Kulicke and Soffa Industries - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings, and welcome to the Kulicke & Soffa 2024 first quarter results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require 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. Please begin.

Joe Elgindy (Senior Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Welcome everyone to Kulicke & Soffa's fiscal first quarter 2024 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/or 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.

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 most recently filed Form 10-K and the 8-K filed yesterday. 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 (President and CEO)

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone. Looking ahead into fiscal 2024, we remain focused and optimistic. Our businesses remain on track to support new level of value creation. As our core market recovers, we continue to anticipate a return to and above average industry growth rate by the end of the fiscal year. As the semiconductor industry return to a more normal growth pattern through fiscal 2024, we remain in dominant leadership position across core market and, will continue to aggressively drive key strategic initiative, providing additional paths to long-term value creation and, profitability. Specifically, these strategic initiatives are centered around three key businesses: ball bonding, advanced packaging, and advanced display. I will provide additional detail to each of these points shortly. But first, I would like to summarize our financial performance and market observation, and share an update on the advanced dispense business.

For the December quarter, we delivered $171.2 million of revenue, just above our guidance midpoint, with GAAP net income of $9.3 million and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.30. From a market standpoint, the fiscal first quarter was in line with the seasonal expectation. Based on external market forecast, customer feedback, and discussions, we continue to anticipate improvement over the course of 2024, with more significant demand in the second half of 2024. We anticipate overall industry conditions will remain favorable going into 2025 as we expand our market positions. Over recent months, we have made significant progress with our advanced dispense business and are actively competing for several opportunities in parallel.

We continue to target key opportunities across our served end markets, which require high precision dispense capability, combined with a world-class motion control capability K&S is known for. Initial customer feedback has been strong, and we are increasingly confident we will leverage and grow this opportunity over the coming years. Turning to the end market review, we continue to see signs of broader cyclical improvements and also anticipate gradual recovery through the fiscal years. Seasonal dynamics impact our December quarter results as expected. This effect was most pronounced within general semiconductor. Here, we experienced softer demand due to seasonal patterns, which affect the ball bonding business and softer power semiconductor market conditions, which affect our wedge bonding businesses. The power semiconductor market is going through a period of inventory and capacity positioning, causing a near-term headwind in wedge bonding.

We continue to expect trend in power semiconductor to improve over the long term and support growth of our wedge bonding business. For ball bonding, we anticipate demand environment to improve as the semiconductor unit growth return in fiscal 2024. Next, LED remain relatively soft, with the demand primarily attributable to general lighting. We remain focused on the existing qualification engagement for both LUMINEX and the Project W, and I will share an update to both opportunities shortly. Within automotive and industrial, macro and industry factor have impacted the near-term demand for our wedge solution. Despite a well-known softness in automotive near term, we continue to anticipate specific opportunity for K&S in battery assembly space later this year. This specific battery opportunity is unique to K&S and will help mitigate some of the existing demand softness affecting the broader automotive market.

Longer term, as the semiconductor content and the complexity within vehicle advance, we remain strategically aligned with automotive trends. We will continue to provide leading class equipment to support the transition to more advanced and sustainable vehicle, including efficient power delivery and storage application. Finally, within memory, we have seen demand improve significantly for our leading-edge solution across multiple customers. Memory revenue in the first fiscal quarter exceeded revenue for the prior fiscal year. This strong improvement provides further confidence that we are past trials in the memory market, and we continue to actively pursue near and the long-term strategy to expand share in high volume and the leading-edge design application. During the December quarter, we have also booked revenue for multiple systems, capable of supporting Vertical-Fan-Out application in production and remain very positive on the long-term potential of this smart packaging approach.

We currently anticipate overall end market demand will return to a more normalized level by the end of fiscal 2024 and continue well into fiscal 2025. As we prepare for the next period of demand recovery, we are extremely focused to execute K&S opportunity, which will further diversify revenue, expand market growth, and sustainably enhance earning potential over the long term. I would like to provide a brief update on our unique position within the ball bonding, advanced packaging, and advanced display opportunity. The semiconductor assembly market continue to evolve, and we are well positioned to add more industry value in the form of power efficiency, performance, package label, transistor density, and cost. This technology-driven evolution within assembly is demanding more feature-rich and capable assembly solution, which we are well prepared to deliver.

