Kulicke and Soffa Industries - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings, welcome to the Kulicke & Soffa 2023 third quarter results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator 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 of Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Joseph Elgindy (Senior Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Welcome, everyone, to Kulicke and Soffa's fiscal third quarter 2023 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. Complete GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation tables are available within the recently filed earnings release, as well as our earnings presentation. This information, in addition to our prepared remarks for today's call, are available at investor.kns.com. Beginning with the June quarter 10-Q filing, we have amended our segment reporting and will provide additional segmentation details of our previous capital equipment reportable segment. This change has no effect on the composition of our APS reportable segment or our end market disclosures.

During this revision, a material weakness was identified over internal controls related to segment reporting and subsequently triggered the filing of the amended Form 10-K for fiscal year 2022 yesterday evening. Please note there was no impact on any reported amounts of the primary financial statements to previously reported periods associated with this amendment. Additional details are available within the Form 10-K/A, filed yesterday evening. In addition to historical statements, today's remarks will contain statements relating to future events and our future results. These statements are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from what is indicated in those forward-looking statements.

For a complete discussion of the risks associated with Kulicke and Soffa that could affect our future results and financial condition, please refer to our recent SEC filings, specifically the amended 10-K for the year ended October 1st, 2022, and the 8-K filed yesterday. With that said, I will now turn the call over to Fusen Chen for the business overview. Please go ahead, Fusen.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Thank you, Joe. We continue to make progress across a broad set of growth initiatives. During the June quarter, we delivered new ball and the wedge solutions supporting high-volume semiconductor application, innovative advanced packaging solutions supporting heterogeneous integration, and reached new milestone with our emerging advanced display prospects. We also maintain an aggressive pace of development and broaden our technology engagement in several areas. Our core market continued to improve due to technology trend, incremental capacity needs and ongoing product refresh cycle. We continue to see gradual demand improvements across the ball bonder market and anticipate more meaningful demand recovery as the macro environment improves and the inventory is digested throughout the electronic value chain. Longer term, we continue to anticipate nearly 10% semiconductor unit growth in calendar year 2024, and anticipate unit growth will remain above average in 2025.

In the near term, we remain focused on delivering new innovation, which addresses long-term technology-driven growth opportunity in both our core and the emerging equipment businesses. I wanted to spend a few minutes to outline several specific initiatives in our ball, which advanced display and advanced packaging prospect, that are increasing the value add of our assembly solution. First, we have begun the ball bonding equipment product refresh with the recently introduced POWERCOMM and the POWER NeXX ball bonding platform. These systems have been well received by customers as they provide new capabilities for high-volume System-in-Package applications. They also enable an improved machine-to-operator ratio, which provide customers with efficiency improvement and greater geographically flexibility. Over the coming quarters, we expect to release additional ball bonding solutions, which will complete our portfolio refresh.

We are excited to provide a new level of value to customers and look forward to additional margin and cash flow benefit to investors over the long term. It has become clear that our core high-volume semiconductor market has increasingly become more complex, creating the need for more advanced solutions and advanced features. Growing complexity needs have already improved ball bonding gross margin by over 300 basis points since 2020, and we anticipate additional improvement going forward. Next, more efficient power control and the fast-growing battery market create new technology opportunity and support higher growth rate for our leading wedge bonder platforms. Sustainable energy.... electric vehicles and the more efficient consumer devices are driving demand for compound semiconductors, such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride, and are also creating new technology-driven demand for more complex module-based power devices.

These multi-chip module-based power devices are driving a transition from aluminum to copper interconnect. Similar to the gold to copper transition we led within high volume ball bonding, this shift in power semiconductor require new capabilities, such as our High Power Interconnect or HPI solution, which we already recently announced. HPI extend our existing technology leadership in wedge bonding and has provided new opportunity with the leading customers who are directly supporting power semiconductor and the electric vehicle transitions. We are also closely engaged with a strategic customer on the most critical and the demanding semiconductor assembly application, which support space exploration and the satellite communications. To summarize the wafer opportunity, we have a strong and dominant historic position, which has more than doubled our wafer-related revenue since 2020. We continue to support the most critical and demanding power semiconductor and the cylindrical battery application.

