Aehr Test Systems announced financial results for its fiscal 2024 fourth quarter and full year ended May 31, 2024.

Fiscal Fourth Quarter Financial Results:

  • Net revenue was $16.6 million, compared to $22.3 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023
  • GAAP net income was $23.9 million, or $0.81 per diluted share, which includes the impact of a tax benefit resulting from the release of the Company’s full income tax valuation allowance of approximately $20.8 million, compared to GAAP net income of $6.1 million, or $0.21 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023.
  • Non-GAAP net income was $24.7 million, or $0.84 per diluted share, which includes the tax benefit and excludes acquisition related costs and the impact of stock-based compensation, compared to non-GAAP net income of $6.8 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023.
  • Bookings were $4.0 million for the quarter
  • Backlog as of May 31, 2024, was $7.3 million. Effective backlog, which includes all orders received since the end of the fourth quarter, is $20.8 million.
  • Total cash and cash equivalents as of May 31, 2024 were $49.2 million, up from $47.6 million at February 29, 2024

Fiscal Year Financial Results:

  • Net revenue was a record $66.2 million, compared to $65.0 million in fiscal 2023
  • GAAP net income was $33.2 million, or $1.12 per diluted share, which includes the impact of a tax benefit resulting from the release of the Company’s full income tax valuation allowance of approximately $20.8 million recognized in the fourth quarter, compared to GAAP net income of $14.6 million, or $0.50 per diluted share, in fiscal 2023.
  • Non-GAAP net income, which includes the tax benefit and excludes acquisition related costs and the impact of stock-based compensation, was $35.8 million, or $1.21 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $17.3 million, or $0.59 per diluted share, in fiscal 2023.

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:

“Our full-year revenue and net income results exceeded our previously provided guidance and surpassed analyst consensus. Although we saw customer pushouts of silicon carbide devices due to slower electric vehicle (EV) demand in the second half of our fiscal year, we achieved another record year for annual revenue for Aehr. 

“Wafer level test and burn-in of silicon carbide power semiconductors used in EVs was a key driver of our business in the last year, and we anticipate silicon carbide will continue to be a key contributor to revenue in the current fiscal year and beyond. To that point, we announced today that we received $12.7 million in orders from one of our silicon carbide test and burn-in customers for FOX WaferPak™ full wafer Contactors to support production of silicon carbide power devices for electric vehicles to be delivered over the next three months.

“The silicon carbide market continues to be an enormous opportunity for Aehr as we see more auto suppliers committed to silicon carbide in their EVs, as well as roadmaps that are based on modules for their electric motor power inverters. By 2030, battery EVs are forecasted to more than triple last year’s sales to 30 million or 30% of total vehicles manufactured worldwide.

“We remain actively engaged with a significant number of new silicon carbide device and module suppliers and seek to meet their anticipated capacity coming online beginning in 2025. We are also seeing growing demand for silicon carbide devices beyond the EV market, such as solar, data center, and other industrial applications for power conversion. We believe we are well positioned to continue to grow our business in silicon carbide, and we expect to receive first orders from a significant number of additional silicon carbide customers by the end of this fiscal year.

“We are also seeing traction with several emerging opportunities for our test and burn-in solutions in new target markets and expect bookings and revenue across a much broader range of customers and markets this fiscal year.

“One of the key new market opportunities we are focusing on is the growing demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) processor test and burn-in at both the wafer level and the packaged part level.

“We are currently working with an AI accelerator company and have secured a commitment from them to evaluate our FOX solution for use in production wafer level burn-in of their high-power processors. Upon successful demonstration of wafer level test results and throughput, we expect they will utilize our new high-power FOX-XP systems for production of their next generation AI processors, starting this fiscal year.

“We also announced today in a separate press release our acquisition of Incal Technology, a manufacturer of highly acclaimed reliability test and burn-in solutions of a wide range of semiconductor devices and markets, with a new product family of ultra-high-power test solutions for AI accelerators, graphics & network processors, and high-performance computing processors. We believe that between wafer level and package part, the reliability test and production burn-in market for AI processors exceeds $100 million annually, and with this combined product portfolio we believe we have the opportunity to capture a meaningful share of the market this fiscal year.  

“This past year we announced our first order for a FOX wafer level test and burn-in system for gallium nitride (GaN) devices. While silicon carbide will be the semiconductor material of choice for EV traction inverters, GaN is expected to gain significant penetration in the on-board charging market as well as other automotive, solar, and data center power conversion applications. We are working with several of the GaN market leaders, and received a significant number of WaferPak orders throughout the year for gallium nitride reliability test and qualification. We have now received our first forecasts for wafer level production burn-in systems to be delivered during this fiscal year. We continue to be encouraged by this market and believe it will be significant in market size for semiconductors and has the potential to be a solid market opportunity for Aehr’s solutions.

“Within the silicon photonics market, we shipped the first order from a major silicon photonics customer for the new high-power configuration of our FOX-XP system this last fiscal year. This new configuration expands our market opportunity by enabling cost-effective volume production test of wafers of next-generation photonic ICs that are targeted for use in the new optical I/O or co-packaged optics market. Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have all discussed the potential for adding optical chip-to-chip communication for performance improvement and power savings for AI processors and High-Performance Computing chips. 

“Looking ahead, we believe Aehr has significant opportunities for growth in fiscal 2025 and beyond with our industry-leading product portfolio, and we look forward to updating you on our progress throughout the year as we seek to capitalize on these exciting new opportunities.”

Fiscal 2025 Financial Guidance:

For the fiscal year ending May 30, 2025, Aehr expects total revenue of at least $70 million and net profit before taxes of at least 10% of revenue.

Original – Aehr Test Systems