FormFactor Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
April 30, 2025

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

and welcome everyone to FormFactor's First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. On today's call are Chief Executive Officer, Mike Slescher and Chief Financial Officer, Shay Shahar. Before we begin, Stan Finkelstein, the company's VP of Investor Relations will remind you of some important information.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Today, the company will be discussing GAAP P and L results and some important non GAAP results intended to supplement your understanding of the company's financials. Reconciliations of GAAP to non GAAP measures and other financial information are available in the press release issued today by the company and on the Investor Relations section of our website. Today's discussion contains forward looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities Laws. Examples of such forward looking statements include those with respect to the projections of financial and business performance, future macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions, the benefits of acquisitions and investments, Anticipated industry trends Potential disruptions in our supply chain impacts of regulatory changes, including tariffs and changes in export controls The recent US China trade restrictions the anticipated demand for products our ability to develop, produce and sell products and the assumptions upon which such statements are based.

Speaker 1

These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed during this call. Information on risk factors and uncertainties is contained in our most recent filing on Form 10 ks with the SEC for the fiscal year ended 12/28/2024, and in our other SEC filings, which are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov and in our press release issued today. Forward looking statements are made as of today, 04/30/2025, and we assume no obligation to update them. With that, we will now turn the call over to FormFactor's CEO, Mike Slafer.

Speaker 2

Everyone for joining As expected, FormFactor's reported sequentially lower first quarter revenue and profitability due to anticipated reductions in demand for both DRAM probe cards and systems. In the current second quarter, we expect to deliver double digit sequential revenue growth with increases across all our major served markets and segments and corresponding increases in gross margin and earnings per share. This anticipated second quarter revenue growth is driven primarily by hyperscalers continued investments in generative AI, which is producing increased demand for high bandwidth memory DRAM probe cards and co package optics test systems, paired with moderate growth in foundry and logic probe cards for new chip designs in important high unit volume end markets, specifically PCs and mobile handsets. We see no indication that these second quarter demand increases are driven by tariff related acceleration of orders. If anything, our sequential growth outlook is tempered by the uncertainty created by the current tariff situation and Shai will provide estimates of both revenue and gross margin reductions from specific tariffs.

Speaker 2

As a reminder, we manufacture approximately 80% of our revenue in The United States and therefore face a direct cost impact from tariffs on goods we import from non US suppliers. In addition, when we ship our products to countries such as China that have tariffs supplied to goods that originate in The US, our US manufactured products now bear a higher cost for our customers. This is causing some customers to work with us to reevaluate their supply chains and cross border logistics processes. We're taking a wait and see approach as we evaluate various tariff scenarios before committing to any significant changes to our manufacturing footprint and supply chain. The notable exception is China, where recent tariff increases on top of escalating U.

Speaker 2

S. Export controls have driven a continued reduction in our revenue from that region. This further validates our proactive decision in 2023 to divest our China operations and to focus on other opportunities and regions. Now let's turn to market and segment level details. In DRAM probe cards, we experienced the expected first quarter reduction in revenue from the record level of the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2

This was due primarily to lower non HBM demand caused by further tightening of export controls, which limited our ability to ship probe cards for advanced O DRAM designs to China. In the current second quarter, we expect DRAM probe card revenue to return to record levels with sequential growth in HBM applications layered on top of steady demand in DDR5 and LPDDR5 applications. The strength in our HBM probe card demand is driven by three factors. One, continued shipments of probe cards for existing HBM3E designs running in high volume. Two, increasing shipments for new HBM4 designs, which as you've heard recently from our customers are being sampled and are expected to begin ramping in volume in the second half of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2

And three, a growing contribution from a second HBM probe card customer as we further diversify and grow our leadership position in HBM applications. HBM still comprises a small but growing portion of the total DRAM bits produced by our customers. However, because of their stacked die architecture with eight, twelve or even 16 individual DRAM die, HBM represents a much larger portion of the total silicon area and wafers produced. Further, because HBM has increased test intensity, expands the number of probe cards required for good die out and higher test complexity, which raises the performance requirements of each probe card, HBM represents a significant part of overall test and probe card spending by DRAM customers. A recent third party estimate placed HBM probe card intensity at almost 1%.

Speaker 2

That is customers are spending nearly 1% of their HBM revenues on probe cards, a probe card intensity double that of the broader semiconductor industry. We believe these increases in test intensity and test complexity will continue to produce both market share and profitability gains for FormFactor as HBM and advanced packaging continue to grow, driven by the accelerating adoption of generative AI. Shifting to the Foundry and Logic probe card market. Consistent with our outlook, first quarter demand in this market was essentially comparable to the fourth quarter. In the current second quarter, we're forecasting stronger Foundry and Logic demand driven by typical seasonal ramps of major mobile application processor designs and a family of client microprocessor designs.

