS 收入增長，我理解你們預計可能會跑贏大盤，但我們是否應該期待這方面的放緩增長是因為客戶可能會更加關注在2025 年將研發設計活動轉向商業生產？或者新的 ATS 計劃是否有額外的層次？就工具收入而言，這更多是由商業客戶推動的嗎？還是主要或大部分與政府相關類型的項目？

Yes. Thanks for the questions, and I appreciate you joining the call. So just to start with ATS, we still feel like there's a lot of opportunity with our ATS business. We talked about solid growth going into next year. That's after 50% growth this past year. That will be a combination of continued program expansion as well as new programs. If you recall our funnel, we have new programs always entering the business and then we have other programs that are moving through the business as they move into volume production. So what we're seeing is all of those factors combined to create, again, an opportunity for us to continue to grow ATS and then when combined with the tool investment, significant tool investment, really position us to continue to have industry growth while, at the same time, putting new capabilities, new capacity into the fab that we believe will continue to pay dividends not just for the customers.

是的。感謝您提出問題，也感謝您加入通話。因此，從 ATS 開始，我們仍然覺得我們的 ATS 業務有很多機會。我們談到了明年的穩健成長。這是繼去年增長 50% 之後的結果。這將是持續計劃擴展和新計劃的結合。如果你還記得我們的漏斗，我們總是有新的專案進入業務，然後我們還有其他專案在進入大量生產時在業務中移動。因此，我們看到的是，所有這些因素結合起來，再次為我們創造了繼續發展 ATS 的機會，然後與工具投資相結合，重大工具投資，真正使我們能夠繼續實現行業增長，同時，同時，將新的能力、新的產能投入晶圓廠，我們相信這將繼續為客戶帶來紅利。

And the majority of the tools that we're talking about are coming through DoD and aerospace and defense programs, but they can be used for other commercial customers as well. So they're not exclusive. And when we put them in the fab. Many of them are with the expectation that they will serve the broader business.

我們談論的大多數工具都來自國防部以及航空航太和國防項目，但它們也可以用於其他商業客戶。所以它們並不排他。當我們把它們放入晶圓廠時。他們中的許多人期望能夠為更廣泛的業務服務。

That's very helpful, Tom. As a follow-up, I just wanted to ask about the Wafer Services business. So I know you guys mentioned industrial and automotive exposure being primary drivers of trends there. Just for clarification, for the top 2 or 3 customers in Wafer Services, the products that you manufacture with them, are they typically like dual-sourced products where there will be 1, 2 or 3 suppliers where they single source products from you?

這非常有幫助，湯姆。作為後續，我只是想問晶圓服務業務。所以我知道你們提到工業和汽車產業是那裡趨勢的主要動力。澄清一下，對於晶圓服務中排名前 2 或 3 名的客戶，您與他們一起製造的產品是否通常類似於雙源產品，其中會有 1、2 或 3 個供應商從您那裡單一採購產品？

Yes. So it's a little bit of a combination. So if you look at our, we call them, legacy products from the old Cypress business that now Infineon has, there's kind of a combination of single-source products and dual and even multiple-source products within that customer. And then we have another customer, Parade, who is also legacy. This is all using our S130 technology on what we call a PSoC platform, a programmable system on a chip. So these are legacy products. We do have other products that go into both the A&D space and the bio space that complements those legacy products. The largest volumes are definitely the industrial and automotive, which are the legacy Cypress products.

是的。所以它有點組合。因此，如果你看看英飛凌現在擁有的、我們稱之為舊賽普拉斯業務的遺留產品，就會發現該客戶內部既有單源產品，也有雙源甚至多源產品。然後我們還有另一個客戶 Parade，他也是老客戶。這一切都在我們所謂的 PSoC 平台（一種可編程系統單晶片）上使用了我們的 S130 技術。所以這些都是遺留產品。我們確實有其他產品可以進入 A&D 領域和生物領域，以補充這些傳統產品。最大的銷售量肯定是工業和汽車領域，它們是賽普拉斯的傳統產品。

We'll move next to Quinn Bolton at Needham & Company.

我們將搬到 Needham & Company 的 Quinn Bolton 旁邊。

This is Nick Doyle on for Quinn. Can you just talk again about the Wafer Services, and I guess, inventory burning related decline? I guess how long do you expect the inventory digestion to last? You talked about, I think, that it would be weak in the first quarter also. And is that you need demand to come back? Or is that really an inventory problem?

