Amkor Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMKR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Randy Abrams: To follow up on CapEx, I’m curious just how it ends the year for your overall CapEx and then the initial take for next year with the advanced capacity expansions if there will be much left. And for other investment areas in SiP, how do you see the CapEx for next year as well?

Giel Rutten: Okay, Megan.

Megan Faust: Yes. Hi, Randy. So, from a CapEx perspective, now that we have our Q4 guide, you can see we’ve really maintained that low teens capital intensity approach. As a reminder, and Giel mentioned that significant portion of 2023 was dedicated to construction. So we did pull back significantly on the equipment and capability. As far as 2024 goes, it’s too early for us to give a guide on 2024 CapEx. We would, as we have now continued to focus on the advanced packaging elements of our investment. And I would say just as a guideline, we would anticipate that we wouldn’t go outside of our rule of thumb of low teens’ capital intensity.

Randy Abrams: I actually want to follow up on the high performance compute, the ramp up to double and then — I think triple or more than triple by middle of next year. Two questions. One, the profitability and returns on this advanced business. And then the assurance on that capacity, where you have the foundry [also] (ph) doubling capacity, how you see assurance or just the momentum once you triple it if you see trends in activity for customers broadening out to continue to grow that business?

Giel Rutten: Yes, Randy. I think we feel fairly comfortable that we can utilize the capacity that we bring in place. I mean, there we work with customers as well as with, for example, parties in the supply chain that provide elements like interposers to make sure that we have demand and supply lined up. I mean, there is also a broadening of our customer base in that technology. So we’re fairly confident that into 2024, we can fill that capacity.

Randy Abrams: And the returns, like normally for advanced, I guess, capital intensity higher. But how do you see like return on investment and profitability? Is it still ramping and takes time to get scale? And [indiscernible] accretive as you ramp.

Giel Rutten: Yes. I mean, we already have a capacity in place since 2017. So we’re now in the third generation of products where we provide an end-to-end solution. So that means both population of the interposed, as well as the unsubstantiated part. If we invest in that technology, the majority of that equipment is fungible with a standard bumping line, so the utilization can be warranted. And even if there are swings on the 2.5D side, we believe that since the fungibility of the equipment, we can utilize that with a very solid return on investment in the individual equipment. So it is broadly fungible and you could label it as investment in wafer level capacities in a broader sense of the word.

Randy Abrams: And one final question on it. The interposer is all been silicon, but industry is looking at trying to find a bit less expensive or different options. Do you see much interest in activity for redistribution interposer? And would that be a value shift or opportunity? And are you investing toward that if you’re seeing that trend?

Giel Rutten: Yes, we’re seeing that trend from an interposer or silicon interposer base into an RDL level interposer. And we’re working with several customers on initial, I’d say, pilot production for that technology. In general, the industry is conservative. Let’s say the maturing of the interposer based technologies, certainly the yield levels is extremely important because the combination of high bandwidth memory and expensive silicon requires very high yield levels and that takes a steep learning curve. But on the other hand, the RDL-based technology is emerging and we’re preparing that. And by the way, the installed capacity that we have in place is to some extent or to a very large extent fungible with — between RDL and interposer-based technology.

Randy Abrams: Okay. Great. Thanks Giel and Megan.

Giel Rutten: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Steve Barger with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please state your question.