Speaker 2

As with HBM and DRAM, advanced packaging continues to drive both higher test intensity and test complexity in the foundry and logic market with a variety of new and challenging technical requirements for testing high performance compute chips. Along with FormFactor's proprietary MEMS probes and high throughput automated assembly robots, a key enabling component for advanced foundry and logic probe cards is complex multilayer organic substrates. In the first quarter, together with MBK Partners, we completed the acquisition of FICT Limited, the world's leading supplier of these multilayer organic substrates. This acquisition solidifies FormFactor's access to this important enabling technology and does so in a more capital efficient, lower risk and faster way than either an outright acquisition or internal development have some of our competitors have chosen to pursue. Returning to tariffs for a moment.

Speaker 2

As I mentioned earlier, we have no specific indications that this sequentially stronger foundry and logic outlook is due to tariff related pull ins. And in fact, since probe cards have short lead times and are a device specific consumable specific to each individual customer chip design, it's unlikely that customers would run the risk of having excess probe card inventory across numerous chip designs only to mitigate a potential future tariff. Turning to our systems segment, the reduced first quarter revenue was consistent with our outlook and we now expect moderate sequential growth in the current quarter. System growth is driven by our customers rapid innovation in areas like quantum computing and high performance compute with development programs that require leading edge measurement systems like our CM300 lab probers and IQ3000 cryogenic probers. Co package optics or CPO using silicon photonics is one of the key drivers of the expected second quarter and longer term growth in the systems business.

Speaker 2

Several of our customers have recently announced the insertion of CPO into their product roadmaps to take advantage of its compelling power and speed advantages in data center applications. Our multi year collaboration with these customers has produced form factor systems, software, and optical probes that rapidly and accurately test the photonic IC or PIC chips that are the heart of the co package optics engine. This in turn has strengthened our leadership position in the silicon photonics lab space, where we have an installed base of over 100 systems worldwide. We are now extending that leadership to the production arena and in the second quarter plan to ship multiple systems to a single customer to support pilot production of the world's first high volume co package optics photonic integrated circuit. Although market estimates vary widely at this early stage of production and adoption, we expect CPO to be a significant mid term growth driver for form factor systems and probe card businesses.

Speaker 2

In closing, we continue to strengthen FormFactor's industry and competitive position, both through development of innovative and differentiated products and through partnerships with leaders like FICT, even as we deal with tariff headwinds. These internal and external initiatives are especially important and exciting as we meet the challenges of increased test intensity and higher test complexity associated with the adoption of advanced packaging in applications like high bandwidth memory and co package optics. Successful execution of these and other initiatives will allow us to achieve and then surpass our target model that delivers $2 of non GAAP earnings per share on $850,000,000 of revenue. Shay, over to you.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon. As you saw in our press release, Q1 revenues were $171,400,000 1 point 4 million dollars above the midpoint of our outlook range and non GAAP gross margin of 39.2% was near the high end of the range. This, together with OpEx slightly lower than the midpoint of the outlook, resulted in a non GAAP EPS of $0.23 at the high end of the outlook range. First quarter revenues decreased 9.6% from the fourth quarter and increased 1.6% year over year from our Q1 twenty twenty four revenues. ProbGuard segment revenues were 136,500,000 in the first quarter, a decrease of $13,800,000 or 9.2% from the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3

The decrease was driven by lower DRAM and Flash revenues, partially offset by higher Foundry and Logic revenues. Systems segment revenues were $34,800,000 in Q1, a $4,400,000 decrease from the fourth quarter and comprised 20.3% of total company revenues, down from 20.7% in the fourth quarter. Within the probe card segment, Q1 Foundry and Logic revenues were $85,000,000 a $2,000,000 or 2.4% increase from the fourth quarter. Foundry and Logic revenues increased to 49.8% of total company revenues compared to 44% in the fourth quarter. DRAM revenues were $48,900,000 in Q1, dollars '14 point '4 million or 22.8% lower than the record fourth quarter and decreased to 28.5% of total quarterly revenues as compared to 33.4% in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3

Within DRAM, HBM revenues decreased $3,000,000 from $32,000,000 in Q4 to $29,000,000 in the first quarter. Flash revenues of $2,400,000 in Q1 were down $1,300,000 from the fourth quarter and were 1.4% of total revenues in Q1 as compared to 1.9% in Q4. GAAP gross margin for the first quarter was 37.7% as compared to 38.8% in Q4. Cost of revenues included $2,600,000 of GAAP to non GAAP reconciling items, which we outlined in our press release issued today and in the reconciliation table available in the Investor Relations section of our website. On a non GAAP basis, gross margin for the first quarter was 39.2%, one percentage points lower than the 40.2% non GAAP gross margin in Q4 and 1.2 percentage points above the midpoint of our outlook range.