We remain very optimistic for future growth as we are closely engaged with the customer who are enabling this market. Next, within advanced display, we have reached new milestones for our portfolio of solution, which address long-term backlighting and direct emission opportunity that are demanding new Mini LED and Micro LED assembly solutions. During the current September quarters, we have reached new technology milestone with LUMINEX, and we well prepared to support higher volume demand as the market grows. We recently announced a collaboration leveraging LUMINEX technology with a leading SMT provider to accelerate the adoption of advanced display technology in both backlighting and the direct emission application. The LUMINEX system is designed for Mini LED opportunities, for larger format, direct emission display, and also for the high volume display transition to advanced backlighting.

We have made significant progress with our LUMINEX system, which support a final placement throughput of 540,000 die per hour, with a yield of 99.9%, with even higher throughput and the yields expected as we continue to develop this solution. We have demonstrated the ability to accurately place Micro LED size die at the 4 µm 3-sigma. While we have seen early adopting customers using traditional die attach equipment to support initial backlighting applications, over time, LED die size will continue to shrink, and we anticipate demand for our dedicated high throughput, high accuracy LUMINEX system will accelerate. Additionally, we continue to make progress on Project W and expect to provide additional visibility into Project W's defined fiscal 2024 revenue expectation over the coming quarters.

Finally, while we are now providing more value in the high volume semiconductor market, as wire bonding become more and more complex, we are also actively expanding our market shares in leading-edge logic and optical applications, which is our competitive thermocompression portfolio. Recently, we have appreciated the increased customer interest and the peer commentary regarding the longer term contribution thermocompression technology can provide to support rapidly evolving chiplet and the heterogeneous trend. We have worked aggressively to expand our engagement to leading commercial customers and also global technology consortium. We also recently announced an expanded partnership with UCLA's Center for Heterogeneous Integration and Performance Scaling, also known as UCLA CHIPS. Together, we look forward to extending TCB pitch to below 5 µm.

In addition to this expanded technology relationship, we recently shipped a record number of fluxless TCB system to a broadening group of commercial customers who are spearheading the transition to chiplet and heterogeneous integration. Our strength in TCB has centered around higher volume opportunities, supporting application processor, 3D sensing, and silicon photonics, which are transitioning to TCB for technical reasons, such as smaller form factor, thinner substrates, and improved yields. We have also already grown our share in chip-to-substrate TCB for heterogeneous application in production. In addition to this proven market win, we are pleased to also announce our active engagement in several chip-to-wafer evaluation, which can materially accelerate growth of our dedicated advanced packaging portfolio over the long term.

Turning to our June quarter results, which generated $190.9 million of revenue and $0.55 of non-GAAP EPS above prior expectations, due to continuing stringent cost control on non-critical matters and discrete tax items. Moving to the end market discussion, 79% of total revenue stemmed from capital equipment and improved 13% sequentially, supported by utilization improvement in general semiconductor, LED, and the memory end market. Within general semiconductor, more bonding equipment sales increased sequentially by 45%, largely due to increased utilization rate and the stronger demand of our highest performance RAPID series. We also reached new record quarters for our thermocompression business and booked revenue for several fluxless system and our latest TCB platform. Within LED, we have also seen utilization rate improve, which supported demand for our ULTRA LUX Plus system.

As of August 1, last week, the United States has implemented the anticipated ban on incandescent light bulb in favor of more efficient LED lighting. We anticipate utilization rate will continue to improve through the September quarters for high-brightness LED lighting applications. Next, automotive and industrial has slightly softened, although remain quite strong from a historic standpoint. Demand for power semiconductor continued to be robust due to our contribution to the broad EV transition and the increasing content of semiconductor per vehicle. We also look forward to sharing news regarding our battery assembly opportunity over the coming quarters. Within memory, we recognize a better than expected improvement in utilization rate and a pickup in demand for our NAND assembly solution. Historically, we have enjoyed a dominant position in NAND assembly and have continued to expand our market reach into DRAM applications.

