Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR), a worldwide supplier of semiconductor test and reliability qualification equipment, today announced it has received over $4.0 million in orders from its lead silicon carbide test and burn-in customer for WaferPak full wafer Contactors for multiple new silicon carbide device designs and increased production capacity needs for power semiconductors for the electric vehicle market. These WaferPak Contactors 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 WaferPak Contactors to meet this customer’s increased production capacity needs as well as for multiple new device configurations to be qualified by their customers. These WaferPak Contactor orders are for FOX™ systems previously ordered by this customer. We also expect them to order multiple new sets of WaferPak Contactors in the future to be used with the new system orders announced last month for current devices that have already been qualified by electric vehicle manufacturers.
“This customer recently announced that they expect their growth rate to accelerate faster than previously forecasted. They continue to forecast orders for a significant number of FOX systems and WaferPak Contactors 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. Multiple companies including this lead silicon carbide customer have announced their plans to significantly increase their output capacity, which is exciting for our business. Aehr has been increasing manufacturing capacity of both our systems and WaferPak Contactors to meet the anticipated capacity needs of the silicon carbide market this year and through the end of the decade.
“Aehr’s proprietary WaferPak Contactors are used with our silicon carbide-focused FOX-XP systems, which are configured to test eighteen silicon carbide wafers in parallel in the footprint of a typical single wafer test solution. The Aehr FOX WaferPak Aligner is used to optically align the customer’s wafers in our WaferPak Contactors to contact 100% of the devices on the wafer. Aehr provides a unique, fully integrated solution that includes the test systems, full wafer WaferPak Contactors, and WaferPak Aligners that can not only test today’s 150mm diameter silicon carbide wafers, but can test the future 200mm wafers planned to be introduced over the next several years.
“Forecasts from Canaccord Genuity estimate that the silicon carbide market for devices in electric vehicles, such as traction inverters and the on-board chargers, is expected to grow from fewer than 150,000 wafers in 2021 to more than four million 6-inch equivalent wafers in 2030 to meet the demand of the automotive electric vehicle market, representing a growth rate of over 25 times the current wafer capacity just for the in-vehicle devices.
“Canaccord also estimates that the silicon carbide market will require an additional four million silicon carbide wafers to meet demand in 2030 for electrification infrastructure, industrial and photovoltaic power devices.”
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.