Speaker 3

The decrease as compared to Q4 is driven by lower non GAAP gross margins in the probe card segment. The increase as compared to the midpoint of our outlook range is attributable mostly to a more favorable product mix. Our probe card segment gross margin was 37.8% in the first quarter, a decrease of 2.2 percentage points compared to 40% in Q4. The decrease from Q4 was mainly a result of decreasing revenue. Our Q1 Systems segment gross margin was 44.5%, an increase of 3.7 percentage points compared to 40.8% gross margin in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3

The increase from Q4, despite the decrease in revenues, was mainly a result of a more favorable product mix and lower manufacturing spend. Our GAAP operating expenses were $61,300,000 for the first quarter as compared to $66,000,000 in the fourth quarter. Non GAAP operating expenses for the first quarter were $50,200,000 or 29.3% of revenue as compared with $55,200,000 or 29.1% of revenues in Q4. The $5,000,000 decrease relates mainly to lower performance based compensation and facility expenses, partially offset by higher costs from annual benefits reset at the beginning of the year. Company non cash expenses for the first quarter included $9,800,000 for stock based compensation, dollars 700,000.0 for the amortization of acquisition related intangibles, and depreciation of $8,200,000 all similar to the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3

GAAP operating income was 3,300,000 for Q1 as compared to the GAAP operating income of $7,900,000 in Q4. Non GAAP operating income for the first quarter was $16,900,000 compared with $20,900,000 in the fourth quarter, a decrease of $4,000,000 or 19.2%. This reduction in operating income is due to lower revenues, combined with lower gross margins, partially offset by the decrease in operating expenses. GAAP net income for the first quarter was $6,400,000 or $08 per fully diluted share compared with a GAAP net income of $9,700,000 or $0.12 per fully diluted share in the previous quarter. The non GAAP effective tax rate for the first quarter was 14.7%, similar to the fourth quarter and at the low end of the previously communicated range for the year of 14% to 18%.

Speaker 3

First quarter non GAAP net income was $18,000,000 or $0.23 per fully diluted share, down from $21,300,000 or $0.27 per fully diluted share in Q4. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow. We generated free cash flow of $6,300,000 in the first quarter compared to $28,800,000 in Q4. The main reasons for the decrease were operating cash flows that were 12,400,000 lower than in Q4, primarily driven by lower profitability and greater outflows for working capital of $8,200,000 and CapEx that was $10,900,000 higher than in Q4. We invested $18,600,000 in capital expenditures during the first quarter compared to $7,700,000 in Q4.

Speaker 3

We continue to expect CapEx of $35,000,000 to $45,000,000 in 2025 and as Mike mentioned, we are evaluating our capital investment plans in light of the evolving geopolitical and tariff environment. At quarter end, total cash and investments were $3.00 $2,000,000 a decrease of $64,000,000 from Q4. The main reasons for the decrease were the $67,000,000 paid for the investment in FICT, partially offset by free cash flows of $6,300,000 and cash received from the issuance of common stock in the amount of $21,600,000 including the $15,000,000 received from issuance of 335,000 shares to Advantest. At the end of the first quarter, we had one term loan with a balance totaling $13,000,000 Regarding stock buyback, during the first quarter, we used $22,100,000 to repurchase shares, utilizing the remaining funds under the existing buyback program. We fully utilized this two year plan approximately seven months ahead of its expiration date and our Board of Directors approved a new two year seventy five million dollars share repurchase program.

Speaker 3

The main purpose of our share repurchase program continues to be offset dilution from sublease compensation. Turning to the second quarter non GAAP outlook. We expect a significant increase in revenues in Q2 to one hundred and ninety million dollars plus or minus $5,000,000 with an increase in all major markets we serve, most notably in HBM DRAM and Foundry and Logic. This increase in revenues is expected to result in a higher non GAAP gross margin of 40%, plus or minus 150 basis points. At the midpoint of these outlook ranges, we expect Q2 operating expenses to be $52,000,000 plus or minus $2,000,000 approximately $2,000,000 higher than in Q1, mainly due to higher performance based compensation.

Speaker 3

Non GAAP earnings per fully diluted share for Q2 is expected to be $0.30 plus or minus $04 This Q2 outlook includes an estimated mid single digit million dollar reduction in revenues and a one percentage point reduction in gross margins due to the impact of tariffs. A reconciliation of our GAAP to non GAAP Q2 outlook is available on the Investor Relations section of our website and in our press release issued today. With that, let's open the call for questions. Operator?

