SkyWater Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:SKYT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So we believe that the work we’re doing this year to position the business for continued ATS growth makes long-term sense, and we’re doing that in a mode where we’re still seeing gross margins performance at a level that is consistent with our previous discussions. Steve, anything to add?

Steve Manko: Yes. And I’ll just highlight two things. I’ll address the tool revenue one first. And again, I think you referred to it as a headwind. We still look at it, like we said in the opening remarks, as a tailwind for the long term of our business. Seeing this level of tool investment coming in was much more than we probably could have ever imagined in the near term, and seeing the significant investments coming through to continue building out not only technology programs but technology platforms, in my opinion, is a significant sign of growth for the company in the future and not being funded by our customers. So to your point, on a margin perspective, it will have a headwind, if you will. But it does have some small contribution to profit.

And even with the gross margin being impacted by the tool revenues over the course of next year, even a margin in the mid- to low 20s could be something that could generate some positive non-GAAP EPS for us over the course of 2024. And so we really think that’s something that we could obtain over the course of 2024.

Quinn Bolton: It sounds like margin for the year is a little higher than I think you said, the 22% for full year ’23. It sounds like you probably are in that 23% to 25% kind of rate in the second half of the year if you’re starting the year at 19. It’s just the way the math works. It’s sounds like that’s kind of the rate we should be thinking about?

Steve Manko: Yes. I don’t think it has to be quite that high, again, depending on the timing of when these tools come through. Again, we see significant opportunity for the tool investments. We communicated that we expect not only a record year but something around the $60 million level on the tools. Now again, given the significant contribution or the significant amount, I should say, of the tool revenue coming in, even a little bit of contribution margin coming from the tools can have an impact positively on the gross profit performance and the bottom line as well. So I’m still saying within the low 20s on our margin with the tools coming in, it should be something that could get us to a breakeven point or slightly positive on the non-GAAP EPS.

Thomas Sonderman: And just one thing to add is we are positioned well. If the market were to turn, of course, we could begin to take advantage of that as well. Go ahead, Quinn.

Quinn Bolton: Yes. Sorry, last one for you, Tom, just on the Wafer Service. Obviously, I understand the headwinds in the industrial side of the business with the legacy. You talked about the bio health business starting to transition to Wafer Services this year. When would you think that Wafer Services revenue bottoms? Is it kind of — does it bottom middle of the year? It starts to recover sequentially into the back half of the year? Do you think it’s kind of just trending at a pretty flattish level through the year? What’s kind of the [indiscernible] you guys are expecting on Wafer Services?

Thomas Sonderman: Yeah. So we’re expecting in the first half of this year, maybe going into Q3, that we would see a bottom. And then we would start to see recovery post that point. And again, the rate at which programs that have transitioned to Wafer Services, the rate at which they ramp is highly dependent on the customer and their ability to get their products to market. Our goal is to prepare them to ramp. We are very excited about the number of new programs coming through the pipeline, and the pace that they will grow will depend on the customer. There is a J curve effect that will come into play, but we believe the breadth and depth of the programs we have now will allow us to make that transition effectively.

Quinn Bolton: Got it. Thank you.

Operator: We’ll move next to Harsh Kumar at Piper Sandler.