Axcelis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACLS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Russell Low: Hi, Jed, it’s Russell. So 150 versus 200, so we still have the complete Purion platform for Power series. So the xc-silicon carbide, the m-silicon carbide, the H200 silicon carbide are all available 150 and 200. And essentially, it’s a field upgradable kit that allows you to go between 150 and 200. So it’s essentially the same machine, but obviously, the wafer handling, the scanning needs to be modified slightly for the larger substrate. And like I say, that’s an upgradeable — a field upgradable kit.

Operator: Our next question comes from Tom Diffely from D.A. Davidson.

Tom Diffely: Maybe a couple more on the silicon carbide side. So with some of the recent ebbs and flows in the EV end markets, have you seen any changes or any modifications to the new fab construction plans that are expected over the next couple of years?

Doug Lawson: No, actually, it continues to accelerate, I mean at this point, silicon carbide is still supply constrained. And so there’s quite a bit of activity. And one of the things we often note, when we talk to U.S. investors is, there’s a little bit of a — not being mean here, but a little bit of a parochial view of the EV market. Globally, the EV market is growing quite rapidly. And so I think that’s driving the silicon carbide investment and we expect that to continue. We’re seeing no signs of that changing.

Tom Diffely: And then also, I guess, when you’re thinking about the end product, does it matter to you if the companies are creating discrete or modules? Is there a difference in the implant?

Doug Lawson: Well, we’re only involved in the discrete in the silicon carbide wafer fab side of things. So after they package that, then they would put it in a module, there’s no implant impact in the module manufacturing.

Tom Diffely: And then a question for Kevin on the logistics center. Maybe just a little more color on the impact of both your capacity and potentially margins over time with the new center opening up.

Kevin Brewer: Yes, so the new center is kind of handle all of our incoming material and hitting and potentially right now, we’ve got probably about 10 different locations we call material front. So that’s going to improve overall efficiency. We’re not going to try and all over between 2 cities surrounding us grabbing material. Also, if required we could clear out additional space in that facility to put some manufacturing, but what’s really happening at this point, as we remove some of the remaining stock room out of the Beverly headquarters, that frees up more manufacturing space in Beverly. So we’ve got — from an infrastructure point of view, from a Brexit mortar point of view, we’re pretty much done now with what we need to do.

We have a lot of additional capacity we can add on a second and third shift. Our manufacturing team, when I say done, our manufacturing team continues to use the kaizen process to drive improvement and there are a number of Kaizen. But again, in terms of more buildings between the Korea operation, the Beverly site and this new logistics center, we — I’m very comfortable with our capacity to hit the $1.3 billion and potentially beyond that. And we’ve got very good supply chain partners too, worst case, if we need to put some contract manufacturing capacity in place down the road, that’s another option. So long and short of it, I feel very good about where we’re at, at this point.

Operator: Our next question comes from Nicolas Doyle from Needham.

Nicolas Doyle: Nick Doyle on for Quinn Bolton. It looks like book-to-bill was slightly below 1 for the first time in a couple of quarters. Is this an anomaly or a function of the extended system backlog? And then also, what are you seeing on the bookings front looking into the second half? How far out are bookings being placed?

Kevin Brewer: This is Kevin. So let me answer that. So I’ll start off by saying, I mean, we’re going to see book-to-bill fluctuate a little bit, I think until there’s really a much broader-based industry recovery. And we were down a little bit on bookings this quarter $193 million compared to last quarter, which was about $100 million higher. But if you go back the prior quarter, it was down probably $100 million from the last quarter. So this thing kind of up and down, but I think the real key here is we have a very strong backlog, still $1.2 billion is a very large backlog for the company. And in terms of bookings and backlog both, I mean we’re taking orders out into 2025 right now. It doesn’t mean that all our capacity is necessarily sold in ’24, but we’re pretty full, but we’re going out into — in 2025.