Operator

Certainly. And our first question for today comes from the line of Charles Hsieh from Needham and Company. Your question please.

Speaker 4

Hey, good afternoon, Mike and Shai. Thanks for taking my questions. Think I want to start with the tariffs since it's very topical. Shay, if I hear you correctly, I think that you are not just assuming some reduction in the gross margin because of tariff impact, but did I hear you that you are also baking in some revenue reduction because of tariffs? And if that's the case, can you walk us through how you come up with the quantification we just provided?

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Of course, yes. I do confirm that what I said in the prepared remarks is that we estimate mid single digit million dollar reduction in revenues. And it comes to how we come up with this number. So, it's obviously a very dynamic and uncertain situation. And the estimated, and I think estimated is a key word here, the estimated mid single million dollar reduction across the overall revenue outlook is not tied to specific customers.

Speaker 3

But a good example would be China, right? Where most of the estimated reduction relates to multinational customers operating outside of the free trade zone and are subject to the current tariffs. We are working closely with our customers and actually with our vendors as well on different scenarios on a case by case basis. But as we said in the prepared remarks, we are taking, at least for now, a wait and see approach as we evaluate various tariff scenarios before we commit to any significant changes to our manufacturing footprint or supply chain.

Speaker 4

Got it. Thanks. Other part, definitely both Shai, both you and Mike talked about margin impact because there are, I mean, input manufacturing input actually coming outside of The US while manufacturing is very, very concentrated in The US. So wonder, can you provide a little bit more color or give us some examples of what are some input materials you're seeing today, maybe subject to tariffs and give us some sense because we know that there's a ninety day pause as well, right? I mean, excluding China, should we expect to see more of the gross margin reduction after the ninety days?

Speaker 4

That's the second part of this question. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Right. So on the COGS side, as most of our manufacturers in The U. S, about 80%, as Mike mentioned, Import of supplies, things like subcomponents that we import from Japan and from Germany, these will be subject to the import tariffs. And that's why we estimated the impact on the gross margin in Q2 to be a negative one percentage point. I think going forward, as we said, it's, you know, wait and see.

Speaker 3

It is a dynamic and uncertain situation and we monitor it closely.

Speaker 4

All right. Thank you so much. I think I'll limit myself to two questions. You.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Craig Ellis from B. Riley Securities. Your question please.

Speaker 5

Yes, thanks for taking the question and congratulations on the businesses growth sequentially, Mike. I wanted to start by just talking about some of the key customer dynamics. So your former number one customer, now number two, popped back up to 12% of sales in the quarter. Can you help us understand given their commentary around product mix moving back to N minus one and N minus two, but with them pushing on 18A and even running some wafers on 14A, What's happening with that customer and how confident you are in what is in the first quarter at least a bit of an uptick in their business?

Speaker 2

Yep. So a good question, Craig. As you noted, this customer did return to our 10% customer list in the first quarter after not being there in the fourth quarter for the first time in a very, very long time. I think a couple of things. First of all, we do see increased activity in the client PC space as they ramp a new set of designs, really to try and regain their competitive position in one of their most

Speaker 2

And I think thematically, even as they go through a very significant turnaround, one of their stated objectives is to regain process and product leadership in their served markets. To do that, they're going to have to invest, right? And investing in leading edge capital equipment, leading edge test equipment and leading edge consumables like those provided by FormFactor, I think has got to be a key part of that. And so we are, if you sort of read between the lines of our commentary on the increase in Q2, we do expect some continued strong activity there coming off what was a nice recovery in Q1. More broadly, think though, you know, if you look at where we've taken the company over the last several years, one of the key drivers for our business now is HBM and the investments in generative AI, you know, things like co package optics.

Speaker 2

And I think that represents a pretty significant transformation away from the very high indexing and concentration we had to client PC in the past. It's all part of the diversification strategy that we've been running for the past close to a decade. But I think indicative again, we're gonna compete as hard as we can for the client PC business across multiple customers, but we've also kind of transformed our revenue drivers to make sure we're exposed to trends like generative AI and HBM and CPF.

Speaker 5

That's helpful. Then the follow-up question is more on the DRAM business. So it seems quite notable that despite the BIS restrictions on China and what that did, the revenue sequentially were back at records in the second quarter. Can you help us understand what the mix would be between HBM and non HBM revenue in 2Q that you factored into guidance? And then as we think about the trend line for DRAM intermediate term, it seems like the magnitude of growth might mean that you're now number one customer could approach 30% of sales in 2Q or if not soon thereafter.