Looking into fiscal 2024, we are excited about prospects such as a Vertical Fan-Out, also known as a VFO, which is expected to further expand our shares in high-density DRAM applications, and can provide significant cost improvement over TSV-based approaches used in applications such as High Bandwidth Memory. I look forward to sharing more details on this exciting opportunity over the coming quarters. To summarize, we remain actively engaged with multiple customers who are enabling technology transition in automotive, semiconductor, and display opportunities. Our investment in development, engineering capability, and the new market opportunity have enhanced our fundamental strengths, increased our value add, and have solidified key pillar to our long-term growth strategy. We are currently progressing several parallel qualification and evaluation, and we look forward to providing a more detailed outlook over the coming quarters.

Finally, within our core capital equipment market, we have seen clear demand improvement and are forecasting utilization rate to further improve through the September quarters. Looking into the next few years, we continue to anticipate about average semiconductor unit growth and also anticipate taking shares in new market. We look forward to delivering a steady pace of new system in the future, also announcing new customer and the technology win over the coming quarters. With that said, I will now turn the call over to Lester, who will discuss our financial performance and outlook. Lester?

Lester Wong (CFO)

Thank you, Fusen. My remarks today will refer to GAAP results, unless noted. Before commenting on our June quarter financial performance, I wanted to address two specific items related to our June quarter performance. First, during the June quarter, we booked impairment charges of $21.5 million associated with our 2017 acquisition of Liteq B.V., and a minority equity security investment related to a technology asset. Neither of these non-cash impairment charges have a material impact on the near-term outlook, and we continue to support the market opportunities these investments have previously provided. To add context, since our acquisition of Liteq B.V., we have deployed over $1 billion towards capital expenditure, acquisitions, and shareholder returns. Of this cumulative deployment, approximately 75% was returned to shareholders through the company's increasing dividend and opportunistic repurchase programs.

Next, I also want to set clear expectations regarding our order intake and backlog activity over the coming quarters. We continue to hold a sizable amount of order backlog, roughly four times the size of our third quarter fiscal 2019 backlog. This excess backlog will reduce the book-to-bill ratio and ultimately land at roughly three to four months of revenue, which is in line with our average lead times. In addition, some of our anticipated incremental opportunities in fiscal 2024 are not included in the current backlog. With that said, it remains a very exciting time for the company, with ongoing near and long-term improvements within our core markets and ongoing execution across a variety of end market applications. As an update, our capacity expansion investments are continuing on track to provide critical operation capacity to support the growing demand of our advanced packaging and advanced display offerings.

During the June quarter, we generated $190.9 million of revenue, 47.2% gross margin, and $0.55 of non-GAAP EPS.

Gross margins came in just below expectations, largely due to mix stemming from a rebound in high bright LED demand and also an increase in higher volume orders. Non-GAAP operating expenses came in at $66 million, below our prior expectations, due to shift in discretionary spending and ongoing cost controls. Finally, tax expense for the quarter was $148,000, lower than anticipated due to the reduction in profit before tax, mainly from the impairment charges and a discrete item related to the reversal of uncertain tax positions. Turning to the balance sheet. Working capital days decreased from 517 to 465 days in the June quarter, primarily due to the sequential improvement in revenue and relatively flat working capital.

Our repurchase program remained opportunistic, we have increased our repurchase activity by 71% sequentially to $8.5 million during the June quarter. Looking ahead to the September quarter, we anticipate revenue of approximately $200 million ±$20 million, with gross margins of 48%. Non-GAAP operating expenses are anticipated to be approximately $70.5 million, ±2%, due to additional general and R&D investments. We remain focused on controlling and limiting any non-critical activities and have maintained a very cautious, needs-based hiring approach. Our collective cost control efforts have reduced our June quarter operating expenses by approximately $4.5 million from our original budget. Non-GAAP net income for the September quarter is expected to be approximately $24 million, with Non-GAAP earnings per share of approximately $0.42.

It remains a very interesting period of time at KNS, as the value of semiconductor assembly is rapidly increasing. As our core business continues to strengthen, we remain focused on expanding our long-term market access with our competitive advanced packaging, advanced display, and automotive solutions. We look forward to sharing our progress over the coming quarters. This concludes our prepared comments. Operator, please open the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that 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. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Craig Ellis with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research)

Yeah, thanks for taking the question, and thank you for all the information this morning. Fusen, I wanted to start off following up on one of your earlier points about the view on calendar 2024 industry growth at 10% year-on-year. I think that was, I'm assuming that's on a unit basis. The question is this, around that level of industry growth, how would you expect K&S to perform, given the growth initiatives that you outlined in the improved positioning in some of your larger end markets, like General Semi?

