ACM Research - Q3 2023
November 7, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ACM Research third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Gary Dvorchak. Please go ahead.
Gary Dvorchak (Managing Director)
Thank you, operator, and good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss third quarter 2023 results, which we released before the U.S. market opened today. The release is available on our website as well as from newswire services. There's also a supplemental slide deck posted in the investor section of our website that we will reference during our prepared remarks. On the call with me today are our CEO, Dr. David Wang, our CFO, Mark McKechnie, and Lisa Feng, the CFO of our operating subsidiary, ACM Shanghai. Before we continue, please turn to slide 2. Remarks made during this call may include predictions, estimates, or other information that might be considered forward-looking. These forward-looking statements represent ACM's current judgment for the future. However, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.
Those risks are described under Risk Factors and elsewhere in ACM's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please do not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect ACM's opinions only as of the date of this call. ACM is not obliged to update you on any revisions to these forward-looking statements. Certain of the financial results that we provide on this call will be on a Non-GAAP basis, which excludes stock-based compensation and an unrealized loss on short-term investments. For our GAAP results and reconciliations between GAAP and Non-GAAP amounts, you should refer to our earnings release, which is posted on the IR section of our website, and to slide 12. With that, let me now turn the call over to David Wang, who will begin with slide three. David, go ahead.
David Wang (CEO)
Thanks, Gary. Hello, everyone, and welcome to ACM Research third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Please turn to slide 3. For the third quarter, revenue was $168.6 million, up 36% from the same quarter last year. Shipments were a record $213 million, up 31%. Gross margin was 52.9%, and operating margin was 26%. For the first nine months, we grew revenue by 38%. This is in light of a decline in global WFE spending. We attribute our, our performance to market share gain and the penetration of new products and new customers, and general healthy market for mature nodes in China. Let me touch on each of these, beginning with the mature node investment in China. China domestic mature nodes WFE investment remains solid.
We believe due to China's goal to reduce the gap between its domestic mature nodes capacity and end market consumption of semiconductor chips. We see continued investment in 28 nanometer, 45 nanometer, and power devices for EV market. The ramp of EV production in China is a driver for capacity investment in power devices and other leading-edge devices. This creates a tailwind for us, and we believe we are still in the early stage of China's semiconductor capacity expansion plan, which we believe will continue to be a growth driver for us. As China intensify effort to boost its domestic or semiconductor capability, we believe we are well positioned to benefit and further increase our market share due to our strong market position, differentiated technology, and multi-product portfolio. Moving to products, please turn to slide 4.
Single wafer cleaning, Tahoe, and semi-critical cleaning grew 33% in Q3 and 42% year to date. In the last few years, we introduced and began ramping our semi-critical product line, including Auto Bench, and then last year, we introduced advanced and high temperature SPM tools. In Q2, we introduced our supercritical CO2 drying and cleaning tool. This quarter, we introduced our Ultra C V vacuum cleaning tool to meet the flux removal requirements for chiplets and other advanced 3D packaging structures. We have already received a pre-order for the new tool from a major Chinese manufacturer, which we expect to be delivered in the first quarter of 2024. ACM has one of the broadest cleaning product portfolio in the industry, covering nearly 90% of all cleaning process steps in both memory and logic devices applications.
We believe this product portfolio will play a key role among mature nodes development in China and advanced nodes in our international effort going forward. ECP, Furnace, and other technology grew 4% in Q3 and 24% year-to-date. Growth in this category was driven primarily by ECP product cycle, with some contribution from furnace. Our high temperature anneal and LPCVD furnace, including silicon nitride and poly, are in production at the key customers. ALD furnace is under evaluation on a multiple customer site. Advanced packaging, excluding ECP, but including service and spare, grew 12% in Q3 and 40% year-to-date. This category includes a range of packaging tool, including coater, developer, scrubber, PR stripper, and wet etchers, and the service spare parts. ACM is only customer that offer both a full set of wet tool and advanced plating tool.