我是奎因的尼克·多伊爾。您能否再談談晶圓服務，我猜是庫存燃燒相關的下降？我猜你預計庫存消化會持續多久？我認為你談到第一季也會疲軟。你需要需求才能回來嗎？或者這真的是庫存問題嗎？

Yes. I mean, if you look at the end customers, the automotive and industrial sectors are now beginning to feel the effects of the correction that's been going on for multiple quarters. And of course, given our concentration in that space, we are now seeing those effects as well. How and when those particular programs will come back is going to be dependent on the macro environment that we're in. Obviously, there's been inventory burn going on. There's been inventory build going on, we believe, as well. Our goal is really to transition away from these legacy products, move programs out of ATS into Wafer Services, prepare for the ramps that are coming in 2025 and really leverage the significant tool investment that's going to occur next year to position us for the second half of the decade and do this in a way where we can supplement some of the weakness that is happening across the industry and is affecting our Wafer Services business.

是的。我的意思是，如果你看看最終客戶，汽車和工業部門現在開始感受到持續多個季度的調整的影響。當然，考慮到我們對這個領域的專注，我們現在也看到了這些影響。這些特定計劃如何以及何時恢復將取決於我們所處的宏觀環境。顯然，庫存正在消耗。我們相信，庫存也在增加。我們的目標實際上是擺脫這些遺留產品，將項目從 ATS 轉移到 Wafer Services，為 2025 年即將到來的升級做好準備，並真正利用明年將發生的重大工具投資，為我們的下半年做好準備十年來，我們可以彌補整個產業正在發生的一些弱點，並影響我們的晶圓服務業務。

But again, like as we would rather have that revenue coming through, keep in mind, we're talking only about 20% of our business and a slight decline only in a certain segment of 20% of our business revenue.

但同樣，正如我們希望獲得該收入一樣，請記住，我們只談論我們業務的 20%，並且僅在我們業務收入的 20% 的某個部分略有下降。

Yes, that's an important point. Right now, we're looking at Wafer Services modeling about 20% of 2023 revenue. So it's a relatively small effect when you look at the overall business that we're running.

是的，這是很重要的一點。目前，我們正在研究晶圓服務模型，該模型約佔 2023 年收入的 20%。因此，當你看看我們正在經營的整體業務時，這是一個相對較小的影響。

Okay. That makes sense. Yes. We're seeing that across the semi landscape, the auto and industrial inventory burning. Could you talk more about the tool revenue? What are you seeing from customers that's driving this change in how you're defining tool revenue? It seems like you're expecting a pretty big ramp next quarter and into '24. I guess, if you could just talk about the drivers where customers are kind of changing their decision to buy more tool revenue.

好的。這就說得通了。是的。我們看到整個半導體產業的汽車和工業庫存都在燃燒。能多談談工具收入嗎？您從客戶那裡看到了什麼正在推動您定義工具收入的方式改變？您似乎預計下個季度和 24 年會有相當大的成長。我想，如果你能談談客戶改變購買更多工具收入決定的驅動因素。

Yes. So it's a great question, and I'm glad you're asking it because it's important to understand the CapEx-light model, and it's really a paradigm shift in the foundry business. Traditionally, the semiconductor manufacturer always had to go buy the equipment, and then they would recoup that investment when volumes materialize. But they were taking all the risk. The SkyWater model is to get our customers to basically take that risk to not only secure -- the fact that they're buying these tools, obviously, secures their supply chain, but it also moves the risk away from the manufacturer to the companies developing the products. And that's really an important part of the SkyWater model.

是的。所以這是一個很好的問題，我很高興你問這個問題，因為了解輕資本支出模型很重要，而且它確實是代工業務的範式轉移。傳統上，半導體製造商總是必須購買設備，然後在銷售實現時收回投資。但他們承擔了所有的風險。 SkyWater 模式是為了讓我們的客戶基本上承擔這種風險，不僅是為了確保他們購買這些工具的事實，顯然可以確保他們的供應鏈的安全，而且還將風險從製造商轉移到了開發公司產品。這確實是 SkyWater 模型的重要組成部分。

Our customers are investing in these tools. That's showing that they're committed to the tools and the products that will be developed on those tools. And as a result of that, we're able to bring in new capital equipment without having to fund it and also not having to depreciate it, as Steve talked about, once it actually goes into production. So it's a different model. It's one where we pushed the burden of investment, of equipment as well as the R&D engineering that goes on to prepare a given technology to go to market, we push that on the product development companies because they're the ones that are essentially trying to get something new and differentiated to the market. We work with them to provide that environment, but they have to absorb that risk of funding that capability. And that really is the difference between, say, us and a traditional foundry.