Speaker 5

Can you just talk about how we think about the path to low to mid 40% gross margins given how high DRAM mix is indexing? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yeah. I'll talk to the customer dynamic and then pass it over to Shay for the for the gross margin analysis. But if if you listen closely to the comments we made prior, on this call, really all the growth in DRAM is coming from HVM. We see the non HVM, so DDR five, low power DDR five, a little bit of residual DDR four continuing to be pretty steady, but flat at around 20,000,000 a quarter, which historically for form factor is a cyclical low for the commodity DRAM business. So really all the sequential growth Q1 to Q2 that we're projecting is due to HBM growth.

Speaker 2

And I enumerated a couple of factors for that. One is continued strength in HBM3. Second is an acceleration of HBM4 that I think you've heard from all of our customers quite recently and their customers as well. And then us continuing to round out our customer profile and revenue contributions. We have revenue contributions from all three HBM manufacturers, but we're beginning to see at least our second HBM customer start to drive a more significant contribution.

Speaker 2

Shay, you want to discuss gross margin?

Speaker 3

Of course. So first I would emphasize that we are committed to the target model, including the 47% gross margin at $850,000,000 of annual revenue run rate. However, we are currently delivering revenues with a very different mix than when we put our target model in place. There are a few things that we are doing now, we are working on together with the things that need to happen in the market for us to achieve the target model gross margin. When it comes to revenue, we need the overall end markets to recover, since we need a higher volume to achieve our model.

Speaker 3

And we're also targeting a higher market share in the higher margin Foundry and Logic market. On improving the cost side, we're developing a lower cost DRAM architecture as an example. We also have a few internal initiatives like organization consolidation that we did last year, things like lean manufacturing, automation, all target gross margin improvements and all of this together will get us to the target model gross margin of 47%. Actually, if you go back a year ago, and I know that it seems like a long time now, but on the second quarter of twenty twenty four, with revenues of approximately $200,000,000 gross margin was higher than 45%. That was a good validation point for us on our ability to make progress towards the target model.

Speaker 5

Thank you, guys.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Rick.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Tom Diffely from D. A. Davidson. Your question please.

Operator

Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Mike, curious, when you look at

Speaker 7

the second half of the year and we look at the high bandwidth memory growth, can you prioritize or rank the continuation of high bandwidth memory three versus the growth coming from moving to four versus the growth coming from a new customer there?

Speaker 2

Yeah. So as we move through 2025, and I'll I'll preface this with, you know, the comment that even in normal times, our visibility in this business is very limited. Remember, have lead times well within a quarter. So we're operating with short lead times and limited visibility even in normal times and these are decidedly not normal times. What I would say about the mix of HBM3, which is primarily 3E at this point for us, transitioning to HBM four, we expect that crossover to happen sometime probably late in the second half of twenty twenty five based on the different elements that we're seeing from customer forecasts, customer qualifications, and our conversations with our key customers.

Speaker 2

I do think based on what we see in terms of volume and market positions of our customers in HBM, we would continue to see a pretty strong contribution from the leader in HBM, even as the transition goes from three to four. They seem to have a pretty strong position as HBM four begins to be sampled. But we're also excited about adding significant revenue contributions from a second HBM customer. And of course we've got smaller but significant revenue contributions from the third major manufacturer as well. But I'd say the real driver is going to be continued 3E volumes and with a transition and a crossover to 4E sometime late in the year.

Speaker 7

And is there a revenue or margin difference between 3E and 4E for you?

Speaker 2

I wouldn't say a significant one. HBM generally has better margins than a standard commodity DRAM because of the increased test complexity. Things like higher speeds. There is a move to higher speed going from three e to four that may drive a bit of an uplift, but I wouldn't consider it to be something that pushes HBM probe cards up into the foundry and logic margin space, for example.

Speaker 7

Okay. And then as a follow-up, Shay, when you look at revenues in the first quarter and let's say they were at the $212 level, would you have hit your $2 of earnings or do you need a different mix or more cost reduction programs to get there?

Speaker 3

Yes, it's similar to my answer that I gave to Craig a few minutes ago, right? Even at higher volumes, we need better mix and there are still internal programs we are still working on to get this improvement.

Speaker 7

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thanks. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Krish Sankar from TD Cowen. Your question please.

Speaker 6

Hey guys, this is Eddie for Krish. Maybe just a clarification about the tariffs. Correct me if I'm wrong, you mentioned one point margin impact on the cost side for Q2. How should we think about the worst case scenario for like September margin impact from the tariffs, just assuming like things don't change into September?