We believe that advanced packaging will become more important as the industry looks for packaging innovations such as 2.5D and 3D in the portfolio, and fan-out to drive a higher performance for new applications such as AI and GPT. Finishing up on product, we continue to make good progress on sales effort with our new track and PECVD platforms. We are in active discussion with our key customer, and we plan to deliver more evaluation tools this year. Similar to our cleaning, plating, and furnace product line, our track and PECVD platforms have a proprietary technology that we believe will make them winner with the major customer, both in China and outside China. I'm pleased to report good progress with our track tool evaluation at customer site.
We believe our Track tool, with the new proprietary architecture design, will meet the requirements of a higher throughput of the next-generation lithography tool. Moving on to customers, please turn to slide 5. We continue to make progress on customers, both inside China and internationally. In China, we believe ACM tools are now used by nearly all the semiconductor manufacturers. With our sales and the service team are working to expand the deployment of each of our major product line across our growing customer base. In addition to our current customers, we are also seeing a good number of well-funded new entrants. Our team has done a good job of getting traction for our products with these customers. As these are the new customers, this will be reflecting our shipments this year until customer acceptance at a later date.
In the U.S., we announced this morning a purchase order for another product from a large U.S. manufacturer, the Ultra C b backside cleaning and bevel etcher tool. This tool combines backside cleaning and a bevel etcher function. This tool is expected to be shipped to their U.S. facility in the second quarter of 2024. As this customer's ongoing evaluation of two-step cleaning tools, we believe this demonstrates a deepening relationship, which we hope will result in demand for additional ACM tools. Furthermore, we believe this enhances ACM's brand and positions us to attract new opportunities with other major global customers. In Europe, early this year, we announced our order for our first evaluation tool, the Ultra C SAPS V cleaning tool, from a major European-based global semiconductor manufacturer. We delivered the tool about four weeks ago, and our team has already started installation process.
To support our growth initiatives, we continue to make progress on our facility expansion in China, other region. Please turn to slide 6. In China, construction of a Lingang production and R&D center is nearly complete and is expected to begin initial production in early 2024. In Korea, as loaded in the prior course, we have increased our commitment to support our objective to address global market. We now have more than 150 employees in Korea, with the three facility, including sales and administration, development labs, small-scale production, and a clean room to support the wafer test for customer evaluation. And we are making plans to building new factory on the land we purchased early this year. We believe a strong commitment to Korea will improve our relationships with our key customer, key Korean customers.
Our resource in Korea will also offer another base to support the international customers in U.S., Europe, and other part of Asia. In the U.S., we leased a facility in Oregon early this year to add to our service support and demonstration capability for R&D and customer activity in the region. As a reminder, for 2023, we expect to spend about $75 million CapEx. This includes continued investment in our Lingang facility, remodeling for our new headquarters for ACM Shanghai, and our investment in Korea and the U.S. I will now provide our outlook for the full year 2023. Please turn to slide 9. We are updating our 2023 revenue outlook to be in the range of $520 million-$540 million, versus our prior range of $515 million-$585 million.
The range of outlook reflects, among other things, management's current assessment of the continued impact from international trade policy, together with the various expected spending scenario of key customer, supply chain constraint, and the timing of our acceptance for first tools on the evaluation in the field. Now, let me turn the call over to our CFO, Mark, who will reveal details of our third quarter results. Mark, please.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Thank you, David. Good day, everyone. Please turn to slide 10. Unless I note otherwise, I will refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which exclude stock-based compensation and unrealized loss on short-term investments. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures is included in our earnings release. Also, unless otherwise noted, the following figures refer to the third quarter of 2023, and comparisons are with the third quarter of 2022. I'll now provide financial highlights for the third quarter. Revenue was $168.6 million, up 26.1%. Total shipments were $213 million, up 31%. Revenue for single wafer cleaning, Tahoe and semi-critical cleaning was $132.4 million, up 32.8%. For the first nine months of 2023, this category grew by 42.0% versus the prior year period.
