Silvaco Group - Q3 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon and welcome to Silvaco's Third Quarter 2024 conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Greg McNiff, Investor Relations for Silvaco. Please go ahead.

Greg McNiff (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Joining me on the call today are Babak Taheri, Silvaco CEO, and Ryan Benton, Silvaco CFO. As a reminder, a press release highlighting the company's results, along with supplemental financial results and an earnings presentation, are available on the company's IR site at investors.silvaco.com. An archived replay of the conference call will be available on this website for a limited time after the call. Please note that during this call, management will be making remarks regarding future events and the future financial performance of the company. These remarks constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements.

It is important to also note that the company undertakes no obligation to update such statements except as required by law. The company cautions you to consider risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements contained in today's press release, earnings presentation, and on this conference call. The risk factors section in Silvaco's most recent Form 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission provides a description of these risks. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Silvaco CEO, Babak Taheri. Babak?

Babak Taheri (CEO)

Hello and welcome to Silvaco's third quarter earnings call. I am Babak Taheri, CEO of Silvaco. Thank you for joining us today. In addition to discussing Silvaco's results, we will also provide an update on our most recent press releases, business outlook, and current market trends. For those joining us for the first time, Silvaco is a provider of TCAD, EDA, and semiconductor IP solutions that enable chip design, digital twin modeling, and simulation utilizing AI and machine learning. We have decades of deep expertise in modeling and simulation software from concept to design and manufacturing. Silvaco's digital twin platform drives advances for the next generation of power semis such as silicon carbide, gallium nitride for high-performance compute and AI, displays for watches, computers, cars, and televisions, memory devices for servers, clouds, laptops, and IoT devices, and advanced CMOS technologies utilized in design and fabrication of integrated circuits.

We have 800+ customers worldwide and hold the number two position in the global TCAD revenue. We have 260+ employees. Our headquarters is located in Silicon Valley. I'm really excited about the progression of the business we've seen, and we are executing on the strategies we outlined since we went public earlier this year. We believe our strategic focus on driving innovation through AI-based semiconductor design for advanced CMOS geometries and power semiconductors, which includes digital twin modeling, positions us well for long-term growth, and our strong business fundamentals and innovative product lines will continue to drive our customer momentum and growth trajectory. If you'd like to learn more about our company and our mission, I encourage you to refer to my opening remarks from our second quarter earnings call and to the materials on our investor relations site.

I now want to touch on a few recent achievements and provide some commentary on the importance of the recent press releases. Please turn to slide four. First, we continued expansion of our FTCO platform in the third quarter. We received a $5 million order late in the quarter, which we were not able to recognize until the first week of Q4. However, the significance of this order is that we further expanded our FTCO offering with our partners. I'll comment more on this in the next slide. Second, in June, Silvaco announced strategic partnership with Purdue, Stanford, and Arizona State University to help overcome the talent shortage and expand research activities. In addition to these efforts, Silvaco has collaborated with Stanford University to publish a comprehensive book on chip fabrication that includes extensive TCAD examples using Silvaco platforms.

This joint effort aims to create a valuable resource that bridges the gap between academia and industry, offering insights and knowledge on the latest advancements in TCAD technology. Third, in September, Silvaco appointed Candice Jackson as SVP, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary. We welcome Ms. Jackson to our team. Her semiconductor industry experience and background in corporate governance, litigation management, M&A, and SEC reporting has made a significant impact. Fourth, in September, Silvaco announced the expansion of its Victory TCAD and digital twin modeling platform to planar CMOS, FinFET, and advanced CMOS technologies. Our TCAD platform has gained significant traction in display, photonics, memory, and power semiconductor markets, where our solutions have been instrumental in driving innovation and enhancing performance. We have now extended our comprehensive suite of tools to the advanced CMOS market, enabling next-generation semiconductor technologies to address growing markets such as foundries, 5G, AI, and high-performance computing.

Our newly released TCAD platform has been utilized by a strategic customer for the past few years and is now available for broad market adoption. This new capability for advanced CMOS technology enables customers to accelerate their technology development with significant cost savings, and it's a fundamental step in the expansion of our AI-based FTCO platform into advanced CMOS markets. In September, Silvaco was added to the Russell 2000, Russell 3000, and Russell Microcap indices. Silvaco's inclusion in these widely tracked Russell indices represents another important milestone for our company. We look forward to the increased visibility in this inclusion, which will enable us to broaden our shareholder base by reaching a wider range of passive and active investors, including ETFs and other institutional funds. Finally, Silvaco achieved ISO 9001 certification of TCAD, EDA, and IP products in October.

