Fremont, CA (April 9, 2024) – Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR), a worldwide supplier of semiconductor test and burn-in equipment, today announced financial results for its third quarter of fiscal 2024 ended February 29, 2024.

Fiscal Third Quarter Financial Results:

• Net revenue was $7.6 million, compared to $17.2 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2023.
• GAAP net loss was $(1.5) million, or $(0.05) per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $4.1 million, or $0.14 per diluted share, in the third quarter of fiscal 2023.
• Non-GAAP net loss, which excludes the impact of stock-based compensation, was $(0.9) million, or $(0.03) per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $4.7 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, in the third quarter of fiscal 2023.
• Bookings were $24.5 million for the quarter.
• Backlog as of February 29, 2024 was $20 million.
• Total cash and cash equivalents as of February 29, 2024 were $47.6 million, compared to $50.5 million at November 30, 2023.

Fiscal First Nine Months Financial Results:

• Net revenue was $49.6 million, compared to $42.7 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2023.
• GAAP net income was $9.3 million, or $0.31 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $8.4 million, or $0.29 per diluted share, in the first nine months of fiscal 2023.
• Non-GAAP net income was $11.0 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, which excludes the impact of stock-based compensation, compared to $10.5 million, or $0.36 per diluted share, in the first nine months of fiscal 2023.
• Cash provided by operations was $0.5 million for the first nine months of fiscal 2024.

An explanation of the use of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of Aehr’s non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the accompanying tables.

 Gayn Erickson, President and CEO of Aehr Test Systems, commented:
“As we noted in our preliminary earnings release in March, our third quarter results reflect delays in wafer level burn-in system orders for silicon carbide semiconductor devices used in electric vehicles. Due to this, we had revised our guidance for our fiscal 2024 full year ending May 31, 2024 to be greater than $65 million in total revenue and net income of at least $11 million, which we are reiterating today. We still expect to finish this fiscal year with annual revenue that is near or above our full year record.

“Last week we announced an initial order for our FOX-NP solution from a new customer that is a multi-billion dollar per year global semiconductor company, and is entering the silicon carbide market to address several applications that include automotive, industrial, and electrification infrastructure. This is our third straight new customer for silicon carbide that is primarily focused on applications other than electric vehicles, expanding our opportunity within silicon carbide beyond electric vehicles.

“We are still in continued engagements up to and including on-wafer evaluations with well over a dozen silicon carbide suppliers that are focusing on both electric vehicles and other applications and are forecasting production needs for wafer level test and burn-in of their devices with decision timelines that spread out over the next year. We are focused on the qualification process with as many new customers as possible, as once we have demonstrated our FOX wafer level test and burn-in solution using their own wafers, we have not yet lost a potential customer.

“Our discussions with customers indicate that the key markets Aehr is addressing for semiconductor wafer level test and burn-in have significant growth opportunities that will expand this year and throughout this decade, and we are seeing increased customer engagement in each of these markets. We have also seen a recent strengthening in the silicon carbide market for electric vehicles outside the US in what appears to be a shift in the market share of electric vehicle suppliers. This includes Asia where we recently had extensive and very productive and positive visits with a significant number of silicon carbide suppliers and electric vehicle suppliers that we will provide additional details on during our earnings call.

“According to many market forecasts, including the Semiconductor Industry Association, the semiconductor industry is expected to grow from $600 billion in 2022 to over $1 trillion at or around 2030. This acceleration is coming from mega market drivers including artificial intelligence (AI), green energy and decarbonization, and IoT-based digital transformation. Increased reliability concerns about semiconductors, a growing number of mission critical applications, and more multi-chip modules or heterogeneous integration with multiple devices being assembled in a single package are driving the need for wafer level burn-in. At semiconductor industry conferences around the world, we are seeing an increased focus on test and burn-in moving to wafer level before these devices are put into multi-chip packages and modules.

“These favorable macro trends are driving the business that drives Aehr Test and include:

• silicon carbide power devices going into high-density modules for power conversion in electric vehicles;
• gallium nitride power semiconductors going into automotive, solar, and other mission critical industrial applications;
• silicon photonics integrated circuits being put into transceivers for data center infrastructure and optical chip-to-chip communication of CPU, GPU, and AI processors;
• memory devices for solid state disk drives used in enterprise and data storage or for AI processors.

“Our continued investments in the FOX platform like the new 3.5 kW per wafer FOX-XP multi-wafer production system we began shipping last month also position us well to address the requirements of other new market segments that we believe we will be able to discuss over the next several months.

“As we head toward fiscal 2025, we are encouraged by our increasing engagements with current and potential customers and the long-term growth opportunities of all these markets.”

