Kulicke and Soffa Industries Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 7, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Discontinuation of EA Equipment business: The company is winding down its electronics assembly equipment segment, taking approximately $86.6 M in charges with an additional sub-$15 M expected, to refocus on higher-growth packaging technologies.
  • Strategic shift toward advanced packaging: Management will prioritize ball-and-wedge bonding, thermal compression, advanced dispense and APS businesses, citing technology leadership and long-term margin expansion potential.
  • Q3 guidance below Q2 due to tariff-driven caution: Revenue outlook of $145 M ± $10 M (vs. $162 M in Q2) reflects customer hesitancy—particularly in Southeast Asia auto/industrial—despite rising utilization in China and Taiwan.
  • Margin rebound expected: After Q2 gross margin of 24.9% (including EA charges), Q3 margins are forecast at 46.5%, driven by reduced restructuring costs and a higher-value product mix.
  • Share repurchases ramping up: A newly authorized $300 M buyback program saw over 500 k shares repurchased for $21.3 M in Q2, underscoring confidence in the company’s cash flow and outlook.
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Earnings Conference Call
Kulicke and Soffa Industries Q2 2025
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Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Kulicke & Soffa 2025 second quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Joe Elgindy, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Joe Elgindy
Senior Director of Investor Relations at Kulicke & Soffa

Thank you. Welcome, everyone, to Kulicke & Soffa's fiscal second quarter 2025 conference call. Fusen Chen, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Lester Wong, Chief Financial Officer, are also joining on today's call. Non-GAAP financial measures referenced today should be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for, or in isolation from, our GAAP financial information. GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation tables are included within our latest earnings release and earnings presentation. Both are available at investor.kns.com, along with prepared remarks for today's call. In addition to historical statements, today's remarks will contain statements relating to future events and our future results. These statements are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results and financial condition to differ materially from the statements made today.

Joe Elgindy
Senior Director of Investor Relations at Kulicke & Soffa

For a complete discussion of the risks associated with Kulicke & Soffa that could affect our future results and financial condition, please refer to our recent and upcoming SEC filings, specifically our latest Form 10-K, as well as the 8-K filed last night. With that said, I would now like to turn the call over to Fusen Chen for the business overview. Please go ahead, Fusen.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Good morning, everyone. Last month, we announced the intent to discontinue the electronics assembly, or EA equipment, business subject to local regulatory approval. We acquired this business in 2015, and it is currently a component within the all-other category. We intend to fully support and serve our customers with equipment purchase requirements over the coming quarters. We will also continue to retain EA equipment technology as well as the related aftermarket parts and the service business to support the existing install base and our customers' operational needs. We believe this decision, though difficult, was critically essential to ensure our underlying businesses are competitive and are properly aligned with beneficial long-term technology trends. Looking ahead, we intend to prioritize development and further leverage our dominant Ball, Wedge, and Thermo-Compression position, where we have demonstrated clear technology leadership to address fundamental assembly transition within high-volume, leading-edge, and power semiconductor markets.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Additionally, our APS business, which provides revenue consistency, as well as our emerging Advanced Dispense portfolio, extends our technology leadership and provides additional growth paths through our list evolving core market opportunities. This restructuring effort is also intended to enhance our long-term financial with anticipated improvement in both margin and through cycle improvement. At a macro level, the ongoing trade situation has increased level of uncertainty through our global market and supply chains. This level of macro and industry uncertainty has created hesitation and a more defensive capacity plan approach throughout our supermarket. Sequentially, this hesitation was most evident in the Southeast Asia automotive and industrial market, which had the effect of limiting the seasonal momentum previously anticipated for the June quarter. Interestingly, over the same period, we saw inhalation improvement in other Asia regions.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

While we are not immune from this macro near-term dynamic, semiconductor unit growth, as well as the increased complexity of semiconductor packaging, are expected to expand our surf market. We remain confident in the industry's resilience and also remain confident that our global business, supply chain, and development paths are best optimized as we look ahead. Over the near term, we intend to further strengthen our growth prospect with a focus on Vertical Wire, Power Semiconductor, Advanced Dispense, and Thermo-Compression, which I will discuss in more detail shortly. During the March quarter, the general semiconductor end market, supported by improving ball bonding utilization rate, experienced a 38% sequential increase due to improved demand for ball, wedge, and TCB stemming from U.S. and China.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