I now want to touch on a few financial and operational highlights of the third quarter, as well as provide some commentary on our outlook. Ryan Benton, our CFO, will go into more detail later about our financial results and guidance. Q3 gross bookings were $9.9 million. Our Q1 through Q3 total bookings were $45.5 million, representing a 7% growth year-over-year for the first three quarters. We recognized revenue of $11 million for Q3 and $41.8 million for the first three quarters. We had a strong quarter in terms of customer traction. We signed 14 new customers as well as expanded our relationship with several existing customers across key markets, including power, memory, foundry, and display. We also signed a follow-on contract for a digital twin product with a large memory customer, which validates our strategic focus on this unique technology.

This demonstrates our solid business process and strategies for securing new clients and deepening existing partnerships. We expect this momentum to continue into Q4, 2025, and beyond. While Q3 revenues were impacted by the shift of some orders, including a substantial $5 million order received in the first week of the quarter, we remain confident in our ability to achieve our revised full-year financial targets due to strong customer demand. We expect to regain momentum and execute on our long-term strategy by expanding our footprint across the key end markets as well as executing on the right strategic inorganic opportunities. We believe our business prospects remain strong, as you will see reflected in our Q4 and full-year 2024 guidance. Despite the lower expected revenue for the quarter, the relative impact to gross margin was minimal.

For Q3, non-GAAP gross margin was 80% and GAAP was 75%, compared to 85% for GAAP and non-GAAP alike in the same period last year. The fact that we were able to maintain such a healthy gross margin despite a decline in expected revenue speaks to the significant value our solutions provide our customers. The next few slides offer an overview of our products and markets, which we covered in more detail on our previous earnings call. I would like to turn to slide 11 to summarize our growth strategies in that slide. Slide number 11. In summary, we believe our strategic focus on driving innovation through AI-enabled semiconductor design for newly announced advanced CMOS geometries and power semiconductors, which include digital twin modeling, positions us well for long-term growth. Additionally, we've continued to leverage our deep relationships with R&D centers and academia to stay ahead of the technology.

We believe this approach, along with our strong business fundamentals, will continue to drive our customer momentum now and in the future. With that, I'll turn it over to Ryan to review the quarter and discuss our guidance. Ryan?

Ryan Benton (CFO)

Thanks, Babak. And thank you for joining us. Today, I'll review our financial results for the third quarter of 2024 and discuss our outlook for the fourth quarter and full year. As a reminder, we announced preliminary unaudited Q3 revenue and updated our full-year guidance on October 15th. Turning to slide 13, there are a couple of growth drivers in our business model, which I'd like to highlight today. First, as Babak covered in his prepared remarks, we remain very excited about the opportunity for our digital twin modeling platform to create enormous value for our customers. Second, with our strong financial position and operational expertise, we're actively pursuing strategic acquisitions that we believe will bolster our products, enhance our competitiveness and market presence, add strong engineers and scientists, and provide much-needed skill that can leverage our business model.

Now let's turn to discuss our third quarter financial performance on the next slide. Starting with bookings, we achieved gross bookings for our software and semiconductor IP products of $9.9 million, a decrease of 21% year-over-year. It is important to note that the first day of Q4, we secured a $5 million follow-on order from a strategic memory customer, which expands our relationship through the deployment of our FTCO digital twin product. The order, taking longer to finalize than originally expected, is a function of the company moving so far up the value chain. It is a major win for us, and we believe a significant portion of the order will be recognized as revenue in Q4.

Additionally, there was a delay in certain orders, principally from China, however, we believe we will be able to book orders and recognize revenue from many, if not all, of these customers in the coming quarters. As a reminder, China remains a relatively modest portion of our overall revenue, 17% of our year-to-date revenue as of Q3 2024. For Q3, we successfully added 14 new customers, which brings our year-to-date new customer wins to 33, including 11 in the power market and 6 automotive, two key markets where we continue to see strong demand. Turning to revenue on slide 15, we generate revenue from sales of our software and IP products. As a reminder, for a new customer or a new product sale to an existing customer, we generally recognize software license revenue upfront upon delivery of the licensed products.

