Aehr Receives $13.7 Million in Follow-on Orders for FOX WaferPak Contactors for Volume Production Burn-in Test and Stabilization of Silicon Carbide MOSFETs for Electric Vehicles

FREMONT, Calif., June 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR), a worldwide supplier of semiconductor test and production burn-in equipment, today announced it has received $13.7 million in orders from its lead silicon carbide test and burn-in customer for WaferPak full wafer Contactors to meet their increased production capacity needs for silicon carbide power semiconductors for the electric vehicle market. This customer is a leading Fortune 500 supplier of semiconductor devices with a significant customer base in the automotive semiconductor market.

Gayn Erickson, President and CEO of Aehr Test Systems, commented, “We continue to be excited about this customer’s incredible growth and production ramp to meet capacity increases from their current customers, as well as to meet new design wins using our wafer level test and burn-in systems and WaferPaks. These orders for a large number of WaferPaks include both current design capacity increases and several new designs that are expected to ramp to volume production after their customer qualification is completed. These WaferPaks are scheduled to be delivered over the next six months.

“This customer has a significant installed base of our FOX-XP wafer level test and burn-in systems that is growing as we continue to ship systems to them monthly. Each of the 18 wafer FOX-XP systems requires 18 WaferPaks that each make contact with 100% of the die on the wafers with parametric measurement and monitoring that allows us to provide 100% traceability of test coverage and results to them on every die on every wafer. This is incredibly important to them, as well as other companies that supply devices to mission critical applications such as the traction inverters used to power electric vehicle motors.

“As we have noted in the past, FOX-XP system orders are required to increase general manufacturing capacity, while our proprietary WaferPak Contactors are unique to each device design. As our customers win new designs from their customers, Aehr secures orders for new WaferPak Contactors to fulfill these new wins. Over time, we expect to see our follow-on WaferPak business grow both in absolute dollars and as a percent of our overall revenue.

“These WaferPak full wafer Contactors are also shipping in a configuration that utilizes new patented features that allow optimized alignment accuracy and alignment speed and throughput using our new fully automated FOX WaferPak Aligners that began shipping this last month. The new FOX WaferPak Aligner comes in both stand-alone and integrated configurations. In a stand-alone configuration, each FOX WaferPak Aligner can service multiple 18-wafer FOX-XPs in batch mode, while the integrated configuration of our Aligner docks directly to the front of the 18-wafer FOX-XP system and allows continuous flow of WaferPak alignment and testing in the FOX-XP without the need for any operator handling. The integrated FOX-XP and WaferPak Aligner allow the ability to support a lights-out operation with full factory automation using automated mobile robot transport or full overhead material movement of wafer transport cases (SMIF pods or FOUPs) carrying 150mm, 200mm, or 300mm wafers.”