In view of the change surrounding the EA equipment business, we decided it was appropriate to simplify our end market disclosure and consolidate LED within automotive and industrial starting in the current quarter as well as within comparable period. This change is aligned with the external semiconductor marketing forecast, where LED is generally a subcomponent of the industry market. We saw that automotive and industrial was sequentially down in the March quarter over the December quarter, largely due to the final Project W related LED sales, which were recognized in the December quarter. Automotive and industrial excluding LED was down approximately 7% sequentially, but was still up nearly 14% from the same period last year due to ongoing demand improvement of our Asterion and Power-C solutions. Within memory, software NAND system demand was the primary driver for our sequential reduction in the March quarter.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Today, our current memory exposure is centered on NAND, but we remain focused to diversify into dynamic memory through the fundamental advanced packaging transition effecting HBM for leading-edge memory and also driving momentum for our emerging vertical wire solution for high-volume memory. Finally, within APS, we continue to enjoy a relatively stable base of parts, service, and support revenue through this dynamic market environment. While there may be some fluctuation over the coming months, we anticipate overall install base and the inhalation trend will continue to improve, supporting a relatively stable level of APS revenue. At this point, we anticipate the majority of our business has gone through a long-term period of capacity digestion and remained very well positioned for the next set of Ball, Wedge, Advanced Dispense, and Thermo-Compression opportunities.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Within Ball Bonding, our ongoing test of customer engagement, as well as new product development, remain on track with our Vertical Wire solution, which continues to gain momentum. Last month, we officially announced the launch of our latest Wafer-Level-Packaging solution, ATPremier MEM Plus, which is specially optimized for stacked DRAM opportunity. This high-potential new memory packaging approach is driving significant interest with leading customers, some of which are accelerating their transition and may initiate new stacked DRAM production by 2026. Additionally, this Vertical Wire capability is also compatible with non-memory fan-out devices, which support high-volume general semiconductor applications. As explained on prior calls, similar to leading-edge applications, cost-sensitive wire bonding applications are also aggressively demanding new transistor-dense packaging solutions, and our Vertical Wire technology is very well positioned to effectively address both high-volume logic and memory transition.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

In addition to Vertical Wire, the pace of our Ball Bonding development initiative remains on track. We continue to prepare for new solutions to this high-volume market over the coming quarters. Next, within Wedge Bonding, the power semiconductor opportunity continues to demand higher current, higher reliability, and higher efficiency devices. A few years ago, this power semiconductor application was some of the most cost-sensitive and competitive semiconductor assembly market. The growth in electric vehicles and sustainable energy has caused this basic power control application to become increasingly complex, requiring better materials, more robust interconnects, and more advanced equipment. In April, we proudly announced the launch of our newest Sonotrode-enabled pin welding system for power semiconductor application. This new system, which leverages our leading Asterion platform, extends our market reach while intentionally aligning with the growing and evolving global demand for electric vehicles and sustainable energy.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

The use of a pin within this market is rapidly growing, which supports better inductance and better flexibility as they improve power monitoring and sensing to support higher efficiency applications. Additionally, within this emerging high-performance power module market, there is an increase in new semiconductor materials such as silicon carbide, but also an increase in the use of copper materials and interconnects. Copper interconnects are a core competency for K&S, which we intend to fully leverage as this long-term market evolution continues. Next, within the advanced dispense business, we continue to build out our portfolio of solutions as well as our customer-facing engagement. We continue to grow our customer base and recently received an order from a high-volume U.S.-based integrated devices manufacturer. Additionally, our recently qualified solid-state battery opportunity has been performing well, and we anticipate a potential production run to begin over the coming quarters.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Over the coming years, we are also focused to expand our Advanced Dispense market presence. This effort will combine our unique dispense capability with our existing market-leading core system technology. Turning to Thermo-Compression, our advanced solution team continues to actively support logic and memory customers in production and development. We remain well positioned and are continuing to take shares in advanced logic applications as the market transition to next generation chip-on-wafer and also wafer-on-substrate applications. Larger and more complex multi-chip processors for data centers and AI applications are expected to drive the next wave of leading-edge customer capacity. We have worked very closely with many customers over the recent years and remain well positioned for leading-edge, but also higher-volume opportunities as mobility devices begin transitioning to chip-based and heterogeneous applications.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Finally, for TCB memory, we continue to anticipate our unique flexible solution, which provides direct copper, zero die gap, and ultra-fine pitch capability, which will be a key contender for future HBM opportunities. Building on traction from the prior quarters, we expect to ship additional tools to our leading memory customers toward the end of the fiscal year. As a reminder, our innovation in Thermo-Compression and Vertical Wire has unlocked new market access to logic and memory opportunity, which our company was previously excluded from. Today, as we take the next step to transition single die semiconductor package to multi-die and heterogeneous chip-based packaging format, thermal compression has rapidly become the incumbent technology for high-performance applications. While our Vertical Wire solutions are increasingly well positioned to address a wide portion of the high-volume market over the long term.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

