Ross Cole • Needham & Company

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CEO Giel Rutten declined to comment on specific customer programs but stated that the easing of trade restrictions creates more opportunities for the entire compute ecosystem. Regarding Arizona, he confirmed Amkor is in constant communication with TSMC, whom they consider a key partner, and reiterated their strategy is to be complementary to TSMC's foundry operations, not to compete with them, building on their previously announced MOU for technology sharing.

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CFO Megan Faust stated that while Amkor is not quantifying the 2025 2.5D capacity expansion, it will be a sizable increase, 'somewhere in the vicinity' of the expansion seen in 2024 which enabled a quadrupling of revenue. CEO Giel Rutten clarified that the full-flow 2.5D ramp was not impacted by HBM constraints. However, the on-substrate part of the business did see some supply constraints in Q3 related to the transition from HBM3 to HBM3E, which had a minor impact on the Q3 ramp.

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CFO John Kiernan confirmed the 2025 semiconductor outlook, stating that strength in HBM, GAA, and Advanced Packaging provides an opportunity to offset or more than offset headwinds in China, allowing for flattish to potential growth. He also detailed indirect tariff impacts, noting Veeco is experiencing higher costs on materials imported from overseas and from domestic suppliers passing on their own tariff-related cost increases. The company is working to mitigate these impacts through logistics and other strategies.

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CFO John Kiernan provided a 2025 outlook, forecasting growth in the semiconductor business driven by AI-related revenue increasing from ~10% to over 20% of the total. He noted a recovery in AP lithography but also a significant headwind in data storage, with an expected revenue reduction of $60 million to $70 million. For compound semiconductors, he sees potential growth in the second half of 2025.

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Executive Jeffrey Jones provided the full-year 2024 systems revenue mix: Automotive 9%, Industrial 6%, Mobile 11%, Consumer 4%, Compute 3%, and IoT 2%. While declining to give a specific 2025 forecast, he suggested an automotive and industrial recovery would begin in the second half, followed by mobile. Jones confirmed the first HBM tool's revenue will be recognized in Q1 2025, with the die level burn-in tool revenue expected in the second half of the year.

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President and CEO Luis Müller provided color based on booking trends, stating that all segments saw sequential order growth. He highlighted that the mobile, automotive, and industrial segments were the strongest in terms of both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year booking improvements, indicating a positive demand pattern leading into the early part of 2025.

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CEO Russell Low described GaN as a much smaller opportunity than silicon carbide, as it is less intensive in ion implantation steps and remains a niche application. CFO James Coogan added that the bad debt was a customer-specific issue with a small manufacturer and is not indicative of any broader weakness in the GaN or power device market.

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Executive Jeffrey Andreson clarified that these share gains are indeed new for Ichor. The applications were previously served by smaller manufacturers or handled internally by the customer, meaning the new business will change the competitive dynamic on those specific applications without necessarily displacing a primary competitor on existing work.

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