Revenue for ECP furnace and other technologies was $25.5 million, up 4.0%. For the first nine months of 2023, this category grew by 24.4% versus the prior year period. Revenue for advanced packaging, excluding ECP, services and spares, was $10.6 million, up 12.4%. For the first nine months of 2023, this category grew by 40.2% versus the prior year period. Gross margin was 52.9%, up from 49.4%. This exceeded our normal expected range of 40%-45%. The increase in gross margin was primarily due to a favorable product mix, improved gross margins for specific product lines, and a favorable impact from fluctuations in the renminbi to U.S. dollar exchange rate.
We expect gross margins to continue to vary from period to period due to a variety of factors, such as sales volume, product mix, and currency impacts. Operating expenses were $45.3 million, up from $32.6 million. The increase was due to higher R&D, sales and marketing, and G&A costs in support of new customer and new product activities, and a boost in post-COVID travel activities. Operating income was $43.8 million, up from $33.5 million. Operating margin was 26.0%, up from 25.1%. We recorded a realized gain of $0.7 million from the sale of short-term investments for the quarter. Recall that realized gains are included in non-GAAP earnings. Income tax expense was $0.7 million, down from $10.5 million.
This was driven by one-time items for the third quarter, but we still expect the full year tax rate to be in the 20% range. Recall that as a result of a change in Section 174 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, our effective tax rate for the full year remains elevated. Net income attributable to ACM Research was $37.6 million, up from $28.2 million. Net income per diluted share was $0.57, up from $0.42. I'll now review selected balance sheet items. Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and time deposits were $326.5 million versus $376.1 million at the end of the second quarter. Total inventory was $507.4 million, versus $471.1 million at the end of the second quarter.
It was split between raw materials, $202.0 million, work in process, $83.4 million, finished goods inventory at $223 million. Capital expenditures were $26.2 million for the quarter. Year to date, capital expenditures were $49.5 million. That concludes our prepared remarks. Now, let's open the call for any questions that you may have. Operator, please go ahead.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will take our first question. Your first question comes from the line of Charles Shi from Needham & Company. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Charles Shi (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Hi, good evening, David and Mark. Congrats on the strong Q3 results. I have a first question on shipment. The shipment figure you posted for Q3 looks like you're making a new record here. I just really want to understand what you see in terms of shipment going into Q4. Do you largely see the number going to be flat Qo Q for Q4? Or, what's the dynamics behind the very strong shipment figures? Thanks. That's my first question.
David Wang (CEO)
Yes, okay. So, and the actual, I think the shipment is really number indicated wherever, you know, get a new customer and also have our product, you know, spread out and with the cleaning, cover plating and also our latest, you know, new product, you know, in the furnace. And so, I think, you know, that's the reason driving the shipment, you know. And also we think our Q4 shipment continue, you know, in our timeline and, I would say, you know, obviously there's certain, components, right? And also, there are also some maybe, customer, their production line, and there may be some, you know, I call the pulsing, may impact our shipment. But anyway, we think the whole year in our shipment will be still a very good number for our, for supporting our growth.
Hey, Mark, anything you want to add on the shipment?
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yeah. No, thanks, David. Yeah, I mean, shipments, I think as David noted, it's repeat shipments for revenue, and it's also the first tool. So yeah, we're certainly pleased with the shipments in the quarter. We don't guide specifically, you know, by quarter on shipments, but, you know, we're not anticipating a big increase sequentially in Q4. Yep.
Charles Shi (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Thanks. So, David, I just want to have a follow-up, because you—I think I heard you mention certain customers may be pausing, which may have an impact on shipment. Did I hear correct? Is that the Q3 comment or Q4 comment? Thanks.
David Wang (CEO)
Yeah, well, I just said, not specifically in a certain, you know, quarter, right? And looking the whole year, right? We do see some, you know, I mean, customer, their production line is not foreseeable ready, and they do have a phase one, phase two, you know, deliver. So that's something we can fill their, you know, foreseeable ready, and that cause our shipment delay, right? So.
Charles Shi (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay. So just want to make sure. So it's not, anything related to export controls, et cetera?