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Okay. We believe 2024 will be a better year for us than 2023. Above average, you know, right now is forecast, we do also get a feedback from customer. What will be the final number? I think a lot really depend on the macro environment. You know, at this moment, still a little bit dynamic, but we feel like 10% probably is a good number. With this assumption, I think we will see improvement, you know, of our ball bonder shipment. I think particularly, you know, we start to see growth. We believe our ball bonder will grow even more. Not only shipment, I think we will see the gross margin expansion.

Other than bonder, the wedge bond demand is still strong, I think due to power semi and the EV. In addition, I think we will put a new capability to wedge bonder. For the AP, I think we will see the growth, I think, in the heterogeneous integration. We have TCB in non-heterogeneous focus in volume semi and the focus on multiple applications such as silicon photonics, 3D sensing, and app processor. Also have heterogeneous integration. We believe, particularly in heterogeneous integration, we can ensure growth. You know, we also hope to see the actually growth in the advanced display, in the Project W and also in the LUMINEX.

We probably will have a better feeling about the industry rate of recover, maybe by November, maybe by November, you know, we will have a better feeling about rate of recovery. 10% right now is a number, from the industry and also from us, and really depend on the next couple of months. The industry is still keep at this forecast. Okay, Craig, hope I answered your questions.

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research)

Yeah, that's really helpful, Fusen. Combining that commentary with points that Lester made about higher backlog levels than 2019. I, I think if I heard you right, Lester, the likelihood that backlog does decline over the next few quarters, can you talk about the visibility that you have into the fiscal first quarter of the year? If we look beyond the guidance for the fiscal fourth quarter, can you talk about some of the nearer term gives and takes for what's typically a seasonal softer part of the business?

Lester Wong (CFO)

Yeah, sure, Craig. Yeah, I did say, I mean, we still have a very, very healthy backlog, just, just below about $500 million. We do expect that backlogs come down over time and over the next couple quarters. As far as near-term visibility, as Fusen mentioned, right, it is pretty dynamic at this point. We believe there will probably be some more seasonality this year than during 2021, 2022, during the ramp. Also, I think, for FY 2024, as Fusen indicates, we believe it will be a much better year than 2023.

However, you know, when I think the first half may not be as strong as the second half, but again, there's a lot of moving pieces right now, but we feel pretty good about 2024 as compared to 2023.

Craig Ellis (Director Of Research)

Got it, guys. Thanks for the help, and I'll hop back in the queue.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Dave Duley with Steelhead Securities. Please, please proceed with your question.

David Duley (Managing Principal)

Yeah, thanks for taking my question. I was wondering, as far as, when the improvement that you're seeing in your overall revenue in both, the June quarter and the September quarter you just guided to, what segments are showing improvements sequentially?

Lester Wong (CFO)

Well, Dave, I think ball bonder is the main business unit that is showing improvement. Wedge bonder has remained relatively strong throughout the last couple of quarters, but I think we are seeing ball bonder become stronger. I think this is tied to seeing utilization rates going up. I think that's basically the increases over quarter to quarter. As well as, as Susan mentioned, we shipped a record numbers of fluxless TCB this quarter, as well as record TCB revenue for the quarter that just ended.

David Duley (Managing Principal)

Okay. As a follow-up on, on the thermocompression bonding market, could you just, you know, perhaps articulate, you know, what you think your position there is? How big the market is, what percentage of that market you think you're currently capturing? You know, there seems to be a little bit of, you know, push and pull as to whether thermocompression bonding or hybrid bonding is going to be a bigger market. If you could just kind of talk about what, you know, which pieces of the market you think each technology would capture, or, you know, just characterize how you think you're doing in, in this particular market.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Okay. We believe we have a quite strong TCB product portfolio. Actually, I think I make a comment. You know, our TCB have a two market. One is a focus on high volume semiconductor. This is for non-heterogeneous integration. We serve in the application, such as application processor, 3D sensing, and also silicon photonics. Actually, this year are doing quite well. Other than that, I think we have a lot of focus on actually heterogeneous integration. We, last year, starting from last year, we believe we have very strong, you know, position in actually heterogeneous integration in the C2S, chip-to-substrate. The customers are actually already in the production.

