Lam Research Corp (LRCX) — Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, operator. Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Lam Research quarterly earnings conference call. With me today are Tim Archer, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Doug Bettinger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. During today's call, we will share our overview on the business environment and review our financial results for the June 2020 quarter and our outlook for the September 2020 quarter. The press release detailing our financial results was distributed a little after 1 o'clock PM, Pacific Time this afternoon. The release can also be found on the Investor Relations section of the company's website along with the presentation slides that accompany today's call. Today's presentation and Q&A includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, reflected in the risk factors disclosed in our SEC public filings. Please see accompanying slides in the presentation for additional information. Today's discussion of our financial results will be presented on a non-GAAP financial basis unless otherwise specified. A detailed reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results can be found in today's earnings press release. This call is scheduled to last until 3 o'clock PM, Pacific Time. A replay of this call will be available later this afternoon on our website. With that I will hand the call over to Tim.

Thank you, Tina. And welcome, everyone. The global pandemic, volatility in the macroeconomy, ongoing US-China tensions. We are operating this year amid tremendous uncertainty and unprecedented challenges impacting people all over the world. We see technology playing a critical role, keeping people connected, enabling businesses to remain productive and accelerating solutions to the myriad of problems the world is confronting. I am very pleased with how Lam's employees have demonstrated care for each other and our communities and have responded with great effort to support our customers' success. As a result of their outstanding execution, today we are reporting strong performance for the June period and guiding to another quarter of solid growth. Specific to the COVID-19 pandemic, our teams have demonstrated agility and resolve in establishing safe and effective protocols to perform essential work in our facilities, while also enabling the majority of our employees to remain productive while they continue working remotely. We have ramped and stabilized our supply and production capability after an initial period of disruption, to support revenues greater than $3 billion per quarter. As you have seen from our guidance, we will be nearing record output levels for the company in the September quarter, highlighting the effectiveness of our business continuity plans, our global manufacturing network and our trusted supply chain partners. We will continue to capture learnings to further improve business resilience and better serve our customers in the future, but overall, I am proud of what our employees and partners have accomplished during this challenging period. Before discussing our results for the quarter, I wanted to comment briefly on our review of the new rules regarding sales of semiconductor equipment into China. China remains an important part of the global semiconductor ecosystem and Lam has a solid track record of business in this market. We are closely monitoring and complying with all regulatory directives and based on our assessment we currently see no material, financial or business impact from the new rules. Turning now to the June quarter. Revenue and EPS came in above our expectations. Operating margins improved sequentially and we generated over $800 million in cash from operations. As the September quarter guidance indicates, we see continued positive momentum as we move into the second half of the year. The results also represent sustained progress towards our long-term objectives. As we mentioned earlier, our guidance indicates we are nearing prior record levels of revenue, but we believe that our opportunity for growth remains robust. Key points supporting our view include: one, memory investments must continue to grow to meet secular demand drivers. Lam's memory mix year-to-date is slightly below 60% of system revenues, which is well below historic highs. We expect our strong memory position to drive outperformance in share of WFE spent, as NAND and DRAM investment levels increase. Two, our actions to improve our Foundry/Logic SAM and Share are yielding results, with our revenue growth in this segment outpacing Foundry/Logic WFE growth cycle-to-cycle. And three, our customer support business group at 34% of total revenues year-to-date is an increasingly greater contributor to our top line than in the past. Looking at the broader WFE environment, our outlook remains strong. While COVID-19 has created volatility for the semiconductor industry, in a larger sense it has underscored the rapidly growing reliance of individuals and businesses on semiconductors and the products and technologies they enable. For example, we are seeing accelerated growth in Internet video traffic, as video becomes embedded in a broad range of business and consumer activities. This is manifesting currently in work-from-home, e-Learning, telehealth, online gaming and of course, video streaming. Nearly two-thirds of global consumers cite video as their preferred medium for obtaining information. The demand that this places on data transport, analysis, and storage will continue to rise. Mobile networks are migrating to 5G. Video quality is doubling from 4K to 8K and cloud and enterprise data centers are expanding to support the enhanced data traffic. A 2x resolution improvement in mobile video drives roughly a 70% increase in NAND storage content and newer server architectures are expected to have over 30% more memory channels versus prior generations. Despite the recent downtick in smartphone units, our own assessment of NAND content in smartphones, in calendar year 2020 has trended higher versus our prior baseline due to a greater mix shift towards 5G devices. We are also seeing increased NAND demand related to new product cycles in the game console segment, with some of the new platforms adding up to a terabyte of SSD-based storage. Launches of the new game consoles are expected to add low to mid-single-digit percent growth to overall NAND bit demand in 2020. These demand drivers in combination with increasing semiconductor manufacturing complexity create a compelling setup for sustained strength in WFE spending. In 2020, we estimate WFE to be in the mid to high $50 billion range, driven by growth in both Memory and Foundry/Logic investment. Although we have seen underlying demand drivers fluctuate due to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, our current WFE forecast in total is very close to what we expected at the beginning of the year. From a mix perspective, we see memory share of WFE growing in 2020, off a low 2019 level. This trend should continue into 2021. Particularly in DRAM, we believe inventory levels will be lower as we get to the end of 2020. In both NAND and DRAM, we see bit supply growth lower than long-term demand this year and NAND recovery progressing ahead of DRAM. By geography, domestic China customers continue to be a strong source of WFE demand, with expected calendar year 2020 WFE spend in the $10 billion range. Year-on-year growth in China investment is predominantly driven by NAND and Foundry segments. Looking more broadly at longer-term global WFE spend, we are increasingly confident that the accelerating digitization of the economy, along with the rising complexity of semiconductor manufacturing at each technology migration is establishing a higher base of WFE spending at the $60 billion level. With this outlook, we are focused on delivering on our objectives to drive greater than 50% growth in revenue and more than a doubling of EPS by 2023-2024 compared to our 2019 results. Key to achieving these goals is to execute on the SAM expansion, market share growth, and installed base revenue opportunities we laid out at our Investor Day in March.