David Wang (CEO)
No. Actually, this moment, our product, you know, we follow all the, you know, I call it, export control rule there. Whatever, where we ship order, you know, all follow their, I call it, restriction, and they also follow the rule, right, also U.S. And we're also, you know, components action. So anyway, so far, we do not have any, because of our, you know, export control, we cannot ship.
Charles Shi (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Got it. Thanks. Maybe a second question from me. Congrats on shipping receiving a PO from the other from the U.S. semiconductor manufacturer for another set of evaluation, I believe. One other thing you remind us, what was the first evaluation that you shipped to this customer? What application was that for? What's the status of that, the first evaluation? Thanks.
David Wang (CEO)
Great. Actually, we do have a two tool, right? We receive order, we deliver, you know, last year. Actually, we made quite a progress, you know, even this is a, you know, first tool shipped to this new customer, and we make a lot of progress, and they're, you know, we're making their product call, and the customer happy with the performance. And obviously, you know, we're looking for future, you know, repeat order and because of our tool does offer measure requirement, especially using mechanical cleaning, they offer a much better cleaning efficiency and also, you know, dilute the chemistry. You can see the consumption chemical. So we're looking for this tool, make a bigger contribution for their process.
Charles Shi (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Yeah. Any expected timeline for the closure of the first evaluation, since you already shipped the second? Thanks.
David Wang (CEO)
Yeah, I mean, well, I think we're, you know, close to another... There are two tool, right? One is real R&D or evaluation tool, another one is just like, you know, I repeat the order tool. So, for the R&D tool, two year, right? We are making two year finish. But the second tool, I think we're very close to, you know, final qualification, you know, and we call their sign-off, you know, for, for our revenue. We're very close.
Charles Shi (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Thanks. Thanks, David. I'll hop back to the line. Thanks.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Great. Thanks, Charles.
Operator (participant)
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We will take our next question, and the question comes from the line of Suji from Roth MKM. Go ahead, your line is open.
Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hi, David. Hi, Mark. Congrats on the progress here. Mark, on the gross margin, you said something about improving gross margin for specific product lines. Any color there? It seems like you're trending above the target consistently. Just want to get any update there.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yeah, Suji, we won't really break it out by product line, but you know, we had a good mix of differentiated products, and you know, some cost downs. We also got a little bit of tailwind from foreign exchange. Obviously, we're pleased with that level, but we're not changing our 40%-45% target at this point.
Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, great. Thanks. And then, I noticed you mentioned, AI, GPT chips and the preferred marks, David. Clearly, there's import-export controls on some of those products for U.S. semis vendors. Is there a burgeoning China AI chip market that the foundries are servicing there? Can you give us a sense of how big that might be versus the global AI chip market? Because that could be a very exciting opportunity for you guys.
David Wang (CEO)
Yeah, well, Suji, I really mean that the advanced packaging, most of our copper plating, right? I mean, this is a real product we're talking. And we're talking about not only China market, we're also talk about in the global market too. So in general, see that, right? And in China, I think I still say most, you know, our tool is for mature product, and they're just moment, you know, for the packaging. So, you know, as I said, we're looking for our tool to be spread out, not only in China market, which is a more mature node, also looking for our copper advanced fiber plating to be, you know, sell in the global market, which is more for more advanced AI and also GPT.
Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, appreciate that color, David. And last question I have is on the on the vacuum cleaning tool. You mentioned chiplets. That's the first time I've heard you guys talk about chiplets. Is that a new growth driver area, or is that really just an element of the advanced packaging functionality that you have? I was curious there, if that's an incremental opportunity.
David Wang (CEO)
Yeah. We see there's a, you know, new product, new requirement come out, right? You look at this, all the advanced packaging, you know, all the chiplets. When they have a package finishing, there's also flux inside, you know, gap. So those kind of gaps, how to clean, and those are fluxes. So with our vacuum type of the cleaning, you can really, either, you know, chemical or the water, getting into the small gap because the vacuum, you know, status. That's really, you know, major flux clean very well. So we see that market grow, and again, there's a lot of, you know, with the chiplets going on in the whole industry. And there, for both are setting, you know, mature nodes or the advanced nodes.