我們的客戶正在投資這些工具。這表明他們致力於開發工具以及將在這些工具上開發的產品。因此，我們能夠引進新的資本設備，而無需為其提供資金，也不必像史蒂夫所說的那樣，一旦它實際投入生產，就對其進行折舊。所以這是一個不同的模型。我們將投資、設備以及研發工程的負擔推到了一起，以準備將特定技術推向市場，我們將其推給產品開發公司，因為他們本質上是在努力向市場推出新的、差異化的產品。我們與他們合作提供這種環境，但他們必須承擔為這種能力提供資金的風險。這確實是我們和傳統鑄造廠之間的區別。

Can I just follow up on that? I see the benefit from the SkyWater perspective. I guess I'm more curious on what customers are seeing, where they're stepping up their investment. I guess it goes back to the value of working with you guys and understanding the different steps and getting some IP and how to develop their own chip. Is that the answer?

我可以跟進一下嗎？我從 SkyWater 的角度看到了好處。我想我更奇怪的是客戶看到了什麼，他們在哪裡加大了投資。我想這可以追溯到與你們合作、了解不同步驟、獲得一些智慧財產權以及如何開發自己的晶片的價值。這就是答案嗎？

Yes. It allows them to not only customize their product for our processes as opposed to having a standard process. But the other thing to keep in mind is we are in a very weak macro environment, so tool sales that maybe were committed as we entered 2023 have now been released. And we have certain customers that want to move faster, and that's allowing us to go secure equipment to put in our fab at a faster pace than maybe we thought as we entered the year. And this is all because customers want to secure capacity. And the difference is, instead of a customer coming to me and saying, "Hey, I want you to go buy a tool because I need to be prepared to ramp," we say, "No, you're going to buy that tool, and we're going to work with you to develop a customized process, and then you will have the secure supply on the other side." So that's really what we mean by CapEx-light. We don't invest our dollars in the tool. We expect our customers to do it. And as Steve alluded to, we're talking about 80% of the investment for the next tranche of tools will be coming from our customers as investments.

是的。它使他們不僅可以根據我們的流程定制產品，而不需要採用標準流程。但要記住的另一件事是，我們正處於非常疲軟的宏觀環境中，因此進入 2023 年時可能承諾的工具銷售現已釋放。我們有某些客戶想要更快採取行動，這使得我們能夠以比我們進入今年時想像的更快的速度來確保設備投入我們的工廠。這都是因為客戶希望獲得容量。不同之處在於，客戶不是來找我說：「嘿，我想讓你去買一個工具，因為我需要做好升級的準備，」我們說，「不，你要買那個工具，我們將與您合作開發定制流程，然後您將在另一邊獲得安全供應。”這就是我們所說的「輕資本支出」的真正意義。我們不會把錢投資在這個工具上。我們希望我們的客戶能夠這樣做。正如史蒂夫所提到的，我們正在談論下一批工具的 80% 投資將來自我們的客戶作為投資。

We'll move next to Richard Shannon at Craig-Hallum Capital.

我們將接替 Craig-Hallum Capital 的理查德·香農 (Richard Shannon)。

I missed part of the call, I'm bouncing between a few calls here going on, so if I'm repeating stuff on the call, my apologies here. But I did get a sense of some sizable tool sales coming up here in the next number of quarters. Maybe if you could just help us understand the scope of the amount here. As I look back in your history here, like in 2021, you did like $19 million tool sales, one big quarter in there. How would you scale the next year or 2024 or however else you want to look at it relative to that year? And then kind of the follow-on to that question is, how do we look at ATS sales, excluding tool sales, going forward in the next few quarters? Is that something you can see flat to sequential growth? Or could we see some lumpiness in that pattern?