We, at this moment, engage with multiple customers in the C2W, and we do believe we are on the way to get the market shares. For our TCB, I think our focus at this moment is working with multiple customers in IDM, Fabless, OSAT, and also foundry, to push our TCB capability, you know, to push our technical limitation to the best, and which is below 10 µm. With all the information we feel, we actually feel quite positive about the direction we are going. When you hear about, when you ask about our flux TCB versus over hybrid. Let me make a comment. I think at this moment, you know, these two markets are not overlapping.

You know, of course, hybrid bonding has its advantage, which is a non-thermal. Actually, you don't have a heat, you also don't have a stress. You know, this advantage, you know, hybrid has. In the meantime, I think this is a little bit a more expensive process. To ask, how do we compare to hybrid? I think it's hard questions. I just want to tell you, our mission actually is to push TCB as far as possible, below 10 µm. In the futures, I think when they might, you know, some, some point to compete in a 5 pitch. Which one have a higher volume, I think it's really a lot depends.

For KNS, I think really depends on the capability of our, our, our TCB, how far it can extend to a 5 pitch, right? Also for hybrid bonding, how cost effective and how much productivity this process can improve. You know, in addition to actually, you know, of course there's no thermal, no stress, the process actually is a, is a, is a robust. Also finally, I think it depends, depends on final customer's choice, right? Which, I answer your question. I think hybrid and the TCB at this moment, is not competing. You know, our mission is to push our TCB as far as possible, you know, as I first really described today.

David Duley (Managing Principal)

Okay.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

I just want to provide to you, it's our belief, this year, our TCB, we are looking around $60 million, maybe $68 million, with total dedicated AP, probably about $100 million. By 2025, we actually have a lot of opportunity. Up to realize the market shares, we also need to wait a little bit, couple of months for the high volume. We do believe, by 2025, our TCB alone should be above $100 million. A lot of time, our dedicated AP, we are looking for about $200 million.

David Duley (Managing Principal)

Okay. You, you mentioned some, some details about High Bandwidth Memory. I'm wondering what your exposure is there.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Sure.

David Duley (Managing Principal)

Do you, are, are you currently in production? Are they using wire bonders and stuff-

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Sure.

David Duley (Managing Principal)

For, for the stacks? Or-

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

So-

David Duley (Managing Principal)

Maybe just elaborate a little bit.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Actually, we are working with, actually not many. Actually, this industry only a few. Also, we also work with a few memory customers. There's a publication by a major customer, one of them, actually to use wire, vertical wire, actually to be alternative for TSV. Actually, we are working with the customers. I think, next year there's a possibility, you know, for one or two customers, maybe in a small volume, you know, a pre-production. We are actually quite excited about this opportunity.

David Duley (Managing Principal)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Charles Shi with Needham & Company. Please proceed with your question.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

Hi, good evening, Fusen and Lester. Thanks for giving, giving me the opportunity to ask a couple questions. Want to start again, thermocompression bonding. I think a year ago, you announced receiving roughly $80 million orders in your backlog to ship by the end of 2023, and $300 million cumulatively by the end of 2025. This is a two-part question. How many have you shipped so far out of that $80 million orders? Yeah, have you turned more of the, the, the, the opportunity beyond the initial $80 million? I mean, more into the from $80 million-$300 million opportunity into the backlog. If yes, how much have you received?

Have you turned opportunity into backlog as of today? Thank you.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

This $80 million, I think, you know, remain there. I would think, maybe by the latest, by maybe middle of next year, would, will complete. Charles, I think, you know, when we look at the opportunity, you know, we have engaging customers. A lot of time I think, I, I can tell you, the customer engage and have a high potential remain there. Sometime I think, their opportunity, their process integration architecture might have fine-tuned, you know. We actually, as I mentioned, I think, 25, we probably will actually, above $100 million. I think a lot of time, you know, you know, the $300 million is including this $80 million.