So we're looking for this product, you know, to add another, you know, we call it revenue booster for our product portfolio.
Suji Desilva (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, great. Appreciate the color. Thanks, guys.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Thanks, Suji.
David Wang (CEO)
Thank you.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We will take our next question, and the question comes from the line of Christian Schwab from Craig-Hallum Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Christian Schwab (Senior Research Analyst)
Great. Hey, Mark, can you just walk us through the puts and takes on your original top-line revenue guidance, on why-
David Wang (CEO)
Yeah
Christian Schwab (Senior Research Analyst)
Your guidance for the year is near the low end versus the high end?
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yeah, actually, David, do you wanna, you wanna take that, and I can help-
David Wang (CEO)
You guys, you're up here first. You take it first. I will answer that, you know.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Okay. I can. Yeah, I'll go ahead and take that then. So Christian, thanks for the question. I think there's a couple things here kind of from the beginning of the year. I'd say first is, you know, if you just think about the overall China market, you know, we're not necessarily market readers, but based on some third-party data, it does sound like the China market as a whole is down year-over-year, versus our expected flat. Still great spending on mature nodes, but, you know, the market may be a little less strong than we had anticipated. I would say, you know, despite that, our year-to-date revenue was up 37%.
You know, our midpoint of our outlook is up 36%, so, you know, we're our product cycles and our new customer activity is contributing. You know, the third point is, you know, we did. I think David talked about a little bit, certain customers, we saw maybe a slight delay, one- to two-quarter delay, either due to their facilities, just kind of a timing thing for them to get their tools installed, or just almost a digestion, where, you know, some of our bigger customers may have seen a large number of tools shipped, and they're just kind of working to get those deployed.
The last thing I'd say on that is, also, Christian, you know, a lot of our shipments this year have been first tools, you know, to new customers or newer products, and so for those ones, we'll get, you know, more revenue next year. So kind of a combination of things there. I mean, we're still pleased with the growth. We would have liked, obviously, to be at the higher end, but this is where things stand right now. David, anything to add?
David Wang (CEO)
Yeah, that's fine. I mean, perfect. I don't have anything to add on that.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yeah.
Christian Schwab (Senior Research Analyst)
And then as you guys look to calendar 2024, you know, would you expect, you know, the aggregate TAM in China to be flat, to be up, to be down, and what specifically would cause you to outperform the TAM growth inside of China altogether?
David Wang (CEO)
Okay, good question. So, actually, you're looking there, you know, third-party data, and next year, China is up, right? And we also feel the good, you know, the good year next year for, for China, and because the... I think China market is still in the early or middle stage of the capacity, you know, expansion, especially this, you know, mature 28, 45, also EV market, right, for their power devices continue to grow. And then also we have our new product, you know, our furnace, as I mentioned, end of last year, we have three customers. End of this year, we're part of the 10 customers, so expanding quite rapidly with the customers in the furnace product, right? We have, LPCVD, high temperature SPM, plus our new ALD product. So we'll, we'll see the revenue contribution, right, and for the year 2024.
Plus other, you know, all, also other new cleaning product, you mentioned that, you know, as other, you know, supercritical CO2, and also our Tahoe product. I will mention that we see next year, you know, multiple repeat order will come in for our Tahoe tool. Also, Tahoe has also, you know, 40%-70% cost savings, compared to their single SPM tool. And we see big interaction from, you know, not only logic customer, also from their memory customer. Also, not only domestic, I mean, only China, also we see the customer outside China interest for this Tahoe product. You know, we believe this is a real revolutionary cleaning tool and offer, you know, real environment-friendly process, you know, for saving the sulfuric acid.
Next one, I see that 2024, we see the also international market penetration, become more of a, I call materialized, and we see their probably pick up in their international sale. And for our cleaning, for copper plating, and those, well proving and also advanced product, right? And, as I mentioned, even in the cleaning, I want to mention one more, is a bevel on the backside cleaning, we just announced today, and to the, you know, same customer we have in the U.S. As another indication, our, backside bevel cleaning tool will be also another booster for our, our cleaning product, right? And, for the 2024. And last but not still mention that, it will still continue to grow for cleaning, for cleaning, auto bench bevel, auto bench cleaning tool, you know, has been grown rapidly.