This semiconductor opportunity will continue to benefit our ball bonding and advanced packaging business over the long term. Within ball bonding, we continue to deliver new feature-rich solution, which will further extend our leadership position, drive share gain, and also help enhance and sustain long-term growth margin. Our initial two system, POWERCOMM and the POWERNEXX were recently released and have been well received by customers. We are ramping the production of this initial system during March quarters. As explained on our previous call, the ball bonding process remains the most dominant and cost-effective solution for both high volume, single, and the multi-die packages. Additionally, we continue to see many consumer, mobile, and IoT-based applications in high volume market seeking new packaging approach.

These new approaches provide greater level of transistor density at the package level and provide K&S with opportunity to add additional value. Within ball bonding, these technology-driven changes are demanding more complex looping and a higher wire count per package. Our market leadership and persistent development effort provide a unique position to drive industry level change. Currently, we see new market emerging in shielding and also within high potential stack die applications, such as Vertical-Fan-Out, which are providing specific long-term and unique opportunity for the company. New shielding applications are being deployed for both long and short distance wireless communication. As bandwidth increase and wireless communication become more ingrained in consumer electronics, we expect ongoing growth in this new wire bonding market. This shielding approach was in development a few years ago and has now been broadly adopted by OSAT and IM, and is utilized in high volume production.

We expect this shielding need to continue supporting near-term recovery and the long-term growth in the ball bonding market. Similar to where shielding was a few years ago, there has recently been significant interest from customers for our Vertical-Fan-Out or VFO solution. This new opportunity is anticipated to further extend our memory market access over the course of the fiscal 2024. Over the next few years, we anticipate similar vertical wire approach will provide a cost-effective alternative to Through Silicon Vias or TSVs for high-volume CD application beyond the initial adoption within the memory market. The value of VFO stems from its ability to create a complex 3D structures, which provide form factor, power efficiency improvement, and a significant cost benefit over alternative advanced packaging solution.

One customer has reported a 27% improvement in the form factor and a 5% improvement in power efficiency, along with allowing higher I/O count and a better heat dissipation. During the December quarter, we booked VFO system revenue of just over $500,000 to a first moving customer as they refine their production approach. We are currently engaged with three leading memory customers who are seeking cost-effective 3D packaging approaches. Initially, we anticipate DRAM applications such as low power DDR, LPDDR, to move in low volume production in calendar year 2024, and higher volume production in 2025. Based on initial customer feedback, there is also strong interest and the potential that VFO can be deployed for high bandwidth memory application in the next few years.

Shielding, VFO, and the overall growth of high volume multi-die application has increased the growth rate, technology need, and our competitive position within the sizable worldwide market. We believe we are best positioned to leverage this new market opportunity long term. Turning to advanced packaging, we continue to actively support several customers engagement in parallel, and anticipate additional order from OSAT, IDM, and the foundry customers as we complete key evaluation and qualifications. In addition to our incumbent position in high volume semiconductor market, our advanced packaging effort allow us to take shares in new high growth market, including leading-edge logic, mobility, and co-packaged optics. We are increasingly confident on the longevity and the market potential for our TCB portfolio, and expect to extend the technology well beyond the previously targeted 10-micron pitch.

Reaching below this 10-micron threshold will further unlock the flexibility and the long-term potential of our TCB solutions. We increasingly anticipate TCB will be an essential component for leading-edge assembly for many years to come. In addition to finer pitch capability, which extend bandwidth and the transistor density, our TCB solution also provides direct copper to copper interconnect. Direct copper to copper connection are best in class due to low resistance and high performance. Our fluxless TCB solution is well positioned to enable this industrial breakthrough across high volume and the leading edge heterogeneous market. We are confident of our significant technology lead in thermal compression, which we intend to extend further. Demand for our solution is rising, and we are running several qualifications within OSAT, IDM, and the foundry customers in parallel. Over the coming weeks, we intend to ship several more qualification systems supporting fluxless TCB.

I look forward to sharing new products and the new customer milestone over the next few quarters as we drive broader market adoption. Finally, within advanced display, we continue to expand access into the broadening mini and the Micro LED market. Our growing portfolio support the evolving display market, serving small format, high performance, mobile display, as well as large format, high volume, and a direct emissive display. We expect to secure a qualification win for LUMINEX later this year. LUMINEX provide a dedicated Mini LED, which will be increasingly a necessity as Mini LED die size continue to shrink. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, it has become clear that Mini LED technology is a significant performance enabler for the LCD market. Mini LED display have improved over the past years, delivering higher level of brightness and the quality, and leveraging the large install base of LCD capacity.