Speaker 3

I think it's too early to say that, right? This is a very dynamic and uncertain situation. You can try to extrapolate that 1% into the future. But at this point, I think it's, you know, wait and see before making speculations.

Speaker 6

Okay. Noted. And a question on the HPM side. I mean, one of your main customers, like, they're opening up a big fab and it will be operational later this year. I wonder, like, historically when these customers like open up new fabs, do you see like increase in HPM probe card demand or is it really unrelated because customers can move their components from one fab to the other?

Speaker 2

I think where a new fab is related to additional output and additional capacity, that will drive new probe card demand. If it's replacement capacity and if it's the situation I'm thinking about, it's not replacement capacity, it's additional capacity, that drives incremental demand for probe cards because the existing fabs are still running the old designs, still using and utilizing those probe cards. Now, one of the key factors in this is timing. And typically it takes a few quarters for a new fab to become operational and ramp and that's a best case. That's what some of the most operationally aggressive and efficient customers in the world.

Speaker 2

So just because a new fab opens its doors and starts taking delivery of equipment, it's usually two to three quarters before you see significant probe card demand associated with the wafers being output from that fab.

Speaker 6

Okay. Well, thank you, Mike.

Operator

Alright. Thanks, Nick. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Christian Schwab from Craig Hallum Capital. Your question please.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I know it's very early and visibility is limited, but is customer dialogue as it relates to your foundry and logic business assuming that we do see an uptake in demand for PCs in the second half, given end of life of Windows 10, no one talks about it anymore with all the tariff discussion. But is you know, would we expect Foundry and Logic to return to, you know, a hundred plus million type of revenue in the back half of the year? Is that fair?

Speaker 2

Well, I I think if you factor everything together, you know, on the last call, I reminded you, I'll remind you that we did say we expected 2025 to be a growth year and some of that was gonna have to be driven by, you know, mid year, second half foundry and logic growth through some of these large consumer markets. I think the whole tariff and geopolitical situation has obviously thrown at least a shadow of doubt on top of that. But I think if you take that aside and assume there's gonna be some sort of rational outcome to what's going on with tariffs right now and that the consumer continues to spend and there is this PC refresh cycle, I think your assumption is very, very valid. There's just a lot of ifs in that scenario as we look right now at some of the headwinds mostly due to tariffs and, US trade policy and a variety of reactions to US trade policy as we operate in this business.

Speaker 8

Great. Great. Thank you. And then my my second question, given the recent investment with Advantis, is there any update on anything on working together or thinking about markets together that make you more positive about the future short, medium, or long term?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Well, I think the, you know, the Advantest investment in form factor, and to be completely transparent, was simultaneous with some investment in one of our competitors. This is really a statement of at least Advantest commitment to the open ecosystem where any probe card, at least any leading probe card works with any tester. Know, Teradyne, the other major ATE manufacturer, although they have not made an investment in it, there's very close collaboration with them as well. And I think as we move forward here, you know, part of the things that have us optimistic about the growth of the business, things like advanced packaging and the adoption in both places like HBM, but also in the GPU space, it's driving a tremendous increase in complexity and a need for all of us as collaborators in building test systems to work closely together to make sure we're meeting this accelerated high performance compute roadmap.

Speaker 2

So I think it's a rational response that we're all working closely together, collaborating closely, and making sure that our R and D teams are very well aligned and interlocked in what we have to deliver to support each other's roadmaps. I think the exciting part of it is, when you lead in businesses like this and the technical complexity and speed is getting higher, the speed of innovation is getting higher, that really does create a significant competitive advantage and barriers for anybody else to answer.

Speaker 8

Great. No other questions. Congrats on a good quarter and guide.

Speaker 2

Thanks Christian.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Dooley from Steelhead Securities. Your question please.

Speaker 7

Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I was wondering as far as the major GPU manufacturer, I think they've started to use advanced probe cards. Where are we on the qualification with that customer? And then you keep mentioning co package optics.

Speaker 7

I'm wondering, that the insertion point for you guys with this customer or is that a separate kind of opportunity? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So David, that customer has multiple opportunities, both current and future for us. We've updated people in the past that we have a strong position in their switch business. The co package optics opportunity has largely been in the lab space, but as we devoted some significant time on this call to updating you, we see this transitioning very rapidly into the production space. And if you go look at what these customers have said, what this customer in particular has said about CPO co package optics insertion in the roadmap, I think it's pretty easy to connect those dots.

Speaker 2

On advanced probe cards for GPUs, we're addressing that opportunity through a qualification primarily at their foundry. And that qualification is going well. We've got cards there that are being evaluated. We think we've got a compelling technical solution. This is a new technology, a new product for us.