我錯過了部分通話，我在幾個正在進行的通話之間來回切換，所以如果我在通話中重複內容，我在此表示歉意。但我確實感覺到接下來的幾季將會出現一些相當大的工具銷售。也許您能幫助我們了解此處金額的範圍。當我回顧你們的歷史時，例如 2021 年，你們的工具銷售額確實達到了 1900 萬美元，這是一個很大的季度。您將如何擴展明年或 2024 年的規模，或者您希望相對於當年如何看待它？這個問題的後續問題是，我們如何看待未來幾季的 ATS 銷售（不包括工具銷售）？您是否可以看到持平或季比的成長？或者我們能在這種模式中看到一些塊狀的東西嗎？

Richard, this is Steve. I'll take the first part on the tool question, then I'll hand it over to Tom for the ATS. Like we talked about in the call today, we saw some tool revenue through in this quarter, which we told was very possible. We see additional tool revenue coming through in Q4, which we said it would be up to the $10 million. Now we still have a forecast where we would expect a certain level of tool revenue in Q1 of 2024. I don't expect it to be as high as the $10 million that we expect in Q4, but we still do see some sizable tool revenues coming in the first quarter. From there, that's about the best we have on the visibility.

理查德，這是史蒂夫。我將回答工具問題的第一部分，然後交給 Tom 進行 ATS。就像我們在今天的電話會議中談到的那樣，我們在本季看到了一些工具收入，我們認為這是很有可能的。我們預計第四季會出現額外的工具收入，預計將達到 1,000 萬美元。現在我們仍然有一個預測，即我們預計2024 年第一季的工具收入將達到一定水平。我預計它不會像我們預期的第四季度的1000 萬美元那麼高，但我們仍然看到一些可觀的工具收入即將在第一季推出。從那裡開始，這大約是我們擁有的最好的能見度。

Now what I'll say is we do have potential for 2024 to have more tool revenue in 2024 than we ever had before. So the largest tool revenue year was 2021 previously. We do have opportunity for larger tool revenue in 2024 than even of what we saw in 2021. We don't have perfect clarity on that. We wanted to give the information that we did have. I want to expect, in the third, fourth and first quarter of next year, as we get more clarity, we'll definitely share that with the market.

現在我要說的是，到 2024 年，我們確實有可能獲得比以往任何時候都多的工具收入。所以工具收入最大的年份是之前的 2021 年。我們確實有機會在 2024 年獲得比 2021 年更大的工具收入。對此我們還沒有完全清楚的了解。我們想提供我們所掌握的資訊。我希望預計，在明年的第三、第四和第一季度，隨著我們變得更加清晰，我們肯定會與市場分享這一點。

Yes. As it relates to ATS, again, we see solid growth going into next year. We're continuing to drive efficiencies. As we talked in the past, Richard, our goal is to extract more ATS activities out of our total activities bucket, and we're doing that. That's where a lot of these efficiencies gains are coming from. And at the same time we recognize that we have been growing very fast over the last 12-plus months. And it's important to realize, these are development programs. And so programs that are in development move at different stages based on where they are in our funnel. And so we're remaining, we'll call it, conservative but optimistic that the growth that we have been seeing in ATS can continue. And we believe that, that growth, coupled with the investment our customers are making in tools, are going to allow us to achieve above-industry growth as we get into '24 as we've demonstrated this past year with again above-industry growth.

是的。就 ATS 而言，我們再次看到明年將出現穩健成長。我們正在繼續提高效率。正如我們過去所說，理查德，我們的目標是從我們的總活動範圍中提取更多的 ATS 活動，我們正在這樣做。這就是許多效率提升的來源。同時，我們也意識到，在過去 12 個多月裡，我們的成長速度非常快。重要的是要認識到，這些都是開發計劃。因此，正在開發的項目根據它們在我們漏斗中的位置而處於不同的階段。因此，我們仍然保持保守但樂觀的態度，認為 ATS 的成長能夠持續下去。我們相信，這種成長，加上我們的客戶對工具的投資，將使我們在進入 24 世紀時實現高於行業的成長，正如我們在過去一年中再次以高於行業的成長所證明的那樣。

Okay. That's fair enough. Maybe just a quick follow-on on this general topic here. What kind of time frame for return on the investment in these tool sales do your customers expect or is kind of implicit in their program progress?

好的。這很公平。也許只是對這個一般主題的快速跟進。您的客戶期望什麼樣的時間框架來獲得這些工具銷售的投資回報，或隱含在他們的計畫進度中？

Yes. So as you kind of started out your question, you were referring to tools that came in, in '21, the $19 million. So think of a lot of the gains we're seeing now are resulting from the tools that were coming in, in '21. We had relatively low amounts in 2022. And then this year, it's beginning to pick up as we exit '23. So the tools come in. Obviously, they get installed, they get qualified, and then they start being used for development and ultimately prepared to go into production.