Awesome. Thank you, Tim. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you for joining us today. I hope all of you and your families have been safe and healthy. Our operation steadily improved throughout the June quarter as we executed well in this COVID-19 environment. We've become increasingly more efficient and effective in our operations, which I think are well reflected in the results from the June quarter. Our revenues came in at $2.8 billion driven by broad-based demand. Our customers are investing in leading-edge technologies to service the growth you're seeing in 5G, data centers, and product cycle-driven demand in the gaming console market. Lam's solid execution is reflected in our revenue result, our gross margin performance, as well as our earnings per share that came in at $4.78. I'd also just point out that our deferred revenue balance is back to a more normal range as compared to the end of the March quarter. From a system segment perspective, the total Memory segment in the June quarter increased to 61% of System revenues from the March quarter level, which was at 56%. We saw increases in NAND spending, which contributed 45% of our system revenue, which was up from 40% in the March quarter. Net investments are broad-based, focused on 64, 96, and initial 128 layer devices. DRAM spending was consistent across the June and March quarters at 16% and continues to be focused on node transition, primarily conversions to 1y and 1z. The combined memory market remains in a healthy place due to proactive inventory management as well as a prudent investment cadence. In Foundry, demand across diverse end-market applications continues to drive the investment profile. While Foundry as a percentage of our system revenue slightly declined from the March quarter percentage of 31% to the June quarter at 29%, revenue actually increased in dollar terms, coming in at the second-highest system revenue level for Foundry in Lam's 40-year history. We continue to be pleased with our trajectory here. And finally, the Logic and other segments contributed the remaining 10% of systems revenue in the June quarter as compared to 13% in March. Term investments continue to be strong in the June quarter, with 34% of our total revenue coming from that region. We're seeing investments from customers in all market segments within China, with the majority of the revenue again coming from domestic Chinese customers. We continue to expect solid investment levels in this region throughout the calendar year. China is obviously an important market for Lam and we remain confident in the strength of our business there. The June quarter revenue for our Customer Support Business group was a record at $927 million, representing an increase of 8% from the March quarter level, and an increase of over 17% from the same quarter a year ago. We're delivering sustainable growth across the components of our customer support group in spare parts, service, upgrades, and our refurbished Reliant tool business. Within the June quarter, we executed two significant longer-term spares contracts, further improving the recurring nature of the revenue streams in this business and demonstrating further evidence of the trust our customers have in us to continuously deliver value. Gross margin for the June quarter was 46.1%. At the start of the June quarter, driven by uncertainties related to the COVID-19 situation, we saw potential capacity limitations both from our supply chain partners as well as our own internal production capability. However, as the June quarter progressed, we were able to increase our production efficiency. The resulting expansion in production volumes yielded better factory performance that enhanced gross margins from our original expectations. In addition, gross margins fluctuate, as you know, based on customer and product mix and in the June quarter, we ended up with a slightly more favorable mix than we anticipated at the start of the quarter. We are seeing higher costs due to COVID in several areas, most notably freight and logistics. We're doing our best to mitigate that headwind by managing other expenses in the factories and in the field. During the quarter, operating expenses came in at $493 million, slightly higher than the March quarter. We focused our spending in the research and development area, as we address our customers' most critical needs. Roughly two-thirds of our spending remains focused towards R&D. Our incentive compensation expense increased in the prior quarter, which is tied to our improved profitability levels. At the same time, we've managed expenses elsewhere, most notably travel, and they came down throughout the June quarter. Operating income in the June quarter was $795 million, and operating margin was 28.5%. It was an increase of 160 basis points from the prior quarter. Our tax rate this quarter was 7.6%. Our rate was low in the June quarter, primarily due to a more favorable mix of geographic income and maybe more importantly, a one-time year-end adjustments recorded as