For the upsell of a product to an existing customer, for example, the sale of additional seat licenses or an extension of tenure, the license is typically recognized at the beginning of the renewal period. Maintenance and services revenue is recognized evenly over the contract term. The revenue recognition of SIP is generally straightforward since these products are usually sold without any additional performance obligation. Unless customization is involved, the revenue is typically recognized upon delivery of the technology license to the customer, or in some cases, once the cash is received from the customer. For the third quarter, we posted total revenue of $11 million, down 27% year-over-year, primarily due to the delayed orders previously mentioned. Year-to-date through Q3, we recognize $41.8 million in total revenue, which is flat compared to the previous year.

As we will see in the following slides, we are reiterating the FY24 guidance we provided in the October 15th press release, which equates to what we believe will be record quarterly revenue in Q4 and double-digit growth for the full year. The pie charts show the year-to-date splits. I will reference the third quarter splits in my remarks. However, please note that these, along with 11 quarters of historical data, are included in the financial supplement available on our investor relations website. For the third quarter of 2024, approximately 62% of our revenue came from software licensing, while 38% was from maintenance and services. Year-to-date, the chart shows that software license revenue was a bit higher at 72% of total sales, and maintenance and services was a bit lower at 28%.

Q3 2024 year-to-date software license revenue of $30.1 million was down 2% year-over-year, which does not include the large TCAD order that was booked in Q4. Q3 2024 year-to-date maintenance and services revenue of $11.7 million was up 5% year-over-year as we continue to build our recurring revenue base. On a product basis, for the third quarter of 2024, TCAD revenue was $6.5 million, EDA revenue was $2.6 million, and SIP revenue was $1.8 million. This brings product revenue on a year-to-date basis to the following: TCAD revenue of $27.5 million, or 66% of sales, EDA revenue of $10.3 million, 25% of sales, and SIP revenue of $4 million, 9% of sales. On a year-to-date basis, TCAD is up $3 million, or 12% year-over-year, even with the large FTCO order slipping into Q4. So TCAD has set up nicely to continue its solid growth trends.

EDA on a year-to-date basis is down $0.9 million, or 8%. SIP on a year-to-date basis is down $2.1 million, or 34% year-to-date. SIP is still playing catch-up from the delay we had in renewing a strategic resale agreement in Q2, as well as being impacted by the order delays in the Asia-Pacific region. Although we aren't satisfied with the short-term results, we have high expectations for this product line in the future. There are numerous M&A opportunities to bolster this product line in particular, to provide complementary products, technologies, and engineering teams, as well as add much-needed revenue bulk and enhance profitability. Turning to our split between geographic regions, for the third quarter of 2024, Asia-Pacific revenues were $6.5 million, or 59% of sales. The Americas was $3.3 million, or 30% of sales, and EMEA was $1.2 million, or 11% of sales.

On Q3 2024 year-to-date basis, the Americas represented 37% of total sales, which is essentially the U.S. Asia represented 53% of sales. EMEA was 10% of total sales, similar to historical levels. Before turning to gross margins, expenses, and profitability, I'd like to note that I will be discussing non-GAAP results going forward. As a reminder, our GAAP financial results, along with a reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results, can be found in our earnings press release, in the appendix of the presentation, and within the supplemental financials on our website. GAAP gross margin for Q3 was 75%, impacted by stock-based compensation of approximately $313,000 and $249,000 amortization of purchase intangibles. Excluding those two items, non-GAAP gross margin was 80% in the third quarter, down from 85% for GAAP and non-GAAP alike in the same period last year. This put us at 85% non-GAAP gross margin year-to-date.

Our non-GAAP cost of revenues, which is primarily the wages and related costs for the staff supporting our customers, are largely fixed in nature. Non-GAAP cost of revenues for Q3 was $2.2 million, consistent with the previous quarter and the third quarter last year. This is partly where we believe we can gain leverage. As revenues increase, we expect non-GAAP gross margins to expand towards our long-term target of 90% plus. Turning to operating expenses, our GAAP operating expenses were $15.5 million, which includes $2.2 million in SBC expense and approximately $1.9 million legal fees and expenses related to an acquisition-related estimated litigation claim. Please refer to the press release we issued on July 24th and my remarks on our Q2 earnings call for more detail on the litigation claim and its impact on our financial results.