Speaker 2

We've got a compelling technical solution to go compete for that business. And I hope we'll be able to update you positively in the second half of the year. But we already have a pretty significant, relationship with that customer in both the switch and co package optic space and are now making some progress in pushing into the core GPU space.

Speaker 7

So it's kind of a three headed opportunity there.

Speaker 6

Yep.

Speaker 2

Yep. As with many of these customers, you know, the opportunities are multifaceted. These are big companies with broad product lines. It goes to the fundamental strategy, the form factor has driven of trying to lead in these related markets where we have fundamental technology competencies and product competencies and can offer a broad suite of products to help these customers with their test and measurement needs.

Speaker 7

Okay. And then one of the major OSATs reported last night and has talked about making a huge investment in test. And I think talked about similar to the things that you've talked about higher intensity for both probe and test. But they went out of their way to highlight how they think there's going to be more test insertions. And I'm just kind of wondering, and this is involving advanced packages, both GPUs and high bandwidth memory.

Speaker 7

I'm just kinda wondering from your perspective, you've talked about an intensity level for these advanced packages. I think it's 25% to 35% higher. Would you expect that percentage to get higher going forward? Or if there were more test insertions, would that equate to more probe cards sold? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah. Certainly, there's a good linkage or correlation between the number of test insertions and probe cards sold. And I'll take you back to the HBM example because it's one I think that most people have a pretty good understanding of. As you're building an HBM product, it's a stack of eight, twelve, even 16 die compared to a commodity DRAM that's a single die.

Speaker 2

Each one of those 16 die that's stacked up needs to be tested. So you've got in theory, 16 times the test insertions that you otherwise would have. Now there's offsets to that, right? There's not the bit count in each and therefore the test time in each of the stack DRAM. But it gives you an indication of the increase in test intensity driven by this die disaggregation or chiplet architecture.

Speaker 2

Each of the chiplets or die going into these advanced packaging stacks, whether it be HBM, whether it be GPUs, whether it be client processors, they all need to be very close to known good. Otherwise you end up with a scenario where a single die can essentially cause a scrap event for all the other die in the stack. And that's, there's no question that's driving increased test intensity.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question is a follow-up from the line of Craig Ellis from B. Riley Securities. Your question, please.

Speaker 5

Hey, thanks for taking the follow-up question. Mike, I wanted to go back to some of the commentary you've had on CPO and it's benefiting the systems business now. You indicated it has the potential to benefit the probe card business. I don't recall your mentioning that before. The question is relative to an application that's very probe card intensive like the HBM examples you just provided to David and others that are much less probe card intensive, whether it's more of the commodity DRAM, other memory types, etcetera.

Speaker 5

Where do you expect CPO to fall out? And how broad is your engagement in CPO? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah. Let me start with the the second question first. I mean, our engagement in CPO, we we run the same strategy there or have run the same strategy there that we've run across most of our businesses where we partner very closely with a handful of customers, and make sure that we're serving their needs. And then we fan out to the rest of industry.

Speaker 2

And we see that broadening right now. I think it's fair to say we're a recognized leader in the lab space in silicon photonics and co package optics. That's now extending to this early production. If we go back to the impact on probe cards, we have brought it up a couple of times before, but we're early enough in the production ramp and optimization of this where the different test insertions and the requirements for those test insertions are still really being optimized between us and our customers. I think there'll definitely be an electrical component and an optical component.

Speaker 2

And one of the reasons why we're so excited about CPO is that it brings these two things together where we have fundamental expertise and a leadership position in the lab space, as well as in the production space with production probe cards. So the fusing of electrical and optical test is something where we think there's a big opportunity in front of us. A little hard to size and estimate right now in these early days, but I think you can stitch together sort of the fundamental strengths of FormFactor with the customer needs they're going to have as they try and ramp these devices.

Speaker 5

That's helpful. Thanks, Mike.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Greg.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Chin from Stifel. Your question, please.

Speaker 9

Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for letting us ask a few questions. I don't foresee this, Mike, being a multiyear trend, but Intel is seeing a surprising resurgence in shipments of an older platform in Raptor Lake. There's a higher concentration of mono CPUs versus sort of chiplet CPUs built for PCs this year, does that have a little bit of a dampening effect on the company's maybe revenue potential or trajectory this year?

Speaker 2

Well, let me address it maybe more generally. An older design like that, it would be my expectation that any customer would have already bought all the probe cards they need to test that device. Probe card spending usually very, very intensive in the early part of a ramp when yields are low and die outputs are peaking. And so my anticipation or estimation in a situation like that would be a customer probably pulls the probe cards they need off the shelf to test those older devices. There may be a little bit of follow on, but you can see from that dynamic, if there was a giant mix shift away from new designs and the leading edge back towards ones that where customers are reusing the tooling and probe cards, that would have a significant impact on our business and the overall probe card spend.