As a reminder, we remain the only flexible TCB supplier who has been qualified for high-volume manufacturing with some of the world's most advanced semiconductor companies, and we are nearly fully booked for fiscal 2025. More broadly, we have nearly 120 systems installed base across 10 different highly engaged customers. This helped to demonstrate our trailbreaker for winning, as this install base captures a wider portion of the market than any of our competitors have been able to address. In closing, we have worked hard to ensure our business is best aligned with critical technology change such as vertical wire in memory, TCB in leading-edge logic, and our increasingly capable assembly solution in power semiconductors. Additionally, our growing Advanced Dispense portfolio of solutions increases our potential across all of these long-term technology transitions.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

While recent core market evaluation rates are promising, we remain in an unprecedented state of macro uncertainty, although we remain confident in our technology and market positions, and are prepared to overcome near-term challenges. At this point, our core structures, existing product portfolio, and through cycle performance are optimized, and we will continue to enable fundamental technology change throughout our surf market. As we have done for seven decades, we will continue to closely support our customers and emerge a stronger, more profitable, and more growth-centric company. I will now turn the call over to Lester to cover the financial overview. Lester?

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Thank you, Fusen. My remarks today will refer to GAAP results unless noted. I would first like to provide some additional details regarding our intent to discontinue the EA equipment business.

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

As Fusen explained, this was a difficult but necessary step to ensure our overall business remained competitive, aligned with long-term technology trends, and it is optimized for through cycle performance. We remain closely engaged with all key stakeholders as we plan for this intended wind down. We are currently seeking feedback regarding customers' orders and remain in close discussions with local stakeholders. During the March quarter, we accounted for the majority of wind down-related expenses, which represented total EA-related charges of $86.6 million. These charges were primarily related to inventory write-down, supply chain, asset impairment, and restructuring-related charges. Dependent on local stakeholder feedback and in alignment with our March 31st disclosure, we anticipate residual non-GAAP expenses to be below $15 million and be accrued for in the first fiscal half of 2026.

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Turning to the March quarter financial results, we booked revenue of $162 million and gross margins of 24.9%, which included EA-related inventory and supply chain charges of $38.6 million. Total operating expenses came in at $125.1 million, which included restructuring charges of $8.8 million and impairment charges of $39.8 million. Excluding these charges, operating expenses would have been $76.5 million. Tax expense came in at $5.4 million related to our mix of profit and loss across entities during the quarter. We continue to anticipate our effective tax rate will remain above 20% over the coming year. We completed our previous and also initiated our latest repurchase program with a $300 million authorization during our first fiscal quarter of 2025. During the second fiscal quarter, we repurchased over 500,000 shares for $21.3 million.

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

While we do not anticipate current tariff announcements to have a direct impact on our ability to manufacture and sell our products and services to our global base of customers, unique geopolitical and trade dynamics have created near-term order hesitation in certain capital equipment markets. Looking into the June quarter, sequential order activity decreased in Southeast Asia, while order activity increased in China and Taiwan, which was aligned with our utilization data. We have also begun to see global customers begin reallocating equipment across manufacturing sites, which highlights our industry's ability to flex around trade dynamics. With that said, we anticipate semiconductor unit growth will continue to improve through fiscal 2025. While some customers may delay capital expenditures until critically necessary, we expect continued capacity digestion supported by improving utilization rates within Ball and Wedge bonder to continue over the near term.