we closed our fiscal year. We will have fluctuations in the rate from quarter to quarter. You should continue to expect the ongoing tax rate to be in the low-teens level for your models. Other income and expense increased slightly in the June quarter, coming in at approximately $33 million of expense. Within the June quarter, we were opportunistic with our capital structure. At the end of April, we completed an offering of $2 billion of investment-grade bonds with maturities of 10, 30, and 40 years. I was pleased with the demand for our paper, as well as the pricing that came in with coupons of 1.9%, 2.875%, and 3.125%, respectively. We used $1.25 billion of the debt proceeds to pay down the revolving credit facility that was then outstanding, and that facility is now completely paid down. As we discussed in last quarter's call, the cost of our employee deferred compensation plan and the offsetting hedging balances remain mismatched in the GAAP P&L. You can see these results in the GAAP reconciliation table of our earnings release. Given the volatility in the market in the June quarter, there were large fluctuations between our GAAP expenses in the O line and E lines that the hedge essentially offsets at the net income level. And you should note, the other income and expense balance includes the interest expense of our outstanding debt amounts, obviously offset by the interest income from our cash and investment balances. You should expect that other income and expense will vary quarter-to-quarter based on several market-related items. Should think about things like foreign exchange. On the capital returns side, we noted in our March quarter earnings call, that we will be pausing our buyback activity during the June quarter, until we had a better line of sight in the business environment. As a result, we had only a small amount of share repurchases in the latter part of the June quarter, and that together with dividends ended up having us deploy approximately $200 million towards capital return. Long-term capital return of 75% to 100% of free cash flow remains our plan. Diluted earnings per share, as I said, was $4.78. I mentioned that the one-time benefit from the tax items I referenced was roughly $0.14. Our diluted share balance for the June quarter rounded down to 147 million shares, only a very slight decrease due to the minimal share repurchase activity. The share count includes a dilutive impact of approximately 1 million shares from the 2041 convertible notes. The dilution schedule for the remaining 2041 convertible note is available on our Investor Relations website for your reference. Let me now move on to the balance sheet. Our cash and short-term investments, including restricted cash, increased in the June quarter to $7 billion from $5.6 billion in the March quarter. Cash flows from operations in the quarter were strong at $813 million due to healthy profitability and solid collections during the quarter. The remainder of the increase quarter-over-quarter was related to the debt issuance, offset by the pay down of the revolving credit facility. DSO decreased in the June quarter to 68 days from 80 days in the March quarter demonstrating strong collection performance and the resulting timing of customer payments. Inventory turns were flat with the prior quarter at 3.2 times. We have consciously increased our inventory balance to support the higher revenue level that we see in the September quarter. Non-cash expenses included approximately $50 million for equity compensation, $54 million for depreciation and $17 million for amortization. In the quarter, capital expenditures were consistent with the prior quarter amount coming in at $51 million. Ending headcount as of the June quarter was approximately 11,300 regular full-time employees. This headcount reflects added resources in our factory and field operations, supporting increased volume as well as additions in research and development to support ongoing critical deliverables, like the new Sense.i Etch platform and the dry resist program that we announced at our Investor Day in March. So now looking ahead, I'd like to provide our non-GAAP guidance for the September 2020 quarter. We're expecting revenue of $3,100,000,000, plus or minus $200 million. Gross margin increasing to 46.5% plus or minus 1 percentage point. Operating margins of 29.5% plus or minus 1 percentage point and finally, earnings per share of $5.15 plus or minus $0.40 based on a share count of approximately 147 million shares. These ranges remain wider than normal due to the continuing uncertainty from COVID-19. We are well positioned for the second half of calendar 2020 as we expect continued healthy WFE investments. We see continued strength from Memory and Foundry, for that matter, driven by demand in more strategic technology-oriented investments. The customer support business group is also expected to provide continued momentum for the company. Operator, that concludes my prepared remarks. Tim and I would now like to open up the call for questions.