For a lot of mature product in China, they're using, you know, this AutoBench tool, right? So that's another growing factor. Further than that, I should say, next year, we see our, you know, Track system will probably go to model customer and also PECVD, by getting into their evaluation with the customer, too. But those two new product made the contribution for 2025 revenue, right? I mean, that's very, you know, general, my, you know, view on 2024. Mark, anything you want to add on that?
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yeah, no, I think you hit it pretty good, David. I mean, one thing that it is interesting to talk about, Christian, is we actually had our international sales conference last week here, and you know, post-COVID, it was our first face-to-face conference in a while. You know, we had teams from Korea, U.S., Europe, even Taiwan, in here meeting for three to four days. And, I mean, David, you might say a few more things about it, but you know, it's pretty clear to us that the international markets, there's good opportunity.
There's a lot of customer activity in these regions and, you know, next year, we do think international can be more meaningful, and, you know, but we would see next year as a building year. Yeah, that's it. Thanks.
Christian Schwab (Senior Research Analyst)
Thanks for that. It sounds like we have a lot of things going on both the product and the customer front. But if we could, if I could just ask one more question about the customer front. You know, as you've made, you know, a couple tools with a new customer in the United States, you know, in Oregon, you know, can you give us some idea of how substantial that could be over time? Not 2024, 2025, but over time. And then in addition to that, I think you mentioned that, you know, selling, you know, out of the Korean facility to international customers, but also expanding opportunities within inside Korea.
Now, do you think you can expand the customer base inside of Korea, or are you just talking about expansion of opportunities with you know, your historical customer in Korea? And that's my last question. Thanks.
David Wang (CEO)
Okay, thank you. Well, actually, let's, you know, our customer in U.S. and including our, you know, our recent shipment customer in the Europe, right? Is really adding our customer base and for international customer. As we said, we got a repeat order for the same customer, it will show our, you know, relationship closer with the customer. Plus, we will offer differential, you know, I call their product, product for the customer, and that's really a major attraction to the customer. And regarding to their Korean customer, again, you know, we have a historic customer. We have a fully cooperation with them, and not only we talk about cleaning, we work on our additional new product, right? To, to collaborate with them. With also, however, you know, almost 90% the process of step we can cover in cleaning site.
So we have a lot of advanced and also our only ACM advanced product, where we try to working with the, customer in, in this, you know, historic customer. Obviously, we are also looking for other customer in Korea, and not only for, you know, our cleaning tool, also including our copper plating tool and, also other, you know, product we, you know, developing right now. And plus, I want to add one more product we didn't mention, our in the script. We're also actively working with customer in Singapore, right? So again, our goal still, long run goal is still remain. We want there in the future, our 50% of revenue come from, you know, mainland China, and also 50% of revenue come from non-mainland China, right? That's our future, you know, global, strategy.
Christian Schwab (Senior Research Analyst)
Great. Thank you, guys.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Thanks, Christian.
David Wang (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. We will take our next question. Please stand by. The question comes from the line of Charlie Chan from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Charlie Chan (Managing Director)
Thank you. Hi, David and Mark. Good evening and good morning. So, first of all, my question is about your potential exposure to the high-end memory, meaning the high bandwidth memory. We do know you have some memory customers. So can you explain to us, you know, first of all, what kind of a tool you potentially can supply to the memory customer for the HBM? And secondly, what is the progress for this adoption for your tool for HBM module? Thanks.
David Wang (CEO)
Yeah. Okay, Charlie, I really cannot tell too detail, right? But we have a multiple product and, you know, working for, this customer for the HBM, right? And this is a real new growing market. And, as I said, you know, we have, more than two products, right, working with them. Also, we're trying to spreading also other product, you know, in our, portfolio and, you know, and working more closely with, their R&D group and qualify our advanced technology, you know, for the community. So I'd say we have put all the effort in Korea, and we have now 150 engineer R&D in Korea. And we are really, you know, become local supporting for the customer and get a closer, you know, and faster response to the customer.