是的。因此，當您開始提出問題時，您指的是 21 年價值 1900 萬美元的工具。因此，想想我們現在看到的許多收益都是 21 年推出的工具帶來的。 2022 年我們的金額相對較低。今年，隨著我們退出 23 年，金額開始回升。所以工具就進來了。顯然，它們被安裝，獲得資格，然後開始用於開發並最終準備投入生產。

So think of it as a tool installed in '24 will begin to provide benefit in '25 and beyond. We have gotten very efficient with this process. And I think part of what we're doing is installing new tools to enable capabilities, and we have a very strong development team. And a lot of the work that we've talked about in the past of integrating ATS and Wafer Services holistically within a fab gives us great confidence that bringing these tools in next year will prepare us for the ramps that we're expecting in '25 and beyond. So tool investments in '24 should begin to pay dividends in '25.

因此，可以將其視為 24 年安裝的工具，並將在 25 年及以後開始提供好處。我們在這個過程中變得非常有效率。我認為我們正在做的部分工作是安裝新工具來啟用功能，並且我們擁有非常強大的開發團隊。我們過去討論過的在晶圓廠內全面整合 ATS 和晶圓服務的許多工作讓我們充滿信心，明年引入這些工具將為我們在 25 年的預期做好準備超越。因此，24 年的工具投資應該會在 25 年開始帶來紅利。

Just kind of thinking about your profile of revenues here, and I'm probably interested mostly in ATS, but if you want to talk about on the whole business excluding tool sales. But I think about your kind of your revenues in 2 buckets, your government and A&D programs versus commercial on the other side, I think from your comments today and past calls that the government and A&D side has been particularly strong. As you're looking forward to the next few quarters, how do you see that mix changing? Is it still going to be dominated in growth or mix going towards government A&D? Or is it going to be more balanced?

只是想想你在這裡的收入概況，我可能主要對 ATS 感興趣，但如果你想談論不包括工具銷售的整個業務。但我認為你的收入分為兩部分，你的政府和航空與發展項目與另一方的商業項目，我認為從你今天的評論和過去的呼籲來看，政府和航空與發展方面特別強大。當您期待接下來的幾個季度時，您如何看待這種組合的變化？它仍然會在成長中占主導地位，還是會轉向政府的農業與發展（A&D）？還是會變得更平衡？

Well, I think we've always talked about our long-term model is kind of 30% to 40% for A&D. Obviously, it's running much stronger than that. And we're taking advantage of that given where the industry is. It's become a great lever for us to use to not only bring in new capabilities but to address some of the softness in the commercial side of the business, and not just for us but for everyone. So I think that over time, getting it to that 40% level is the objective. But I think you're going to see it continue to run hot through next year. And of course, in '25, we do have our RadHard platform coming online, our Read Open IC, the focal plane array thermal imaging platforms. So these are initially tied to DoD programs.

嗯，我想我們一直在談論我們的長期模型是 A&D 佔 30% 到 40%。顯然，它的運作能力比這強得多。鑑於行業所處的位置，我們正在利用這一點。它已成為我們的一個重要槓桿，不僅可以引入新功能，還可以解決業務商業方面的一些弱點，不僅對我們而且對每個人都如此。所以我認為隨著時間的推移，達到 40% 的水平就是目標。但我認為你會看到它在明年繼續火爆。當然，在 25 年，我們的 RadHard 平台、我們的 Read Open IC、焦平面陣列熱成像平台上線了。因此，這些最初與國防部計劃有關。

So we believe that our goal is to maintain healthy levels of revenue coming from that customer base while growing the commercial base so that in the end, you get to that kind of 60-40 split between commercial and A&D. But it will take a couple more years to get that balanced.

因此，我們相信我們的目標是保持來自客戶群的健康收入水平，同時擴大商業基礎，以便最終實現商業和 A&D 之間的 60-40 比例。但要達到這種平衡還需要幾年的時間。

Okay. Fair enough. Appreciate that. And my last question, I'll jump on the line here. Just following up on the topic from last quarter, I think I had a lot of questions from investors regarding the consulting fees and what they're for. When do we start to see the benefit of that? And I think there were some comments you've made in the past, even today, about velocity through the fab as well as efficiencies. So maybe if you can tell us, to date, whether we've seen any real benefits from that and over what time period we should expect to see that? And then maybe if you can just quantify the future consulting fees you're expecting to incur here.