As die size reduce, we are confident the industry will require a dedicated, high throughput solution, such as our LUMINEX system. Our other key opportunity in display is Project W, and I am happy to report that we are reaching new milestone, expect to ship additional capacity during the March quarters and recognize revenue during the upcoming June quarter. As we work successfully qualify a previously shipped system, we are beginning to ramp production in support of our customers' long-term capacity plan. Our global R&D operation facility and the supply chain team have been working tirelessly to support this major initiative, and we look forward to sharing more information over the coming quarters. It remains a very dynamic and interesting time at the company. As our core market recovers, we are again transitioning into a more optimized and a more diversified company.

We are very excited to reach new milestone across our growing market. Looking through fiscal 2024, we continue to anticipate major unit demand recovery and also technology-driven growth. As our core market evolve and we continue to extend our foothold in the new market, customer interest and the momentum across our emerging portfolio remains strong. We look forward to releasing a steady pace of new system, new feature, and also announcing new customer and the technology win as the core business return to a more normalized growth rate. With that said, I will now turn the call over to Lester, who will discuss our financial performance and the outlook. Lester?

Lester Wong (CFO)

Thank you, Fusen. My remarks today will refer to GAAP results, unless noted. While there continues to be headwinds across specific end markets related to the macroeconomic and industry conditions, it remains a very exciting time for the company. Our core market has shown signs of improvement, and we are reaching new milestones with key customer engagements, which provide new market access and enhance our long-term financial potential. During the December quarter, we generated $171.2 million of revenue, 46.7% gross margin, and $0.30 of non-GAAP EPS. Gross margins were aligned with expectations and are anticipated to improve with volume and new product launches. Non-GAAP operating expenses also met expectations at $69.8 million. Finally, tax came in just ahead of expectation at just below our longer-term, 20% effective tax rate. Turning to the balance sheet.

Working capital days increased from 448 to 525 days in the December quarter. Over this period, the absolute value of working capital decreased slightly. Our repurchase program remained opportunistic, and we have increased our repurchase activity sequentially to $26.8 million during the December quarter, nearly three times the value repurchased in the prior quarter. Additionally, we recently raised our quarterly dividend to $0.20 per share. This has allowed us to maintain an industry-leading dividend yield, nearly 1.6% as of our most recent payable date on January ninth. Looking out through fiscal 2024, we continue to invest in the future and are anticipating capital expenditure to be $23 million-$27 million. These investments will support growth over the coming years and will be deployed to enhance and expand operations, facilities, R&D, and corporate systems.

Concerning the ongoing softness in automotive and power semiconductor, which is affecting near-term demand for our wedge bonder solutions, we anticipate revenue of approximately $170 million ±$10 million, with gross margins of 47% in the March quarter. Non-GAAP operating expenses are anticipated to increase slightly to $72.5 million ±2%. We remain focused on controlling and limiting non-critical activities, although continue to ramp headcount where necessary, to support our growing set of customer engagements. Non-GAAP net income for the March quarter is expected to be approximately $14 million, with non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of approximately $0.25. In closing, over the long history of the company, we have never enjoyed as many different market and growth opportunities. The core semiconductor assembly market continues to evolve and is adding more value to the industry.

New levels of capabilities are optimizing our high volume business, which will see demand recovery over the coming quarters. At this core, market recovery is underway. We are taking share and expanding our position in leading-edge logic applications, memory, automotive transitions, and high potential display opportunities, which will add diversification and meaningfully enhance free cash flow generation over the coming years. Finally, we are starting to see material opportunities in advanced dispense and continue to adopt an active but cautious posture in exploring future M&A opportunities. Over the coming quarters, we look forward to sharing new milestones on our progress across this broad set of opportunities. This concludes our prepared comments. Operator, please open this call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad at this time. A confirmation tone will indicate 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. Once again, that's star one to register a question at this time. Today's first question is coming from Krish Sankar of TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director)

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. I had a couple of them. Number one, Fusen, I think last quarter, you said you expected kind of like a sharp recovery in the fiscal second half of your... We're just wondering, is this still true, or is it more a calendar second half recovery versus a fiscal second half?