So we're building all continuously and building our, you know, production capacity to meet the requirement, and not only for the Korean customer, but also for all the customers internationally. So that's the three, you know, efforts we're putting in right now.
Charlie Chan (Managing Director)
Okay, understood. Thanks, David. So next question is for Mark. I know you explained the OpEx trend, but it's still a very, very big jump, right? Even, there's a new R&D expense, a lot of customer activity, but still pretty, pretty, a big jump versus the previous quarter. So how much of those increases, like one of post-COVID travel, and should we use that $45 million a quarter as the new norm for the future OpEx?
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yeah. You know, thanks for that on the OpEx question. So, you know, we're obviously investing in the R&D side and our sales and marketing. You know, we've got public companies, two public stocks. So, I think the quick answer to the new level, yeah, I mean, I would actually expect the OpEx to be maybe even up a little bit next quarter. There is—as you know, a lot of our expenses are in renminbi, so third quarter, the renminbi actually strengthened on the quarter, so that moved things a little bit. But in general, you know, we would anticipate the OpEx to you know be at that's about the right new run rate, Charlie.
Charlie Chan (Managing Director)
Okay. So can we justify that increase the OpEx with a very strong shipments? Because, you know, when we calculate the OpEx ratio, the OpEx by revenue, right? It seems like a pretty high OpEx ratio. So is that like more like correlates with the shipment, because seems like shipment into, you know, third quarter, fourth quarter are pretty strong.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
There's a correlation there, Charlie. I don't—we don't break it out specifically, but of course, there's a correlation to our shipment level and our OpEx. Yeah.
Charlie Chan (Managing Director)
Mm-hmm. Mm, okay. Yeah, and also associated to the R&D. Do you think that the big spending of your R&D? I know you're already introduced your new product lines, right? So how much more efforts or R&D you need to invest in for the future product line or current product lines?
David Wang (CEO)
Yeah, let me cover that, or maybe Mark can add more. I think R&D is still, you know, a major spending, right? And, you look in the, you know, two years ago or three years ago, our general R&D spending about 12%, right? Actually, you know, especially after IPO in China, stock market, and there's always we have started boosting on after. Also, we have started, you know, put more investment into new product, right? Furnace is number one, you know, furnace ALD, and plus PECVD, and also track. So, and we look at the next two, three years, a very big opportunity in front us to grabbing the market in China.
Plus, with our new innovation or proprietary technology building into the, you know, furnace, PECVD and also track, and we will also get into the market in international, right? Especially, I want to mention the track. You know, track system is going very well in the customer qualification. Plus, our new architecture really is aiming for high throughput of this next generation lithography tool, right? So, you know, people talk about even 400, 450 WPH, you know, high throughput. So we're, you know, attach our track system, really aiming for that market, and we're planning to be the second player, right, in this very, you know, I call the competitive market.
So as I see that is, so I think probably 15, you know, 15, 16%, that's the range, and we'll be keeping. And as I said, percentage-wise, probably not much changing, but then we have a revenue growth, right? You can see that we still maintain a lot of our, of the throughput on the money into, into their, our, you know, our existing product and also new product. And especially even for existing product, like a copper plating and also the, cleaning, right? We, we also do put effort in there. Our reasoning is we see there, you know, this cleaning product become more and more important in, for the new, new advanced technology. Plus, you know, I, I should say the copper plating market grow rapidly.
I mean, this is a chip fab, and among 3D packaging, and this copper bump, you know, copper plating will become very important. So, we're also putting a, you know, R&D into both the existing product production line.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yeah. Hey, one last thing.
David Wang (CEO)
I see. I see.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Charlie, we've said this before-
David Wang (CEO)
Sure.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
But if you look at and kind of brass tacks behind what David said, R&D, you know, expected around 15% of sales, but we should see some operating leverage on the G&A and the sales and marketing side. We got a little bit this year, and in general, that's the way our operating model is built.