Our non-GAAP operating expenses for the third quarter were $11.3 million, compared to $9.9 million in the same period last year. The increase in costs year-over-year was due to increases in general and administrative, followed by research and development and sales and marketing. Consistent with the previous quarter, the increase in G&A expenses is largely due to the costs associated with becoming a public company. The increases in R&D and sales and marketing expenses are a result of expanding our engineering and sales teams, respectively. For Q3 2024 year-to-date, non-GAAP operating expenses were 79% of sales. R&D was 26% of sales. Our ongoing investments in both advanced research and product development positioned us to take advantage of an enormous EDA software market, which is expected to reach $22 billion by 2030, according to a study conducted by Grand View Research. Sales and marketing was 24% of sales.

We will continue to invest proportionally in this team as revenues grow. G&A was 29% of sales. Due to the semi-fixed nature of a lot of our G&A costs, we do not expect G&A costs to scale at the same rate of sales. We believe we can leverage the people and infrastructure that we have built out. So the net is that non-GAAP operating loss was $2.6 million, compared to a non-GAAP operating income of $2.7 million in Q3 2023. The decline was largely due to the lower revenue amount recognized in the quarter. Q3 2024 year-to-date non-GAAP operating income and non-GAAP operating margin were $2.4 million and 6%, respectively. Our net loss for the quarter was $6.6 million, which again included the charges for stock-based compensation and the acquisition-related estimated litigation claim charge.

Our non-GAAP net loss for the quarter was $1.8 million, compared to the non-GAAP net income of $2.3 million in the same period last year. Our EPS basic and diluted was a loss of $0.23 per share for Q3. Non-GAAP EPS basic and diluted came in at a loss per share of $0.06, compared to non-GAAP EPS basic and diluted of $0.12 per share in the year-ago period. A comment on our balance sheet. We ended the September quarter with $100.4 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. For the third quarter, free cash flow was an outflow of $2.16 million, similar to the $1.84 million outflow in the same period last year. Our basic and diluted share count for the third quarter was 29 million shares. As to share count, following the IPO lockup expiration last week, approximately 2.9 million vested RSUs were released.

Given the decline in our share price, we chose to utilize net settlement to minimize dilution. This resulted in the issuance of approximately 725,000 fewer shares for a net of 2.2 million shares, and the company utilizing approximately $5.3 million of its cash to settle the associated taxes. As a result, as of last week, the company had approximately 28.5 million shares outstanding. We expect the shares outstanding at the end of Q4 to be approximately 28.6 million. On slide 17, I will now review the full-year guidance, which is unchanged from the guidance we provided in our October 15th press release. For bookings, we expect gross bookings for the full year to be in the range of $64 million-$67 million, which would represent a 10%-15% increase from 2023. As Babak and I noted earlier, the updated forecast reflects macro uncertainty in Asia.

Despite this near-term headwind, however, we still believe bookings remain a great leading indicator of performance and relative strength of the business. We continue to see strong customer demand across our key markets, driven by an increasing adoption of our software solutions and positive feedback from new and existing customers. This demand, coupled with our strategic initiatives and execution of our land and expand strategy, gives us confidence in our ability to achieve our long-term targets, which I'll discuss in a moment. We expect revenues for the full fiscal year to be in the range of $60-$63 million, which would represent a 10%-16% increase from 2023. This full-year guidance implies a strong sequential rebound in Q4 for both bookings and revenue.

Specifically, we expect Q4 bookings to be in the range of $18.5 million-$21.5 million, which would exceed what we believe was a record for quarterly bookings in Q2 2024. Likewise, we expect Q4 revenue to be in the range of $18.1 million-$21.2 million, which would exceed what we believe was a record for quarterly revenue in Q1 2024 of $15.9 million. This forecast includes approximately $2.8 million in revenue expected to be recognized in Q4 from the $5 million order received in the first week of the quarter. For non-GAAP gross margins, we are at 85% year-to-date through Q3. Based upon expected strong Q4 revenues for the full year, we are forecasting non-GAAP gross margins to be in the range of 85%-87%.

