Chris Kapsch: My question is a follow-up on the memory market but focused on NAND. And just, Bertrand, your willingness to share a little bit more color around the role molybdenum will have in the technology road map sounds encouraging. Is it right to assume the confidence in visibility is backed by process of record wins? And more specifically, are those PORs with just, say, 1 or 2 leading memory producers of NAND chips? Or is it really more broadly across the industry? And then as a follow-up to that, are there instances — given the sort of still soft NAND memory backdrop, are there instances where leading producers are, in fact, looking to skip the 2x layer node right to the 3x layer node where moly will more definitively play a role?
Bertrand Loy: Yes, Chris. So look, I mean, first, as I said earlier, I think that transitions of that magnitude don’t happen very often in this industry. And tungsten, to put that in context — I mean tungsten has been the interconnect metal of choice for close to 3 decades in NAND, DRAM and logic/foundry. But as architectures become more complex and with the desire of all participants to move to thin-film deposition, you have a number of new materials that present better thermal and electrical properties, and moly has been on the road map for a long time. And for all of those thin-film resistivity property and the fact that it has essentially no resistivity into the direct material, which allows the deposition of that layer without a barrier layer, which is obviously very important at the time when companies are trying to increase the number of functional layers without increasing the aspect ratio.
So all of that is great, but it’s — the materials that are used to deposit moly are notoriously difficult to handle and deliver. And that has been really the challenge that the industry has been trying to solve for several years now. And we think we’re getting really, really close. I mean we’re working closely with the semiconductor manufacturers, the equipment makers. I think we are within 6 to 9 months of the first POR decisions. How is that going to play out? Will they — at what node precisely will they be adopting moly? As I said in previous calls, it’s still something that is being discussed. I think all of that is going to be a function of the perceived degree of readiness by the ecosystem. And the ecosystem is really a combination of the equipment makers and the material suppliers.
But we think that Entegris has a very, very unique set of capabilities to ease this migration to molybdenum. And this is certainly a very exciting time for the industry, a very exciting time for Entegris.
Chris Kapsch: Just as a follow-up, given just how enabling this chemistry it sounds like it will be, you highlighted a couple of things, the thermal management, elimination of barrier layers, those process steps. It sounds like it’s very differentiated and a margin opportunity that will help Material Solutions. Is there any way you can quantify what the potential margin opportunity is in terms of percentages? Or is it just something that should be…
Bertrand Loy: No. I mean, I think we don’t really disclose specific gross margin information by product. And I mean — and frankly, that’s — it would be very difficult for us to do that at the current stage of adoption of that product. So we’ll pass on that question, Chris.
Operator: It appears that we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the program back over to Bill Seymour for any additional or closing remarks.
Bill Seymour: Thank you for joining our call today. Please reach out to me directly if you have any further questions or you want to set up a call. Have a great day, and you can now disconnect.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s Entegris first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Please disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day