I, I forget actually exactly what I say, but I can tell you all the opportunity are still there. You know, the customers forecast at that time and also their process, the project, you know, the schedule might have a little bit shift. I can tell you, I think all the customers we engage are still very positive and maybe the forecast have a little bit different. Right now we are looking at the TCB, I think by 2025, annual revenue will be greater than $100 million.

Lester Wong (CFO)

Charles, just for a point of reference, over the last two quarters, we've shipped over $40 million worth of TCB.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

You mean fiscal Q2 and Q3, right?

Lester Wong (CFO)

That's right, fiscal Q2 and Q3.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Thanks for the great color, Fusen and Lester. Also on TCB, you, you mentioned other than the IDM, there's OSAT and foundry opportunities. I want to ask you specifically about foundry. I definitely heard some of your IDM strength seems to be carrying over to foundry, at least, from the, what they are doing in terms of evaluation. Can you talk a little bit more about the engagement with the leading foundry, TCB? What's the status there? I mean, obviously, this is probably a beach head, but, but, what's the first application of the, any of the evaluation you're engaging with them? Is it the C2S, C2W, or is it flux, with flux or fluxless, kind of application? Thank you.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Okay. I think I mentioned we have a multiple engagement right now in the C2W. We really don't specifically talking about the customers. I think at this moment, the C2W fluxless with copper-to-copper contact capability, and that's really we are focused on, and we have a multiple of them, you know, ship or going to ship. You know, from this is not the first time we process this, this process. I think there are two purpose for fluxless particularly in the C2W. One is to reduce the defect flux remain, and which will impact the yield and due to a contamination. The other one, I think the copper-to-copper contact are very important.

Not only copper-to-copper contact, reliable copper co- contact is reliable, reliability is very important. I think we have a very special, actually, structures and the process, you know, to make a very reliable, copper-to-copper contact. This is common by many customer we are engaging with.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

Thank you.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

you know.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

Yeah.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

Yeah. Go, go ahead.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Go ahead, Charles.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

Please finish your thoughts. Yeah.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

No, I think in terms of, you know, application, you know, we actually don't specifically comment about customers, process. But I can tell you, you know, we have a multiple engagement, and I think a C2W is a bigger focus area, I think, at this moment, and which we are quite excited about.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

Thank you. Maybe one last question, very short. Do you have any preliminary view about fiscal first quarter, 2024, the December quarter, in terms of how much sequential is it gonna be from the fiscal fourth quarter, the September quarter? Thank you.

Lester Wong (CFO)

Charles, right, as you know, we don't, we don't guide beyond the quarter. As I think both Fusen and I said earlier, there will be some seasonality in the first fiscal quarter, unlike in doing the ramp of 2021, 2022. We do believe that, you know, the business is continuing to improve, but as well, as far as the magnitude of, I think, again, there's a lot of uncertainty macros out there that will give further color in our Q4 earnings release.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Yeah. Charles, maybe I can just make one comment. I think, we do feel, you know, 2024 will be a better year. Really, I think how much bigger, I think I can tell you, if you, if we can count the biggest opportunity, I think it's really ball bonder. Our ball bonder really came down from a very high level, so we are actually quite pleased. If you remember, I think, in Q1, we feel like, our ball bonder actually has come to a trough, and Q2 actually showed improvement. The noticeable change from Q2 to Q3, Q3 to Q4 is also a ball bonder, and we are seeing, short-term capacity buy and also some customer need, for the better capability of bonder to handle more complicated structures.

If you ask me, we feel better, you know, with good opportunity. I think ball bonder can carry a very good growth for 2024. Really, how much is so much? I think probably really it depends on the recovery rate. I think we will have a better judge probably in November, but we feel like the current rate of recovery is still not very strong, so we do expect our second half will be better than the first half. I hope I just help.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

Yeah, thanks for the abundant color, Fusen. Thank you.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Okay. Thank you, Charles.

Charles Shi (Principal Senior Analyst)

Have a good day. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Bye.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Tom Diffely with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Tom Diffely (Director Of Institutional Research)

Yes. Good morning, Joe, and, good evening, Lester and Fusen. Maybe Fusen, following up on that last response, what are the utilization rates, today, and, and how low did they go two quarters ago?