For non-GAAP operating income for the full year, we're now expecting to be in the range of $5-$8 million, which would be an increase from 2023 of between 14 and 82%. Now let's move to slide 18 to review our long-term financial targets. While we are disappointed with the near-term revisions to our guidance due to the challenges we faced this quarter, we are confident in our ability to regain momentum and execute on our long-term strategy. We continue to target 15%-25% top-line growth, 90% non-GAAP gross margin, and 25% plus non-GAAP operating margin over the next several years. We expect to achieve these targets by expanding our presence in key end markets and pursuing the right strategic inorganic opportunities. With that, Babak and I would be happy to take your questions. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Krish Sankar with TD Cowen. You may proceed.

Rob McMartin (Executive Managing Director and Head of Global Markets)

Hi, this is Bob McMartin on the line on behalf of rish. You mentioned that you signed 14 new customers in the quarter, up from, I think, 10 wins last quarter, which was split sort of between power and auto and, I think, one solar customer. So it looks like this quarter you added foundry and display, which is nice to see. But could you provide any more breakout, maybe between where the main skew of these customers operate in? Was it primarily power and automotive or more evenly spread?

Babak Taheri (CEO)

Yeah. So hi, this is Babak Taheri.

14 additional new customers, new logos this quarter, 11 last quarter, just to get the record straight. Out of the 14, there were, in Q3 of 2024, we had more power. As a matter of fact, we had also Mil/Aero, that's U.S.-based, as well as we had some, as Ryan mentioned, in automotive and display. But the majority, over five of them, were from power. If you think of our revenue for Q3 2024 in terms of markets, the top four were power. In terms of landing, right, new logos, it was 58% of the lands were power. Mil/Aero was about 10%, automotive was 8%, and IoT was 7%, and some foundry as well. So those are the top ones.

Rob McMartin (Executive Managing Director and Head of Global Markets)

Great. Thank you. That's helpful.

And then just in terms of the guide for December, it looks like the implied OpEx is sort of flat, maybe up 25% quarter over quarter. How much of that would be seasonal factors in the compensation structure versus just general growth in the hiring? And is there any sort of directional guide you're comfortable giving into the first quarter next year?

Ryan Benton (CFO)

Yeah. This is Ryan. I'll take that question. Similar to last year, there absolutely is a portion of those operating expenses that we expect to grow sequentially in the fourth quarter, really attributable to variable comp. Some of the compensation structures have yearly accelerators that get hit depending on those levels, as well as there's also some one-off things that tend to happen in December. We haven't really given guidance for 2025, so I won't comment on that.

But again, I think you expect that some of the costs that we've added in Q4, we've built out the headcount, as we said. So there's obviously some natural growth that's happened in Q3 and Q4 as we've added staff.

Rob McMartin (Executive Managing Director and Head of Global Markets)

Got it. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Charles Shih with Needham & Company. You may proceed.

Charles Shih (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

I do want to check in with you on the China revenue side because mostly it's the sum of the shortfall in your China revenue that's causing you to move the full-year outlook down by, roughly speaking, $3 million. I recall right around the time you had the pre-announcement that you were speaking about maybe some of the Chinese customers were delaying the contract renewals in light of the U.S. presidential election. Now the election's over. How is that the conversation changing with your Chinese customers?

In addition, I think in the prepared remarks, you said you expect to recoup some of the lost sale. With those Chinese customers, is there a timeline for that? Are you expecting maybe in Q1 or Q2? Can you provide some specifics there? Thanks.

Babak Taheri (CEO)

Hey, Charles. Thank you for the question. This is Babak Taheri. Yes. Last time we did the pre-release announcement, we stated it will take several quarters, and we still stand to say several quarters. As a matter of fact, we have seen some that we are working with customers meeting practically on a weekly and monthly basis, that a few of them have the potential of closing this quarter, a few Q1 and a few Q2, I would say, so the message we are trying to give is these are not lost opportunities. It has been a delayed opportunity, as Ryan stated.

Some of it has to do with the macroeconomics in Asia in general and China specific, and then also having impact on decisions based on that as when to place the order. And that's what we have seen. So we haven't seen any cancellation. It's a matter of delay. And in summary, we think in the next few quarters, we'll close all those. And the last, I mean, the last color I want to add, as Ryan said, to date, our China revenue has been about 17%, which is we've always said 15%-20%. So it doesn't mean that it's gone down. Bottom line is our expectation for growth, as much as we thought, some of that growth is delayed rather than canceled.

Charles Shih (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Got it.

