Aehr Receives $12.8 Million in Follow-on Orders for Multiple FOX-XP™ Systems and WaferPak™ Contactors to Support Production Test and Burn-in of Silicon Carbide Power Devices for Electric Vehicles

FREMONT, Calif., July 19, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR), a worldwide supplier of semiconductor test and reliability qualification equipment, today announced it has received $12.8 million in orders from its lead silicon carbide test and burn-in customer for multiple FOX-XP™ systems, a FOX™ high volume production WaferPak Aligner, and a small number of FOX WaferPak full wafer contactors to meet their increased production capacity needs for power semiconductors for the electric vehicle market. The WaferPaks in these orders are to be used with previously shipped FOX-XP systems and Aehr expects significant subsequent orders for WaferPaks needed for the system orders announced today.

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 eighteen silicon carbide wafers in parallel while contacting and testing 100% of the devices on each wafer. These FOX systems, WaferPaks, and the WaferPak Aligner are expected to ship by the end of Aehr’s fiscal third quarter ending February 28, 2023.

Gayn Erickson, President and CEO of Aehr Test Systems, commented, “We are excited to receive these orders for additional FOX systems and WaferPaks to meet this customer’s increased production capacity needs. In addition to these orders, we expect them to order multiple new sets of WaferPaks to be used with these new systems for current devices that have already been qualified by electric vehicle manufacturers. This customer continues to forecast orders for a significant number of FOX systems and WaferPaks over the next several years and into the future, driven by semiconductor demand for the electric vehicle market that is expected to grow at least 30 percent plus annually over the next decade or more.

“With a critical need to remove early life failures in electric vehicle traction inverters, this lead customer is the first to adopt a strategy to perform wafer level burn-in that enables removal of extrinsic or infant mortality failures before packaging into discrete packages or multi-chip modules. The stress tests performed by Aehr’s FOX-XP systems and proprietary WaferPak full wafer contactors also stabilize key performance parameters such as the threshold voltage of each device before the devices are put into multi-chip modules or sold to customers as known good die.

“We are currently engaged with most other current and future silicon carbide suppliers who have stated their intent to move to wafer level burn-in for these same reasons, and we anticipate multiple additional companies to adopt our solutions and begin ramping to meet their production needs during our current fiscal year. Aehr’s unique, low cost, multi-wafer level test and burn-in solution provides the test electronics and device contactor technology that enables contact to 100% of all devices on a single wafer, and the handling and alignment equipment to provide a total turnkey single vendor solution to meet the needed critical test and stress requirements.”

The FOX-XP system, available with multiple WaferPak Contactors (full wafer test) or multiple DiePak™ 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 and testing logic, optical and memory integrated circuits 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™ and FOX-P™ families of test and burn-in systems and FOX WaferPak™ Aligner, FOX-XP 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™ 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.

Contacts:

Aehr Test Systems	MKR Investor Relations Inc.
Vernon Rogers	Todd Kehrli or Jim Byers
EVP of Sales & Marketing	Analyst/Investor Contact
(510) 623-9400 x215	(323) 468-2300
vrogers@aehr.com	aehr@mkr-group.com