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Okay. So, Krish, I will say this: I think our Q2 actually weakness in the auto industry and the power semi actually impact our Q2 outlook. And also, Q2 is a shorter quarter, like, we have a Chinese New Year. So actually, Q2 was compared to our original expectation, was lower and we see some push off. But we still actually still very feel good about the second half. We still believe the industry recovery actually will make our bonder recovery more significant. And in addition, I think we have a specific cadence growth, which second half can do better than first half... in a display, VFO, I mentioned in the script, battery, some customers battery assembly and also TCB.

So if you put, like, Q2 and the second half, I just mentioned, I think it's unlikely, the push out in Q2, then Q4 actually, you know, in fiscal year over 2024. But so some of them probably will go beyond 2024, you know? But we still feel very good that we will be able to achieve, you know, our $800 million. So to answer your question, I think we are still feel good about the second half, but we do have a push out from over Q2. You know, at least Q2 push out might actually suffer, you know, suffer compared to original expectation. But actually, I think we're still quite positive, you know, to move forward. Hope I answer your questions.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director)

Yeah, got it. Thank you for that, Fusen. And then two other quick questions. One is, is the timeframe still around April to figure out any kind of TCB qualifications in Taiwan?

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Okay. So, actually, interest in our TCB, particularly the fluxless TCB, actually has increased significantly. We currently have a multiple engagement with OSAT, IDM and foundry, including a top two potential tier customers. And even some company, we have multiple engagement projects. So I believe, you know, we feel pretty good. The qualification, all the qualification are performing well, and we expect our qualification win, you know, throughout 2024. Particularly, I think in foundry process. This actually are, the engagement project are advanced, you know, new technology. We believe is what take additional quarter or maybe a little bit more to finalize, you know, everything. But actually we do feel good about the progress and the overall momentum of our TCB.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director)

Thanks for this. Just a quick one for Lester. Can you just help us understand what was the backlog exiting the quarter, and how much was China as a percentage of sales?

Lester Wong (CFO)

Well, I think the backlog has been coming down, as we've talked about before, from the ramp. It's closer now to the normalize, which is close to our lead times. As far as China, China constitute close to 60% of our revenues in Q1. 46% of it was China headquartered customers. So China, it continues to be a important part of our business, and we do see some strength in China right now.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director)

Thank you very much, Lester. Thanks, Fusen.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Dave Duley of Steelhead Securities. Please go ahead. Dave, please make sure your phone's not on mute.

Dave Duley (Managing Principal)

Yeah. Thank you. Good, good evening, guys. I was wondering if you could talk about what are some of the signs that you might be seeing now that lead you to believe that your core business is going... is in recovery mode? Is it higher utilization rates or, or, you know, customers coming in and asking for capacity? Just talk about what signs, or early signs you're seeing, for core business recovery.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Actually, we see actually, you know, we have a frequent engagement with our customers. But from an industry point of view, memory actually is recovering, right? Associated with the memory, actually, is a phone. You know, a lot of people are talking about, you know, AI phone and a PC. We believe this bright spot and, you know, the iteration, I think Lester probably can make a comment later. But I think this industry, you know, actually, we to believe a new capacity probably is needed. Some customer was on fence, but now they point to second half, you know, probably, you know, I think we'll have more opportunity, particularly in our bond, right?

And we also have some project we believe will be more realized in second half. So let's see on the comment.

Lester Wong (CFO)

Yeah. So, Dave, you're right in terms of utilization. I mean, utilization, obviously, as always, is mixed around different end markets as well as regions. But China, which I mentioned before, it's over 80%. It's actually closer to mid-80s% now, and we're seeing some real strength there. The other end markets that's also doing very, very well, and also this is also related to China, is memory. Memory, for the first time, the last two quarters are over 80%. This hasn't happened since 2022, so we see a real, real buildup in utilization in memory in, especially in China. So we feel that that would help drive our ballbond business in the quarter and in second half.

Dave Duley (Managing Principal)

Okay. And then, could you just talk about what your expectations are for unit volume growth for 2024, overall industry unit volume growth? And then maybe characterize what you think it would be in the first half and the second half. It kind of sounds like first half unit volume growth is flattish with an acceleration in the back half, but I'd just like to hear what you guys think about first half and second half.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

So, I think that we have a market forecast, high single digit. Well, as you know, I think, auto right now, actually is a little bit weak, and power semi also have some inventory. So with these two, but if you look at it, in general semiconductor, I think that's still positive. So, actually, first half was weaker, compared to our original, you know, thinking. So, still industry, I think, from our customers and also industry, you know, forecast, still second half will be, you know, although I think forecast is high, you know, like a single digits, we're still quite positive. I think that's 6, 7, 8%, I think should still be achieved, including the second half.