Thanks a lot. Doug, I guess the first question. You're talking about now WFE being mid to high 50s this year. If I look at Q3 and I look at your guidance and you're probably going to gain some WFE share this year, it would sort of assume that we're running maybe in the low 60s in Q3. So, I guess if I assume your full-year forecast and I assume maybe you gain 100 basis points of WFE share this year, something like that, it would sort of imply that December revenue is well sort of flattish and I'm not asking you to guide December, but I'm just kind of wondering whether you think that, that math holds together where you should gain like a little bit of WFE share this year? Thanks.

Yes, Tim, you're totally correct. We're only providing guidance for one quarter at a time, and while I can't give you a specific forecast for December, I can certainly say that I believe December will remain strong for us. I don’t typically analyze WFE on a quarterly basis, but I trust your calculations are accurate. You also made a good point about share spending and memory trends; I believe we are gearing up for a solid second half, Tim.

Yes, thanks for taking the question. I guess a question on the memory side of things and where are we in the cycle. I know 30% above the recent trough, but still 40% below the prior peak and investors have clearly been focused on this aspect. Would love to hear your view, particularly as it relates to any positive trends you highlighted into calendar '21?

Sure, I'll start C.J. and then let Doug add something if you want to do. Obviously, what we've been saying for quite some time is that memory is a story of one kind of coming off what was a very strong 2018 and a couple of years of then digesting that. But at the same time, there are underlying growth drivers that I think you're seeing everywhere for both NAND and DRAM, that give us greater confidence in what we've stated is long-term bit demand growth in the high 30s for NAND and in the high teens for DRAM. If those are correct and like I said, I gave you a few of the examples of where the big consumers of NAND and DRAM from an application perspective on the horizon, we think that memory investment has to continue to grow for years to come. Yes, obviously at our Investor Day, we laid out a model of a more normalized memory spending level in the context of total $60 billion WFE and in that environment, we grow the company quite significantly.

Yes. I would like to add that in the short term, NAND seems to be recovering faster than DRAM. Looking at the market, both are managing inventory investments with a cautious approach as we wrap up this year. DRAM might see a slight increase, but not by much. I believe DRAM will be more significant in 2021. Additionally, we are performing very well in Foundry, so keep that in mind when considering our company’s performance.

Very helpful. And if I could follow up on the service side, you grew that business stellar 70% year-on-year. Was there any catch-up there on the deferred side? And I guess, thinking through that, how should we think about the potential for sequential growth and into September, December? How do your tools coming off warranty and upgrades look at least based on your build plan today? Whatever you can share. Thanks.

Yes, C.J. In this part of the business, the deferred stuff we had at the end of March, really wasn't impacting things. The deferred, if you remember what we described at the end of March, had to do with back-ordered shipment. That was really all about new equipment. So I don't think there's anything terribly unique going on in CSBG, unless there's something.

No. I think it’s just the efforts to continue providing services to grow our revenue opportunity per chamber. Also, as our company continues to expand, the installed base increases and creates more opportunities.

Thank you.

Operator, can we go back to Tim Arcuri for an additional question please.

Yes, I thought Tim only had one question.

Thank you. Thanks for that, Doug.

Sorry, Tim. I'm sorry.

Yes, sure. Sure, no worries. So, the second question, I guess, can you go through a little bit about how the whole military end-use thing has transpired? It seems like China WFE is a little higher, the domestic stuff is maybe $1 billion to $1 billion higher than you thought it would be and it seems like now all these customers know that there are restrictions looming at some point. So they're going to keep on pulling stuff in. So can you just talk about how the export controls have transpired? Is commerce happy just as long as you do the due diligence with the customer on military end-use? Can you just kind of talk about all that? Thank you.

