Aehr Receives $13.7 Million in Follow-on Orders for FOX WaferPak™ Contactors for Volume Production Burn-in Test and Stabilization of Silicon Carbide MOSFETs for Electric Vehicles

FREMONT, Calif., June 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR), a worldwide supplier of semiconductor test and production burn-in equipment, today announced it has received $13.7 million in orders from its lead silicon carbide test and burn-in customer for WaferPak™ full wafer Contactors to meet their increased production capacity needs for silicon carbide power semiconductors for the electric vehicle market. This customer is a leading Fortune 500 supplier of semiconductor devices with a significant customer base in the automotive semiconductor market.

Gayn Erickson, President and CEO of Aehr Test Systems, commented, “We continue to be excited about this customer’s incredible growth and production ramp to meet capacity increases from their current customers, as well as to meet new design wins using our wafer level test and burn-in systems and WaferPaks. These orders for a large number of WaferPaks include both current design capacity increases and several new designs that are expected to ramp to volume production after their customer qualification is completed. These WaferPaks are scheduled to be delivered over the next six months.

“This customer has a significant installed base of our FOX-XP™ wafer level test and burn-in systems that is growing as we continue to ship systems to them monthly. Each of the 18 wafer FOX-XP systems requires 18 WaferPaks that each make contact with 100% of the die on the wafers with parametric measurement and monitoring that allows us to provide 100% traceability of test coverage and results to them on every die on every wafer. This is incredibly important to them, as well as other companies that supply devices to mission critical applications such as the traction inverters used to power electric vehicle motors.

“As we have noted in the past, FOX-XP system orders are required to increase general manufacturing capacity, while our proprietary WaferPak Contactors are unique to each device design. As our customers win new designs from their customers, Aehr secures orders for new WaferPak Contactors to fulfill these new wins. Over time, we expect to see our follow-on WaferPak business grow both in absolute dollars and as a percent of our overall revenue.

“These WaferPak full wafer Contactors are also shipping in a configuration that utilizes new patented features that allow optimized alignment accuracy and alignment speed and throughput using our new fully automated FOX WaferPak Aligners that began shipping this last month. The new FOX WaferPak Aligner comes in both stand-alone and integrated configurations. In a stand-alone configuration, each FOX WaferPak Aligner can service multiple 18-wafer FOX-XPs in batch mode, while the integrated configuration of our Aligner docks directly to the front of the 18-wafer FOX-XP system and allows continuous flow of WaferPak alignment and testing in the FOX-XP without the need for any operator handling. The integrated FOX-XP and WaferPak Aligner allow the ability to support a lights-out operation with full factory automation using automated mobile robot transport or full overhead material movement of wafer transport cases (SMIF pods or FOUPs) carrying 150mm, 200mm, or 300mm wafers.”

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 (SiC) 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.

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