好的。很公平。感謝。我的最後一個問題，我會在這裡插話。繼續上個季度的話題，我想投資人對諮詢費及其用途提出了許多問題。我們什麼時候開始看到這樣做的好處？我認為您過去甚至今天也曾就晶圓廠的速度和效率發表過一些評論。那麼，也許您能告訴我們，到目前為止，我們是否從中看到了任何真正的好處，以及我們應該在多長時間內看到這一點？然後也許您可以量化您預計在這裡產生的未來諮詢費用。

Yes. So I'll start and Steve can talk about the fees. So I think you are seeing the benefit of a lot of these transformation investments that we're making. And I said this on the last call that instead of having to invest in new equipment, we're investing in business transformation because we believe the opportunities we have are really dictated by us perfecting this unique model that we're putting in place. And so not only higher ATS activities than we've ever had, faster wafer velocity, better balance of our Wafer Services business to allow us to consistently meet customer commitments, these are all attributes that are coming together as a result of the transformation activities.

是的。那我開始，史蒂夫可以談談費用。因此，我認為您已經看到了我們正在進行的許多轉型投資的好處。我在上次電話會議上說過，我們不必投資新設備，而是投資業務轉型，因為我們相信我們擁有的機會實際上取決於我們完善我們正在實施的獨特模式。因此，我們不僅有比以往更高的ATS 活動、更快的晶圓速度、更好的晶圓服務業務平衡，使我們能夠始終如一地履行客戶承諾，這些都是轉型活動所帶來的所有屬性。

And then with John Sakamoto coming onboard as our COO, he and his team are really institutionalizing these processes so that we believe, as we get end of the second half of this coming year, as I said in my comments, that we will no longer need the third-party support. So in aggregate, you're looking around a 5-quarter program to prepare us for what we believe will be continued growth as this decade unfolds but also recognizing that we are doing something very unique in the industry. We believe it's proprietary, and we want to take the softness in the industry at a macro level and use it as an opportunity to prepare for the upswing that we all know is coming and do it in a way where we can scale effectively and efficiently as we continue to grow this business model that we put in place.

然後，隨著約翰·坂本(John Sakamoto) 擔任我們的首席營運官，他和他的團隊真正將這些流程製度化，以便我們相信，正如我在評論中所說，當我們在今年下半年結束時，我們將不再需要第三方的支援。因此，總的來說，您正在研究一個為期5 季度的計劃，為我們相信隨著這十年的發展將持續增長做好準備，但同時也認識到我們正在做一些在行業中非常獨特的事情。我們相信它是專有的，我們希望在宏觀層面上抓住行業的疲軟狀態，並將其作為一個機會，為我們都知道即將到來的經濟復甦做好準備，並以一種我們能夠有效和高效地擴展的方式來做到這一點。我們繼續發展我們建立的這種商業模式。

Steve, do you want to add?

史蒂夫，你想補充嗎？

Yes. And Richard, you may have missed this in the opening remarks of the call, but Tom mentioned the program could go through the first half of 2024. So with that, I would expect a similar level of fees in the fourth quarter of this year as what we saw in the third quarter. I would then expect those fees to start tapering off as soon as the first quarter of 2024.

是的。理查德，您可能在電話會議的開場白中錯過了這一點，但湯姆提到該計劃可能會持續到 2024 年上半年。因此，我預計今年第四季度的費用水平與我們在第三季度看到的情況。我預計這些費用最快將於 2024 年第一季開始逐漸減少。

(Operator Instructions) And at this time, we have no further questions in the queue. I would like to turn the conference over to Thomas Sonderman for closing remarks.

（操作員說明） 此時，佇列中沒有其他問題。我想請托馬斯·桑德曼（Thomas Sonderman）致閉幕詞。

Thank you, operator. I want to close today's call by conveying the strong confidence all of us at SkyWater have in our ability to execute successfully towards our long-term growth and profitability objectives. Our amazing employees have now delivered consistent execution for several quarters. We intend to continue to build your confidence in our ability to execute on our future growth and profitability objectives as well.

謝謝你，接線生。在結束今天的電話會議時，我想轉達 SkyWater 全體人員對我們成功實現長期成長和獲利目標的能力的強烈信心。我們優秀的員工現在已經連續幾季保持了一致的執行力。我們打算繼續增強您對我們執行未來成長和獲利目標的能力的信心。

We look forward to talking to you again on our Q4 call in February. And with that, I'll conclude today's earnings call. Thank you very much.

我們期待在二月份的第四季電話會議上再次與您交談。我將結束今天的財報電話會議。非常感謝。

And again, that does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連線。