Dave Duley (Managing Principal)

One way to think about that is the growth rate in the first half is probably under 6%-8%, and it's probably over 6%-8% in the back half.

Lester Wong (CFO)

Yeah, I would say that. It's probably close to flat in the first half, and then I think, as Fusen said, high single digits, in the second half.

Dave Duley (Managing Principal)

Okay. And then, you talked a lot about the dispense opportunity. Could you just highlight what sort of revenue opportunity you might have there in dispense in 2024 and 2025? Thank you.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Oh, okay. So, actually, we're quite excited with our acquisition of dispense unit. Actually, this is a huge market, and with the TAM, you know, our TAM is about $2 billion. And, actually have adjacency to our, our business overlap, including like core, like a ball bonder, display, and SMT. So almost our ball bonder, ball bonding company, I think they have a need for a dispense. So what make us to excited is, you know, the technology is pretty good. I think we are entering a era called micro dispensing, which really need to have a precision dispense and a precision motion. And a lot of company dispense become a bottleneck. So, we are engaging with more than 10 customers.

Some of them are quite significant ones, and all feedback are pretty good, quite strong. So our goal actually, in 2025, we hope we will be able to achieve about $25 million-$30 million. And the 2026, of course, that will be even faster growth, right? Maybe target about $15 million. Of course, you know, we actually talking to a lot of customer, and this is the area I think I need to have a breakthrough. Micro dispensing with the capability of a precision, you know, control over dispense and the motion is really needed in this industry, right? So we are quite excited.

Dave Duley (Managing Principal)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is coming from Charles Shi of Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Charles Shi (Senior Analyst)

Hey, good evening. I have a couple questions. First, I want to get a little bit more color on how the business of the wedge bonding equipment has been trending. I think you probably have talked about potential moderation for a while, but it does seem like it's the softness is a little bit I mean beyond what you have expected in the past. So my question is, how much weaker would you be expecting in terms of the wedge bonding equipment business? And the ball bonding side, it does look like there are some signs of recovery. The largest offset is increasing CapEx this year, based on what they said last night.

How much would the ball bonding equipment strength offset the wedge bonding equipment weakness this year? And any color would be great between the puts and takes of your two largest product categories. Thank you.

Lester Wong (CFO)

So hi, Charles. We do see, as Fusen mentioned in the remarks, that's what I said. We do see weakness in wedge bonding, particularly driven by automotive. So, I think it has been trending down for one or two quarters, but we think for Q2, it's gonna be a more significant downward. But hopefully it will recover near the latter part of the fiscal year.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

So Charles, actually, I mentioned the weakness, not only a power semi wedge bonder, right? It's also industry. So the customer with auto exposures, I think they not only push out some wedge bonder. So push out also include, you know, ball bonder in that particular company because of auto also have a ball bonder associated with that, right? So, I would say, I won't say all the push out actually are all wedge bonder for this quarter.

Charles Shi (Senior Analyst)

Got it. Got it. So what's the... I know directionally, you do expect the ball bonding business, I mean, other than what you said about the, yeah, they are pushed out from the auto industrial sector some, on the ball bonders. But in general, what kind of expectation that the profile of the ramp of the ball bonder revenue throughout this year? It does sound like based on your commentary about the unit growth, you were expecting probably a more gradual and modest increase of the ball bonding revenue for the first three quarters of this fiscal year, maybe a little bit uptick in the September. Is that the right way to think about it?

Lester Wong (CFO)

So I think as Fusen said, Q2 ball bonder is also a little bit weaker than we expected, right? But we think actually Q3 would definitely start seeing recovery, you know, from conversations we've had with our customers, as well as seeing what I mentioned earlier about utilization rate increasing, particularly in China. So we think Q3 will definitely pick up for ball bonder, and definitely Q4 would be much stronger. So I wouldn't say the first three quarters would be weak for ball bonder. I would say Q3 and Q4 for ball bonder, I think we think the recovery would start in Q3 and then really pick up pace latter part of Q3 into Q4.