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Looking into the June quarter, we announced a revenue outlook of $145 million, plus or minus $10 million, with gross margins of 46.5%. We anticipate non-GAAP operating expenses to be $68 million, ±2%, a GAAP EPS loss of $0.09, and a non-GAAP EPS gain of $0.05 per share. Although the near-term market dynamics are challenging, we continue to anticipate an eventual return to incremental capacity growth in core Ball and Wedge bonding markets and continue to see ongoing capacity digestion and field utilization improvements. Incremental opportunities in Vertical Wire, Advanced Dispense, and Thermo-Compression are in addition to this anticipated improvement. As we remain focused on these strategic opportunities, we are well prepared to navigate near-term macro-level uncertainty. This concludes our prepared comments. Operator, please open the call for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session.

Operator

If you would like to ask a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press Star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment while we pull for questions. Our first question comes from Krish Sankar with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question.

Krish Sankar
Krish Sankar
Managing Director at TD Cowen

Yeah, hi. I have three questions. First one, Fusen. Just kind of curious, can you give some color on June? What are the dynamics? Is it predominantly general semi and auto industrial that's going to be down quite a bit? And how to think about it beyond June?

Krish Sankar
Krish Sankar
Managing Director at TD Cowen

I understand a lot of moving parts, but any color you can give beyond June would also be helpful.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Okay. So, Krish, we have a Q3 slowdown. This slowdown is most pronounced and evident in our Southeast Asia region. I'll give you an example. The Q3 Southeast Asia slowdown accounts for the majority of our total Q2 to Q3 weakness. To give you a number, our Q2 revenue is $162, and the Q3 guidance is $145. The difference of these two numbers' majority actually is a weakness from Southeast Asia. Therefore, it is really our belief this near-term slowdown was due to a concern regarding the potential and the unknown tariff impact for auto and the industrial industry from our customers.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

I think in the script, we mentioned while we see the weaker outlook for Southeast Asia, in the meantime, we also see the utilization rate improve in Taiwan, China, and other regions. With the utilization rate, actually, it is at or close to triggering broader capacity addition. We see positive, but we also have actually a very big slowdown in Southeast Asia. We believe it is auto industry-related, and it is because of unknown tariff impact. People hesitate to build a capacity just for the industry. Yes, the number is a little bit bigger. The reason, I think, is because we have a bigger, larger presence, auto exposure. Also, our manufacturing concept is a flexible manufacturing cycle. We are working with a customer in upturn and downturn with a shorter cycle time. I think these two add together. I hope I explained your questions.

Krish Sankar
Krish Sankar
Managing Director at TD Cowen

That's really helpful, Fusen. Just to follow up on this, just any view beyond June quarter? Is it too hard to say today?

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Yeah. Yes. So June quarter, so it's really our belief. The Q4, June quarter is Q3, like Q4. We believe it will be better. It's the feedback from customers, and also some of the weakness in Q3 will be revenued in Q4. Hopefully, this can be a short-term phenomenon. It's also supported by utilization rate. Actually, in some regions, actually, already the number can trigger capacity buy. We think Q4 will be better. How much better? Actually, it also depends on macro and some clarity with the tariff. If we have better clarity, I think we should have a sequential up from Q3.

Krish Sankar
Krish Sankar
Managing Director at TD Cowen

Got it. Just to follow up on TCB, your TCB exposure is predominantly logic, hardly anything in memory.

Krish Sankar
Krish Sankar
Managing Director at TD Cowen

Can you give a color on how it's progressing? I also noticed that your European competitor last week announced five new orders for TCB shipped away. So I'm kind of curious, lay of the land, and a little bit if you can talk about TCB, your TCB exposure today, and how do you see it evolving in memory if you have a shot? Thank you.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Okay. So practically, our first revenue for TCB was 2020. So although we don't want to say it's quite large, but I think we make good progress with a high gross rate. And we actually focus with logic first. And we actually are confident at this moment we can grow in both IDM and also OSAT, and also in the foundry side for logic. And this year, we put a lot of effort in the memory.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

We expect to ship additional systems by end of the month, end of the year. We will not say this is easy, but I think we are confident on our technology. I hope we can have some result in 2026. I think to answer your question, sequentially, we got to focus in actually some segment. From now, I think it is a good time for us to focus on HBM.