Charlie Chan (Managing Director)
Okay. Okay, so the R&D intensity will keep at the 15%-
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
That's right.
Charlie Chan (Managing Director)
At least over the coming couple of years. Okay. Okay.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Thanks.
Charlie Chan (Managing Director)
Fair enough. Thanks, thanks for the, the, comments. Thank you.
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yep.
David Wang (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Once again, if you do wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone. There seems to be no further questions. Apologies, we have a question that's come through. One moment, please. You have a follow-up question from the line of Charles Shi from Needham & Company. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Charles Shi (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Hey, thanks for taking my follow-up question. So David and Mark, I really just want to go back to your comment, the overall China market. I know you said you're not the market reader here, but can you kind of explain why you're seeing China market down year-over-year as a whole? And what about quarter-over-quarter? What do you see there? Yeah, and I'm just looking at the data and the commentary from your U.S. peers. It seems like they are probably expecting Q4 overall China market to be holding relatively strong. I don't exactly know where you will land on QoQ or year-over-year, but I was kind of curious why you think the overall China market was down year-over-year. Thanks.
David Wang (CEO)
Well, let me add on that maybe, you know, Charles, is actually, we don't have whole data, right? We're, you know, we're not collect the whole market data. However, you look in the order research report with the semi or other, you know, invest banker publish. People talk about probably, you know, a few percent, no, I should say less than 10% down, people say a whole year, more quarterly base, right? And, we see probably, I mean this year, we see almost like flat, even over. But I don't know yet, you know, this moment, I say, probably flat is where we stay here, but the real, you know, number we'll say probably, you know, end of the, you know, this year, somebody publish real results.
But I will say, you know, even this year flat, we see our customer expansion, and we think the next year is still another good year. You know, everybody is expecting, you know, probably 3, 5, 5, 6, the global, you know, market is back. But, you know, I think China this time, even downturn globally, the China market in general is still with the maintain. I would say, you know, next year is another good year for us, is also a new point because-
Mark McKechnie (CFO)
Yeah, and David, if you don't mind, maybe I'll add a little bit onto that. I mean, it's again, it's hard for us to kind of read the overall market, so we look at third parties, and we look at some of the same public companies you probably look at as well, right? If you look at some of the semi-cap names, you know, our investor relations team pulled together some data, where, you know, Q3, a lot of companies had a pretty big uptick sequentially. Hard to know exactly what that was driven by, but, you know, we were encouraged by, you know, kind of a big lithography ramp in Q3 for one of the players.
And we, you know, we look at that hopefully as some kind of a leading indicator. But David, I don't know if you wanted to add anything on about that as well, but that's, it's, there's a lot of tea leaves that we try to pay attention to, and you know, we look at our own business, and, you know, this is kind of how we see it.
David Wang (CEO)
Yeah, I mean, I think you are right. The lithography two, you know, companies, their this year's revenue, China, right? Almost double, right? Look at that. So it's really indications say, normally, you know, the lithography two is the ones buying, right? Or ship. So they're fourth, they get it right in first, you know? So we'll see that there, those two are definitely driving, you know, another demand for the semiconductor cap, you know, capital spending in China.
Charles Shi (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. There seems to be no further questions. I would like to hand back to David Wang for closing remarks.
David Wang (CEO)
Thank you, operator, and thank you all for participating on today's call and for your supporting. Before we close, Gary is going to mention our upcoming investor relations events. Gary, please.
Gary Dvorchak (Managing Director)
Thanks, David. Before we conclude, I just want to give everyone a quick reminder on our upcoming investor conferences. On November 15, we'll present at the 12th Roth, the 12th Annual Roth Technology Conference in New York City. On November 16, we'll present at the 14th Annual Craig-Hallum Alpha Select Conference, also in New York City. From November 29 to the 30th, we'll present UBS Global Technology Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. And finally, on December 12, we'll present at the Annual CEO Summit in New York City. Attendance at the conferences is by invitation only. For interested investors, please contact your respective sales representative to register and schedule one-on-one meetings with the management team. This concludes the call. You may now disconnect.