Speaker 9

Okay. No. That's helpful. And then maybe just shifting to memory. Just firstly, and I apologize if I missed sort of this couching of it, but within sort of the evolution of your product mix from 3E and then towards four and maybe in the latter part of the year, it's still your expectation that HBM revenue is up year to year?

Speaker 9

And then secondly, kind of more under what you can control and maybe for Shay, are you still on track to ship and sample some of those more cost competitive non HBM DDR5 probe cards this year? And how's that sort of adoption and potential going for next year?

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think we do expect on the current trajectory, HBM to grow year on year. And I think consistent with our customers' expectations for their HBM growth and the transition to new designs like HBM4 and higher stacks of HBM3. So we do expect it to grow. I'll continue on with the new DRAM architecture. We shared with you last time that we're developing and releasing a new lower cost DRAM architecture for the non HBM commodity market and we've shipped, I'll call it pilot volumes to our beta customer associated with that and that program's going well.

Speaker 9

Okay, great. Thanks Mike.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of David Silver from CL King and Associates. Your question please.

Speaker 10

Yeah, hi, thank you. I had a question maybe about your systems sales. Mike, in the past you've talked about how well, on the one hand you say you have very low visibility for the timing of near term orders, I guess. But the system sales do kind of tell a different tale, I guess, looking out a little bit further beyond that. So I guess from a lab to fab perspective.

Speaker 10

But what do the demand for your systems products right now tell you both, I guess, in quantity, but also maybe the the types of machines that seem to be most in demand?

Speaker 2

Yeah. Well well, in our comments on visibility, there's varying degrees of visibility. Right? Because a lot of our products, certainly for probe cards are highly customized and specific to an individual customer chip design. A set of probe cards only works for a single chip design.

Speaker 2

The visibility associated with that essentially tracks our customers prediction of what wafers are going to start when. And typically that foreshadowing, that forecasting is not very good. When we think about longer term visibility as to perhaps not volumes associated with individual designs, but broader trends in the industry, which is what I think you're kind of alluding to in the systems business, the visibility gets quite a bit better. Now that doesn't mean we know shifting to the systems business that we're going to ship 20 systems or 10 systems associated with co package optics, but we know we're going to ship some systems associated with co package optics because we've been working very closely with these driver customers and we understand their ramp timing. The quantities and therefore the business volume that drives fundamental production visibility for us is the part that continues to be pretty elusive.

Speaker 2

And I would expect it to to stay elusive in an environment where the industry continues to innovate extremely rapidly and go through very, very, very quick ramps of new products.

Speaker 10

Okay, great. And then I apologize in advance, did have unfortunately, I was dropped off the call for a little bit, I apologize if I'm making you repeat yourself. But in your prepared remarks, you did talk about the FICT relationship and its the effects of tariffs potentially on the products that you purchased there. Could you just remind me or tell me, does FICT have any alternate production points or are they solely based in Japan as far as the tariff relationships go? Is there any flexibility from utilizing assets or production sites in other geographies?

Speaker 10

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Well, I think I'll answer that question a little bit differently. So Shai's commentary on some of the gross margin pressure associated with imports from Japan is much more general than just FICT. You know, we have a lot of suppliers arrayed worldwide. And although there's been a ninety day pause on the big headline tariffs, if you followed closely, you know there were some small incremental ones that were put in place. And that's behind the one point gross margin headwind that we talked about in our Q2 outlook.

Speaker 2

I'd say the more exciting thing about the FICT partnership and the closing is the access it gives us to a pretty unique technology. They are, their manufacturing footprint is in Japan, but a very specialized technology that years ago was spun out of Fujitsu. And we're very happy to be partnered with MBK Partners as shareholder. I'm a board member at FICT and a closer coupling now between FormFactor and FICT. But I disassociate that a little bit from tariffs.

Speaker 2

We were talking more broadly about supplies we import from Japan, which go far beyond the business with FICT.

Speaker 10

Sure. Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3

Thanks,

Operator

David. This does conclude the question and answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Mike Slasher for any further remarks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, everybody. Over the next, month to six weeks or so, we've got, several conference appearances where we hope to be able to continue to update you on the business. Hopefully, we'll have more clarity on tariffs and how we're responding. So we hope to see you then. If we don't see you then, we'll see you when we announce second quarter results.

Speaker 2

Take care.

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.

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Earnings Conference Call
FormFactor Q1 2025
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