Charles Shi (Senior Analyst)

Got it. Thanks, Lester. Maybe I want to ask one last question. So you didn't provide a new update on Project W. Just want to check with the management team. Do you still expect the high volume production to be in 2025? And, what should be the next milestone? I know you, but I'm not asking for the timing of the next milestone, but what exactly should be the next milestone? Thank you.

Lester Wong (CFO)

So Charles, I think for Project W, the next milestone, I think as Fusen mentioned, we've shipped one system, machining more capacity, for the customer. I think the next milestone probably would be the qualification of the initial pre-mass production tools, which have been shipped. As far as whether we believe mass production kicking in 2025, a lot of that has to do with the customer, right? And the readiness of the entire supply chain for Project W. So we still see, I mean, for 2024, 2025, pre-production tools going in, and we're getting ready for the ramp, which could be the latter part of 2025, 2026. But again, a big part of it depends on the customer's readiness.

Charles Shi (Senior Analyst)

Thanks, Les.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Once again, that is star one, if you would like to register a question at this time. The next question is coming from Craig Ellis of B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research, Senior Semiconductor, and Capital Equipment Analyst)

Yeah, thanks for taking the question and good evening, guys. So I wanted to just go back to some of the earlier comments and try and stitch together what we're saying about fiscal 2024. So, Fusen, I think early on you said that you think $800 million in revenues is possible, and it seems like with your traction in dispense at $25 million-$30 million, that's going to drive about 60% of the incremental year-on-year growth. So, so does that mean that the balance of the growth is from ball bonders or wedge bonders, or do we have something hitting with advanced display in TCB this year?

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

So actually, Craig, I make a comment. I think, 2025, we expect, dispense probably have a really momentum, you know, because this year, 2024, we have a lot of engagement with the ten customer, right? So earliest, I think, trade trend is going to be, 2025, which are $25 million-$30 million is what we're looking for. And what I mentioned in the second half, I think, in addition to the ball bonder recovery, actually, even a recovery, you know, compared to a peak, we even not, 40% of, the peak volume yet. So I think a ball bonder will have a lot of long way to go. So in addition to the ball bonder recovery in the second half, I think, we also expect, many things.

We have a VFO, we expect display, right? And we have, you know, other areas to grow, you know, as I mentioned in my script. So I hope I clear it.

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research, Senior Semiconductor, and Capital Equipment Analyst)

Okay, that helps, Fusen. Thank you for the clarification there. And then I wanted to dig into another comment. You mentioned that it's possible that you'll see some auto battery shipment acceleration later this year for, I believe it was wedge and I wanted to get a sense for what you thought the magnitude of that would be and how the linearity played out in the back half of the year.

Lester Wong (CFO)

Yeah. So Craig, I, I think, you know, the magnitude is, is not huge, but it is, it is significant. This is the first big buy we've had from the customer for quite a while. I think as well, as far as linearity is concerned, I think, we believe that it will be... There'll be some in this quarter, but, mostly it'll be in the second half of the year.

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research, Senior Semiconductor, and Capital Equipment Analyst)

Yep. And then lastly, if I could sneak in one more,

Lester Wong (CFO)

Of course.

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research, Senior Semiconductor, and Capital Equipment Analyst)

Certainly some encouraging signs in China memory. The question is-

Lester Wong (CFO)

Mm-hmm.

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research, Senior Semiconductor, and Capital Equipment Analyst)

For Korean memory and US memory companies, what's your expectation for when we get back to 80% plus utilization rates that can benefit the business in those geographies with those customers? Thank you.

Lester Wong (CFO)

Well, I think right now, well, when you say U.S. memory companies, U.S. memory companies also have operations in China as well, right?

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research, Senior Semiconductor, and Capital Equipment Analyst)

Sure.

Lester Wong (CFO)

So, I think utilization in those geographic areas is, again, right now in the, not specifically the memory, but is probably in the mid-60s to 70%. So, I think we hope that by, again, there is recovery in memory prices, we hope that by the second half, that will start picking up for everybody.

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research, Senior Semiconductor, and Capital Equipment Analyst)

Got it. Thanks very much, guys. We'll hop back in the queue.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Elgindy for closing comments.

Joe Elgindy (Senior Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Donna, and thank you all for joining today's call. As always, please feel free to follow up directly with any additional questions. This concludes today's call. Have a great day, everyone.