Sure, I mean, I think Tim, in my comments I talked about our assessment. It was quite an extensive diligence process that we went through which consisted both of our own conversations in questioning of the customers and their certification as well as the use of third party research and also validation by outside counsel and we arrived at our conclusions, as I stated, no material, financial or business impact as a result of all of that work. Now, that is an ongoing activity for us, means that we are continually assessing and doing that kind of research and so that's something that we have committed to but at this point that is our conclusion. If by your question about and connection to domestic China WFE. I don't think that's a connection that we're making and basically we are saying that China has plans to invest, and I indicated that a lot of the investment is coming from NAND as well as Foundry and at least in our view right now. We have not made that connection that somehow domestic China WFE is in any way really affected by these rules one way or the other.

Yes. Tim, maybe a comment from me, my sense is, it's not, there is nothing pulled in say no, we may be wouldn't know if it was or wasn't a little bit. But given we've concluded the rules are not impacting our ability to ship, I don't know why anybody would think there should be pulling things in right.

Awesome. Okay, thank you very much.

Thanks, Tim.

Good afternoon. Great job on the business execution and strong results. One of the large logic manufacturers recently talked about the potential of moving to a more outsourced business model. Maybe just a continuation of the industry trend towards a fabulous business model. At a high level, it would appear to be a zero-sum game. But wanted to get your views on the potential ramifications of your business in a structural move in the industry towards a more fab-like or fabulous business model.

Yes, okay. Let me try to take that, Harlan, to start. Obviously, we don't want to comment about the specific plans of any one customer, but to your point of the industry moving to an outsource model, I mean, obviously that's a more than 20-year story and I think that anything that allows wafers ultimately to be produced with better technology at lower costs, however, that's done, in-house or outsourced, is what's good for the industry and that's good for Lam. I'm quite certain that as a result of the advances that have happened on the Foundry side, Lam's business has benefited tremendously in the last 20 years and that just comes back to a statement that I've made a number of times, which is the best thing for Lam is that technology nodes continue to migrate. We have greater SAM at every technology node migration across NAND, DRAM and Foundry logic and so every company has to decide for themselves, what's sort of the best answer to advancing technology at the best cost. That can be in-house, can be outsourced. What we care about is whether that technology advances and more wafers get produced and so I think, we obviously watch it and we look at the impact on our business. But ultimately Foundry hasn't been bad for the industry or for Lam.

Absolutely.

Yes. And Harlan, just one or two comments from me. The way I think about it is what matters to Lam is the number of leading edge wafers in the entire industry that are put in place, whether it's in-source or outsource, largely doesn't matter too much. Either way it needs equipment, right? Independent of where it goes, we're selling largely the same things to the industry.

Yes, that's great insights there. Good to see the recovery of the business and the improvement in the supply chain and logistical bottlenecks. Just wondering, Doug, if the team is still, even with this strong September quarter guide, playing catch up on the delinquent backlog as a result of the earlier bottlenecks and if so, how much of that has yet to be worked down?

Yes, Harlan. I think we've gotten nicely caught up. I don't think we're completely caught up as we sit here today, but we made very nice progress during the quarter.

Great, thank you.

Thanks, Harlan.

Yes, good afternoon, guys. Congratulations on the results. Thanks for letting me ask the question. Doug, just maybe a follow on to Harlan's question, it sounds like COVID was still a cost headwind in the June quarter. I'm wondering if you can help us quantify that and as you look out into September with the guide how much sort of COVID logistical expense is still in there and when do you think you might be able to take that out of the model?

Yes, John. The biggest individual item, when I look at it is freight and logistics. I mean freight lanes are more restricted than they were obviously pre-COVID. Things are more expensive. Really tough to mitigate that. I mean, to a certain extent, you take the price, you do your best to negotiate it, but you're somewhat of a price-taker there. That doesn't mean we're not, as I tried to describe, working to drive efficiency, effectiveness elsewhere in the operation. That's what Lam is extremely good at doing and we're doing that, but that is where the challenges are right now. I'm not going to quantify it, John. But it is impacting gross margin to a certain extent. I don't know, Tim, if you want to add anything.