Krish Sankar
Krish Sankar
Managing Director at TD Cowen

Got it. Thank you, Fusen. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Tom Diffely with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Tom Diffely
Tom Diffely
Managing Director and Director of Research at D.A. Davidson

Yes. Good morning. I was curious, what was the revenue run rate of the EA business that you are exiting, or any kind of metrics around the size and profitability would be very helpful?

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Yeah. Hi, Tom. It is Lester. Based on the recent past, the EA revenue was about $25 million-$30 million a year.

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Gross profit is around $7-$11 million. The operating expenses are about $20-$25 million.

Tom Diffely
Tom Diffely
Managing Director and Director of Research at D.A. Davidson

Great. No, thank you. It's very helpful. Lester, did you say that there'd be a $15 million per quarter charge through the first half of 2026?

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

No, no, no, Tom. What we said is also consistent with the disclosure on March 31. I said that after all the write-down this quarter, the $86 million, we think it'll be less than $15 million for the rest of the shutdown. That will probably be a little bit in the next two quarters and then more in the first half of FY 2026. Subject to our discussions with local stakeholders, we believe that the business, other than to support existing customers and warranty and service, should be done by the first half of FY 2026.

Tom Diffely
Tom Diffely
Managing Director and Director of Research at D.A. Davidson

Great. Thank you very much for that.

Tom Diffely
Tom Diffely
Managing Director and Director of Research at D.A. Davidson

Maybe just a quick question on the power semi side. What are the dynamics you're seeing on the power front?

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

I think the power is going to grow rapidly in terms of volume. There was a lot of European companies actually investing on it. Recently, I think China actually also gained some market shares. We are very happy. We still have a very high market share in the power semi. There is a transition to the power semi to be more effective with higher power, more cost-effective. We have two actually new products. One is a Sonotrode I actually discussed in my script. This is for the pin welding. The other one actually we call Avaline. This is a finer pitch. We actually announced these two new products.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

We believe it's going to be an important product, start to contribute revenue for us in 2026.

Tom Diffely
Tom Diffely
Managing Director and Director of Research at D.A. Davidson

Great. Thank you, Fusen.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Charles Shi with Needham & Co. Please proceed with your question.

Charles Shi
Charles Shi
Senior Analyst at Needham & Company

Hi. Thank you. Good evening, Fusen and Lester. Maybe Fusen, the first question is about the market dynamics. I wonder if you can further unpack a little bit more. China ordering activity is up, Southeast Asia is down. That's understandable. It's a little bit interesting to hear that Taiwan is also up a little bit. In terms of ordering activity, you would assume Taiwan is subject to the same tariff dynamics as Southeast Asia. Why is there a little bit of bifurcation between those two regions? Is it Southeast Asia more impact on auto industrial side, Taiwan more on the general semi side, or what's the reason? Yeah.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Okay.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Let me explain Southeast Asia first. Southeast Asia, we believe actually our utilization rate is still not high enough. I mentioned Taiwan and China, actually, it's a utilization rate that is actually high enough, potentially can trigger capacity buy. Actually, we didn't see that yet. Maybe it's because of holdback. People, for the unknown period of time, they can run actually utilization rate higher than even slightly higher than 80, right? Southeast Asia, I think utilization rate is below that. As you know, the tariff impact to auto is a big deal. Southeast Asia actually has a lot of European investment and also offset and create a big base for auto capacity. Southeast Asia, the slowdown actually accounts for almost a majority of the slowdown sequentially from Q2 to Q3. I hope I answered your questions.

Charles Shi
Charles Shi
Senior Analyst at Needham & Company

Yeah. Yeah.

Charles Shi
Charles Shi
Senior Analyst at Needham & Company

That's very, very interesting color. Fusen, maybe another question about the Fluxless TCB. I think in your prepared remarks, there are some new languages there. You are saying Fluxless TCB, at least for fiscal 2025, it's fully booked. I wonder if you can provide some color what that means because I do not think your Fluxless TCB revenue forecast was that aggressive. It was, I believe, you were guiding to 40-50% year-on-year growth. When you say it's fully booked, do you mean it's—can we even read that as actually a little bit supply constrained at this point, or? Yeah. Okay.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Actually, I think it's really limited in our capacity. We have some capacity in the U.S. And right now, we moved to Asia, and we intend to actually increase capacity. I probably can say this a little bit better.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

I think right now, we are capacity constrained right now. We actually will create more capacity, is undergoing.

