Aehr Receives $25.1 Million Order for FOX-XP Test and Burn-in Systems to Support Production of Silicon Carbide Power Devices for Electric Vehicles

FREMONT, CA / ACCESSWIRE / January 20, 2023 / Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ:AEHR), a worldwide supplier of semiconductor test and reliability qualification equipment, today announced it has received a $25.1 million follow-on order from its lead silicon carbide test and burn-in customer for a significant number of FOX-XP™ wafer level test and burn-in systems to meet their increased capacity needs for production of silicon carbide devices for electric vehicles.

This customer is a leading Fortune 500 supplier of semiconductor devices with a significant customer base in the automotive semiconductor market. The FOX-XP systems are configured to test 18 silicon carbide wafers in parallel while contacting and testing 100% of the devices on each wafer. The FOX systems are expected to ship from Aehr's fiscal fourth quarter that begins March 1, 2023, through its fiscal second quarter 2024 ending November 30, 2023.

As with previous orders, this customer plans to purchase later the corresponding initial sets of 18 WaferPak™ full wafer Contactors that are needed for each system to contact 100% of the devices on each wafer. These WaferPaks are expected to ship at approximately the same time as the systems.

Gayn Erickson, President and CEO of Aehr Test Systems, commented, "We are very excited to receive this substantial follow-on order from our lead silicon carbide customer, who is ramping capacity to meet the enormous growth of silicon carbide devices used in electric vehicles, electric vehicle chargers, and other industrial and renewable energy infrastructure markets. This single order for our FOX-XP 18-wafer systems represents a significant ramp-up in test capacity for this customer, increasing their capacity for wafer-level burn-in by over 50%.

"Silicon carbide MOSFETs have greater efficiency and switching speeds than alternative silicon-based devices, providing greater range and faster charging speeds in electric vehicles. Silicon carbide device demand for electric vehicles is growing significantly. Major semiconductor players such as Infineon, onsemi, STMicroelectronics and Wolfspeed have each announced plans for significant investments in facilities and capital expenditures to add capacity to meet this demand. Additionally, several companies in Europe, Asia, and the Americas plan to supply silicon carbide power semiconductors to meet the electric vehicle and related charging network market, as well as additional markets that are expected to grow substantially over the next decade or more.

"Forecasts from William Blair estimate that the silicon carbide market for devices in electric vehicles alone, such as traction inverters and on-board chargers, is expected to grow from 119,000 6-inch equivalent silicon carbide wafers for electric vehicles in 2021 to more than 4.1 million 6-inch equivalent wafers in 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of 48.4%. This equates to almost 35 times larger in 2030 than in 2021. In addition, 6-inch equivalent silicon carbide wafers for other markets such as solar, industrial, and other electrification infrastructure are expected to grow to another 3 million wafers by 2030.

"Aehr's FOX-XP systems enable our customers to drive the critical electrical stress voltages, currents, and temperatures needed to weed out early life failures which are necessary to meet the mission critical initial quality and long-term reliability of electric vehicle power inverters in electric engines as well on-board chargers and off-board charging stations used for electric vehicle charging. They also enable customers to very cost-effectively do the extended testing time needed to stabilize and remove the drift seen in the threshold or turn on voltage of silicon carbide MOSFETs. This is particularly important for devices placed in parallel in the inverters, where even a small variation between threshold voltages in the parallel circuit of the inverter can create long-term reliability issues.

"Aehr's proprietary and patented WaferPaks have the ability to contact and test 100% of the devices in parallel, and up to several thousand devices at once on each wafer. Along with the FOX-XP test electronics blade, they can provide electrical feedback of key parametric measurements of voltages and currents on every device while also identifying and tracking individual device failures throughout the test process at elevated temperatures up to 150C."

The FOX-XP system, available with multiple WaferPak Contactors (full wafer test) or multiple DiePak^TM Carriers (singulated die/module test) configurations, is capable of functional test and burn-in/cycling of integrated devices such as silicon carbide power devices, silicon photonics as well as other optical devices, 2D and 3D sensors, flash memories, Gallium Nitride (GaN), magnetic sensors, microcontrollers, and other leading-edge ICs in either wafer form factor, before they are assembled into single or multi-die stacked packages, or in singulated die or module form factor.

About Aehr Test Systems

Headquartered in Fremont, California, Aehr Test Systems is a worldwide provider of test systems for burning-in semiconductor devices in wafer level, singulated die, and package part form, and has installed over 2,500 systems worldwide. Increased quality and reliability needs of the Automotive and Mobility integrated circuit markets are driving additional test requirements, incremental capacity needs, and new opportunities for Aehr Test products in package, wafer level, and singulated die/module level test. Aehr Test has developed and introduced several innovative products, including the ABTS^TM and FOX-P^TM families of test and burn-in systems and FOX WaferPak^TM Aligner, FOX WaferPak Contactor, FOX DiePak^® Carrier and FOX DiePak Loader. The ABTS system is used in production and qualification testing of packaged parts for both lower power and higher power logic devices as well as all common types of memory devices. The FOX-XP and FOX-NP systems are full wafer contact and singulated die/module test and burn-in systems used for burn-in and functional test of complex devices, such as leading-edge silicon carbide-based power semiconductors, memories, digital signal processors, microprocessors, microcontrollers, systems-on-a-chip, and integrated optical devices. The FOX-CP system is a new low-cost single-wafer compact test and reliability verification solution for logic, memory and photonic devices and the newest addition to the FOX-P product family. The WaferPak Contactor contains a unique full wafer probe card capable of testing wafers up to 300mm that enables IC manufacturers to perform test and burn-in of full wafers on Aehr Test FOX systems. The DiePak Carrier is a reusable, temporary package that enables IC manufacturers to perform cost-effective final test and burn-in of both bare die and modules. For more information, please visit Aehr Test Systems' website at www.aehr.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or Aehr's future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "going to," "could," "intends," "target," "projects," "contemplates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," or "continue," or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern Aehr's expectations, strategy, priorities, plans, or intentions. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, future requirements and orders of Aehr's new and existing customers; bookings forecasted for proprietary WaferPak^TM and DiePak consumables; and expectations related to long-term demand for Aehr's productions and the attractiveness of key markets. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully described in Aehr's recent Form 10-K, 10-Q and other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Aehr disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this press release.

SOURCE: Aehr Test Systems