Obviously, the $5 million deal that signed in the earlier part of this quarter probably kind of pushed up the Q4 revenue a little bit more than originally planned, but could potentially make the sequential growth in Q1 look a little bit lighter. But any directional color on the Q1? I know you're not guiding for 2025, but you want to get a little bit of sense on where you think Q1 revenue could potentially land, especially given that the base for Q4 is a little bit higher. But at the same time, it does sound like some of the delayed opportunity in Q3, Q4, some of that won't be fully recouped by the time you get into Q1.

Thanks.

Ryan Benton (CFO)

Yeah. This is Ryan. Maybe I'll take first step in that, Babak.

So look, of course, as we kind of said in prepared remarks previously, we believe Q1 of 2024 was a record for the company in terms of quarterly revenue, which was $15.9 million. And so the forecast range for revenue that we provided for the fourth quarter of this year is obviously $18.1-$21.2 million. Anywhere in that range should be a substantial record revenue quarter for the company. Again, we haven't given guidance yet on Q1. I don't want to talk about Q1, but I think a more reasonable approach would be, again, to look at Q1 of 2024 and think of that as a good comp rather than looking at Q4.

Charles Shih (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. Our next question comes from Craig Ellis with B. Riley Securities. You may proceed.

Craig Ellis (Senior Managing Director and Director of Research)

Yeah.

Thanks for taking the question, guys. I wanted to go back to the second $5 million tranche on the FTCO deal that booked here in early 2024 Q and just try and get a better understanding of what some of the project milestones are related to that. And since this is the second element that's redlined with this customer, is there potential for further such extensions to the deal, or will this really take the deal to its natural fullness?

Babak Taheri (CEO)

Hey, Craig, thank you for asking. That's a great question. We've said historically and continue on our same path that even though we sell new technologies, we've always tried to provide solutions that address issues three to five years down the road.

And by the nature of FTCO that we have actually worked on for the past four and a half years and now soon to be five, we've always said that these kind of products are suited for enhancing yields, getting to market faster, and lowering costs for manufacturing. And we've said always that one element of these software tools and AI platforms are always going to need an improvement and enhancement based on what product lines our customers run into their fab and which fab it is. So the addition that we had in Q3 was a natural extension that we knew, and we've been working on with the customer on what we call wafer-level elements and physics modeling. Rather than going from simple process level, we were actually getting to more of the wafer-level enhancements and improvements on our modeling.

That was a natural course of it, and that's what we started. Also, we proposed an enhanced version of what we thought our newer algorithms and better solutions for what we call parasitic extraction. That's what extended this work. As we go along the path of exploration and see how we can improve this thing, I foresee and expect that this continues to grow. Again, we are on the cutting edge of the technology, and every time we're in the cutting edge of the technology, I assume you have solved all the problems. There's always something that requires more attention, more details, more enhancements. Those are what we consider to be our extension to our projects. I expect that to keep on going for the years to come.

So because of the fact that technology changes, the technology gets improved, requirements for technology are different than what it was four years ago, and enhancements are needed, and advanced enhancements are needed. So we will continue on this path with this customer. And as we announced also on our advanced CMOS, we've been working for a couple of years on TCAD with our advanced CMOS customer that we are actually working with them in order to get them switched into FTCO. And that's our next step in growing that whole business and that market, so.

Craig Ellis (Senior Managing Director and Director of Research)

Got it. That's very helpful, Babak. Thank you. And then I'll switch gears. M&A was brought up a couple of times as an important part of the growth strategy and how you'll get to longer-term targets.

Not a new strategic threat for the company, but I was wondering if there's any new information you can share with us just in terms of how things are progressing with funnel management and getting closer to selecting potential targets. Thank you.

Babak Taheri (CEO)

So that's a great question. No, as you know, we have the funnel. We have been working through it. We have narrowed it down much closer, and we've started the discussions with potentials. And that's the vehicle we have. But as you know, we have a very high bar in terms of our requirements for acquisitions. And the ones that we are looking at fall in that category, and we're working very hard to see how fast and how quick we can close them, so.

Craig Ellis (Senior Managing Director and Director of Research)

Got it. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Babak Taheri for any closing remarks.

Babak Taheri (CEO)

Yes. Thank you very much. I wanted to thank all of you for joining us on this call. We always enjoyed having this conversation and be transparent to the public, to the public as well as our investors and analysts. We welcome any questions, follow-ons, and thanks again. I appreciate your time for joining us.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.