Charles Shi
Charles Shi
Senior Analyst at Needham & Company

Is the 40%-50% year-on-year growth, you think you can still reach that target for—yeah.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

For example, I think we actually right now, give you an example, maybe a capacity we actually, we just start in 2020, right? 2020. We actually have a capacity target to reach about 60 systems per year, right? This is incremental capacity we are undergoing to increase.

Charles Shi
Charles Shi
Senior Analyst at Needham & Company

Got it. Maybe last one. Any update on the leading foundry? I believe you shipped a dual head system already. Any expectation, repeat orders, and the timing of it?

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Okay. Our system actually is a long-line high-volume production and also multiple systems and also new customer qualification. This year, our TCB only, we expect about $70 million.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Next year, we actually expect probably 100 or above 100. So the difference of 2026 and 2025, part of that actually is gross of foundry, right? But as we qualify more customers and more devices, I think we will have additional upside on top of that.

Charles Shi
Charles Shi
Senior Analyst at Needham & Company

Thank you, Fusen.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Craig Ellis with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Craig Ellis
Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research at B. Riley Securities

Yeah. Thank you for taking the question. And good evening, Fusen and Lester. I wanted to start going back to some of the utilization increases you're seeing in China and Taiwan and just try to understand them in a little bit more detail. We've seen pretty visible signs that certain supply chains, PCs since February, March, have been tracking well above seasonal.

Craig Ellis
Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research at B. Riley Securities

Smartphones seem to be doing that early into Q. So the question is, if that is happening and it seems like it's happening on build-aheads, given tariff impacts, is there potential that related demand in the second half of the fiscal fourth quarter or in the fiscal first quarter would be below seasonal because we've already had the utilization benefit early in the year as companies try to best operationalize to mitigate tariff impacts?

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Hi, Craig. It's Lester. No, we don't think so. I mean, utilization rate, you're right, as Fusen said, is quite high in China and Taiwan and also in a general semi. What I think, as we indicated on the call, is in a normal cycle, at these utilization rates, people should start doing capacity buys. We're not really seeing that.

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

I think the reason for that is, again, there's a lot of cautiousness among our customers. They want to see how this tariff thing kind of plays out. We do not think that the utilization rate is going to start falling. We think it is already remaining at this level. Without the tariff uncertainty, we believe that China, Taiwan, North America, and Europe, the revenues would be much higher in Q3. That is why originally we believed that the second half of the year historically has always been better than the first half. This has really been affected by the global trade dynamics as well as the tariffs. As we get more clarity on the tariffs, then people will start making purchases. Right now, people are doing it just if it is critical necessity.

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

I think also, as Fusen said in his earlier reply, people are running it at a much higher utilization than they normally would. We do not think actually it will fall off in Q4 and Q1.

Craig Ellis
Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research at B. Riley Securities

That is really helpful color, Lester. Thank you. The second question is more longer term. Interesting ambition to move into the DRAM, HBM market, and LPDDR market in fiscal 2026. The question is, as we think about the memory business now, which is very man-centric, how material could DRAM be in fiscal 2026 and 2027 relative to the business that you currently have? How broad would you expect your exposure to be across the memory supplier base?

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

I think on end, we have very high market shares. HBM, we actually put a lot of effort. In the meantime, there are also many, many competitors over there.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

We will see how well we will do. I think we work closely actually with one, but also with others. One actually has a better focus. In terms of DRAM stack and die, we actually see this Vertical Wire is going to be very important for the industry in both logic and memory. The first customer we see is going to go to production. This is for a stack DRAM. It is going to be in the first half of 2026, right? Not only almost every memory customer is working with us, including IBM. Next year will be a transition year. We probably can give you a more update about the order. Maybe it is a good production for the first half. We will see the order maybe our fiscal 2026, maybe Q1 or Q2. We believe the Vertical Wire will take off.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

There will be many customers who are going to work on this for the first product. First product is going to be DDR. It's going to have a capability to reduce the form factor about 30%, right? It's going to be on mobile. This is only a first application. We believe Vertical Wire is going to find a home for many other applications in the future.