Lester Wong (CFO)

Maybe I'll answer that, Tom.

Tom Diffely (Director Of Institutional Research)

Okay.

Lester Wong (CFO)

Utilization rate right now is around 70%. The previous quarter was around 60%, I think the quotes for that it was, is about the same, a little bit lower. We are seeing it go up. We also see Q4 utilization rate will also probably be higher than Q3. We're seeing that nice trend as it heads towards the mid-70s.

Tom Diffely (Director Of Institutional Research)

Great. Okay. No, very helpful. Appreciate that, Lester. Wanted to dig in a little bit on the tool refresh that you're doing across your product lines. You mentioned a couple of new ones hitting the market. How do you see that rolling out as a percentage of your sales or percentage of revenues or shipments? Is it a two to thee quarter transition? Do you think a year from now you'll be largely with the new higher margin tools? Just a little color on that would be great.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Oh, so Tom, I think the first two, you know, for a low pin count, and we have, we are saying another one is for a high performance one, and hopefully we will see, maybe some margin improvement in about two, two quarters, maybe two to three quarters. Hope that helps.

Lester Wong (CFO)

Yeah, Tom, we, we expect most of the products that Fusen referred to, to be released by the first half of 2024. Obviously, as it release, it takes a little bit of time to gain traction. He said, I think we, we expect the margin improvements starting in 2024 and definitely, by the second half of 2024, the increase, particularly in ball bonder margins, should, should start hitting.

Tom Diffely (Director Of Institutional Research)

Okay, No, I appreciate that. I guess finally, maybe just a quick update on the Project W. Still expected to start to ramp in the first half of 2024?

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

No, actually, Tom, if you listen to me, I think, actually, you know, this is a timing issue, but we always feel this is going to be, 2024 will be a prototyping and a pre-production, right? I think beyond that, beyond that, I think, the volume will be higher. Next year, I think, we were working together with the customers, just on pre-production, and, and also, prototyping.

Tom Diffely (Director Of Institutional Research)

Okay, I apologize for-

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

I think, I, I, I think in about maybe two quarters, if, we probably have a more insight, we will share with you and share with the public.

Tom Diffely (Director Of Institutional Research)

Okay, then final question, maybe for Lester. You know, looking at the cash balance and the share repurchase, your share purchase levels, although up sequentially, are well below where they were a few quarters ago. Has there been a different philosophy or change of thought as far as share repurchasing over time?

Lester Wong (CFO)

No, no. I think we've our philosophy always has been to be opportunistic, right? I mean, Fusen always discuss with the board every quarter on our capital allocation. We kind of slowed down for a while and we picked up a little bit, but we believe that we will probably continue to be opportunistic, and I think the volume will continue to grow.

Tom Diffely (Director Of Institutional Research)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Christian Schwab with Craig-Hallum. Please proceed with your question.

Christian Schwab (Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, guys, I just have one quick question. Your commentary regarding memory, that you saw a better than expected improvement utilization rates and a pickup in demand in NAND, which, we're not really seeing or hearing from anybody else, including the manufacturers of NAND, other than possibly bottoming. I'm just looking for greater clarity on that statement, please.

Fusen Chen (President and CEO)

Oh, well, I think, I think all, we, we actually, you know, NAND, we actually have a quite high market shares, right? I think, this quarter, we do get, you know, business, from, you know, NAND business. You know, at this moment, Christian, even, people expect, you know, memory to touch to the bottom, we still see a recovery rate will be still slow. Overall, I think, memory, our expectation is, even is, is a uptrend. We do believe are the best. 2024, the whole industry probably can go back to a 2022+, maybe about 10%. I just want to make a comment. I think NAND, we have a pretty good, market shares whenever capacity come.

You know, next focus for us, and I'll see if we can get the also market share again, you know, in the, this uptrend, you know, for event.

Christian Schwab (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, great. Thank you. No other questions.

Operator (participant)

There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Joseph Elgindy for closing comments.

Joseph Elgindy (Senior Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Maria, and thank you all for joining today's call. Over the coming months, we will be presenting at several investor conferences. As always, please feel free to follow up directly with any additional questions. This concludes today's call. Have a great day, everyone.

Operator (participant)

You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.