Fiscal 2024 Financial Guidance:
For the fiscal year ending May 31, 2024, Aehr is reiterating its previously provided guidance for total revenue of greater than $65 million and GAAP net income of approximately $11 million or more, or $0.38 per diluted share.

 Management Conference Call and Webcast:
 Aehr Test Systems will host a conference call and webcast today at 5:00 p.m. Eastern (2:00 p.m. PT) to discuss its third quarter fiscal 2024 operating results. To access the live call, dial +1 888-506-0062 (US and Canada) or +1 973-528-0011 (International) and give the participant passcode 333674.

In addition, a live and archived webcast of the conference call will be available over the Internet at www.aehr.com in the Investor Relations section and may also be accessed by clicking here. A phone replay of the conference call will also be available beginning approximately two hours after conclusion of the live call and will remain available for one week. To access the call replay, dial +1 877-481-4010 (US and Canada) or +1 919-882-2331 (International) and enter replay passcode 50082.

About Aehr Test Systems
Headquartered in Fremont, California, Aehr Test Systems is a leading provider of test solutions for testing, burning-in, and stabilizing semiconductor devices in wafer level, singulated die, and package part form, and has installed thousands of systems worldwide. Increasing quality, reliability, safety, and security needs of semiconductors used across multiple applications, including electric vehicles, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, solar and wind power, computing, data and telecommunications infrastructure, and solid-state memory and storage, are driving additional test requirements, incremental capacity needs, and new opportunities for Aehr Test products and solutions. Aehr has developed and introduced several innovative products including the FOX-P^TM families of test and burn-in systems and FOX WaferPak^TM Aligner, FOX WaferPak Contactor, FOX DiePak^® Carrier and FOX DiePak Loader. The FOX-XP and FOX-NP systems are full wafer contact and singulated die/module test and burn-in systems that can test, burn-in, and stabilize a wide range of devices such as leading-edge silicon carbide-based and other power semiconductors, 2D and 3D sensors used in mobile phones, tablets, and other computing devices, memory semiconductors, processors, microcontrollers, systems-on-a-chip, and photonics and integrated optical devices. The FOX-CP system is a low-cost single-wafer compact test solution for logic, memory and photonic devices and the newest addition to the FOX-P product family. The FOX WaferPak Contactor contains a unique full wafer contactor capable of testing wafers up to 300mm that enables IC manufacturers to perform test, burn-in, and stabilization of full wafers on the FOX-P systems. The FOX DiePak Carrier allows testing, burning in, and stabilization of singulated bare die and modules up to 1024 devices in parallel per DiePak on the FOX-NP and FOX-XP systems up to nine DiePaks at a time. For more information, please visit Aehr Test Systems’ website at www.aehr.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or Aehr’s future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “going to,” “could,” “intends,” “target,” “projects,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” “sees,” or “continue,” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern Aehr’s expectations, strategy, priorities, plans, or intentions. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, Aehr’s ability to generate bookings and revenue increases in the future; the timing of Aehr’s ability to recognize revenue; future requirements and orders of Aehr’s new and existing customers; bookings forecasted for proprietary WaferPak^TM and DiePak consumables across multiple market segments; shipping timelines for products and new and follow-on capacity orders; the impact of shifting sales mix on revenue; the growth of Aehr’s systems and consumables, including as a percentage of total revenue; financial guidance for fiscal 2024, including related to revenue and profitability, and expectations regarding fiscal 2024; Aehr’s ability to expand its number of customers using its FOX-P^TM solutions and the timing of such expansion; the ability to secure potential customer engagements and Aehr’s plans to meet with potential new customers and end users; expectations related to long-term demand for Aehr’s products; market opportunity expansion; the growth and attractiveness of key markets and Aehr’s ability to receive orders and generate revenue in the future. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully described in Aehr’s recent 10-K, 10-Q and other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Aehr disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this press release.

 –   Financial Tables to Follow   –

Non-GAAP measures should not be considered a replacement for GAAP results. The non-GAAP measures indicated above are financial measures the Company uses to evaluate the underlying results and operating performance of the business. The limitation of these measures is that they exclude items that impact the Company’s current period GAAP measures. This limitation is best addressed by using these measures in combination with the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. These measures are not in accordance with GAAP and may differ from non-GAAP methods of accounting and reporting used by other companies.

We believe these measures enhance investors’ ability to review the Company’s business from the same perspective as the Company’s management and facilitate comparisons of this period’s results with prior periods.

 

Contacts:
Aehr Test Systems Chris Siu Chief Financial Officer csiu@aehr.com (510) 623-9400 x309	MKR Investor Relations Inc. Todd Kehrli or Jim Byers Analyst/Investor Contact (323) 468-2300 aehr@mkr-group.com