Craig Ellis
Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research at B. Riley Securities

That's a significant form factor reduction, Fusen. Thanks for all the color, you too, Lester.

Operator

Thanks. Our next question comes from Dave Duley with Steelhead Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Dave Duley
Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities

Yes. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of clarifications. You talked about the utilization rates in Taiwan and China being elevated. Could you just give us what those percentages are at this point? Also a bit of a housekeeping question.

Dave Duley
Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities

What is your IC unit volume assumption for calendar 2025 and 2026, if you have them?

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Hi, Dave. Utilization, just Lester, utilization in China is over 80%. In fact, it is almost the mid-80%s. In Taiwan, it is just touching 80% or so. And semi-revenue growth, we still expect about 10%, a little greater than 10%.

Dave Duley
Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities

In calendar 2025?

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Yes.

Dave Duley
Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities

Yes. Okay. As far as the HBM opportunity goes, I think you have made it clear you are working with one specific customer here. Is it fair to assume that HBM4 or HBM4E is the cut-in point, or usually it is with a new product? Maybe just explain to us what new product you think you will get cut in at.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Right now, high volume is a 3E. We expect it will be a future generation. Yeah. More specific, I think, from HBM4.

Dave Duley
Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities

HBM4 would be the target point to try to incorporate yourself into the market, so to speak?

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

Yeah. That's correct.

Dave Duley
Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities

Okay. Final question from me is, you've talked about, I guess, demand hesitation driven by trade policies and tariffs. Could you just talk about any impacts that you might have? I assume that you can ship from Asian facilities into China, so there will not be a major tariff impact from doing that. Maybe just talk about if there are any higher costs from input costs into your products from tariffs. Thanks.

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Yeah. Dave, you know we manufacture all capital equipment here in Singapore. Shipping it into China will not trigger any tariffs because the tariffs right now from China are aimed towards the United States on a reciprocal basis, right? We do not think there is any direct impact for us.

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

As we indicated, the impact is more on an indirect basis as our customers and their customers are right now a little bit uncertain about how all this is going to play out. Therefore, they're much more conservative in their supply chain, right? That's, I think, what we've been talking about earlier. As far as cost is concerned, I think there will be—again, there may not be a direct cost, but there's always going to be indirect costs. Tariffs are going to cost everybody money, right? I think it's across the board.

Dave Duley
Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities

Okay. One final clarification is you talked about the customer hesitation in Southeast Asia. I guess you're kind of suggesting that that's an industrial automotive in-market driven. I think you even mentioned it was European customers. Is that the really way to think about it?

Dave Duley
Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities

Is European auto and industrial customers the main customers or the food chain that is in hesitation, so to speak?

Lester Wong
Lester Wong
CFO at Kulicke & Soffa

Dave, I do not think Fusen said it was just these people who are in hesitation, right? I think all our customers are in hesitation, including those in Taiwan and China, which is why at that high utilization rate, they are not making the orders that they normally would make. I think what Fusen was talking about Southeast Asia in particular is we see Southeast Asia actually drop the most sequentially from Q2 to Q3. Part of that is because we have a large auto industrial client base in Southeast Asia. Most of them are, you are right, IDMs from Europe. They are particularly, I guess, affected by concerns about the tariffs. We did not say it is only them that are concerned about the tariff.

Fusen Chen
Fusen Chen
President and CEO at Kulicke & Soffa

I think it goes across the board is that they particularly have been affected in Q3 when you compare it to Q2.

Dave Duley
Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Joe Elgindy for closing comments.

Joe Elgindy
Senior Director of Investor Relations at Kulicke & Soffa

Thank you, Maria. And thank you all for joining today's call. Over the coming quarter, we'll be presenting at several conferences and roadshows. As always, please feel free to follow up directly with any additional questions. This concludes today's call. Have a great day everyone.

Executives
Analysts
    • Joe Elgindy
      Senior Director of Investor Relations at Kulicke & Soffa
    • Tom Diffely
      Managing Director and Director of Research at D.A. Davidson
    • Dave Duley
      Managing Principal at Steelhead Securities
    • Charles Shi
      Senior Analyst at Needham & Company
    • Craig Ellis
      Senior Managing Director and Director of Research at B. Riley Securities
    • Krish Sankar
      Managing Director at TD Cowen
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