No. The only thing I would add is that, as Doug mentioned, there are some near-term challenges concerning costs. However, we expect those to gradually decrease as conditions stabilize after COVID. I also pointed out the acceleration of remote support technologies. While we haven't fully assessed the potential benefits, it's clear that reduced travel and increased productivity from engineers worldwide who can connect to fabs and provide expertise through new technologies will likely result in cost and personnel benefits for us in the future. We are investing in this, and I view it as a positive factor that will contribute positively as we move forward.

That's helpful. And then, Tim, you guys covered a lot of ground at the Analyst Day earlier this year, but you couldn't cover everything. I'm kind of curious if you can kind of spend a few minutes talking about your positioning in advanced packaging because clearly, there's not a lot of volume in sort of chiplets today, but as you look at Intel moving to their second-generation 10 nanometer part sometime in the second half of next year, it seems like the tiles last chiplet strategy is really poised to accelerate starting in the back half of next year and going forward. And I know you guys have some good leverage there, but I'm just trying to get a sense of quantifying and how big do you think that market opportunity is.

Sure. I'm not sure if we can quantify that for you on this call, but I can share that it aligns with my earlier comment about customers and the industry generally seeking the best ways to achieve performance at the lowest cost. This sometimes involves examining total system performance, and advanced packaging technologies like 3D chiplets provide a means to enhance system performance without always relying on the most advanced node chips for every application. Our position in this area is quite strong. We were early investors and hold leading positions in both etch and depth for TSV applications, making us very well positioned as this develops. So, when we hear about acceleration, we are very encouraged. Our high aspect ratio etching processes and our well-recognized leadership in copper electroplating fill for over 20 years are essential technologies for these 3D packaged heterogeneous integration applications.

Helpful. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, again. Yes, thanks, John.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Tim, I had a question on memory. Clearly, memory WFE is underspending right now and your revenue has a lot of potential upside. If I look at the last cyclical peak which was in March 2018, if you are able to get back to those kinds of WFE levels for memory, how will Lam's revenue profile look like in memory, given that you gain some shares? Is there a way to quantify it to see how much higher, you could be versus the last cyclical peak? And then I had a follow-up.

I think Doug's signaling, I can't quantify that. Of course, we have quantified it, and that's why my comment was, we believe our opportunity. We knew there'd be this peak question, but my comment was regardless of the fact that our revenues are approaching the last time; and therefore, the peak question starts to come up, the setup is quite different. And in fact, that's why we pointed out, our memory mix today is a much lower. WFE is not back there, and so I guess probably you can do it just as easily as we can. But there is still significant upside as memory growth continues not only to return to prior levels, but also to continue to grow to meet all of these new application drivers that we've talked about.

Yes, Krish. Obviously, when we put a financial model out, not all that long ago in March, we comprehended some aspect of memory being at a higher investment level. CSPG growing. Our strength in foundry continuing to grow. So you have the data points.

It's kind of all in there.

Got it, got it. No worries. And then I have a question on your ALD traction. I'm just curious like when you look at the ALD, like clearly that market is going to continue growing. You guys are like a number two player in that, I would probably say. How much of the growth in ALD is actually driven by technology versus the fact that productivity for ALD tools is still pretty low? Which is driving the bigger upside in ALD?

All of these new adoptions that I keep mentioning are part of Lam's efforts to broaden the application base for ALD, indicating a technology-driven decision. Historically, ALD adoption has been hampered by its outstanding technology, but the productivity level was not affordable for certain nodes, leading to delays in adoption. What we've accomplished is the combination of an expanding set of films and more applications alongside architecturally enhanced productivity, which has resulted in significant traction across various applications. I discussed 3D NAND gap fill, a multilayer application in Foundry/Logic with a different material, and critical spacers. We have effectively broadened the target market for ALD, and we are seeing positive results.

Thanks, Tim. Thanks.

Thanks, Krish. Yes.

Thanks, Krish.

Hi, guys. Thanks very much for taking the question and congrats on the strong results. Doug, you mentioned that for 2020 domestic China, you guys are expecting about $10 billion in spend. Curious, what's the rough split between memory versus logic and foundry? And on the memory side, I feel like both you and the broader industry are currently in a sweet spot where your customers are spending, but they're not really contributing to supply. At what point would you expect them to start to really move the needle on supply and as a result of capital intensity come down in local China? And then I have a follow-up. Thank you.

Yes, no problem, Toshiya. We haven't quantified what is in which segment in China but I forget if Tim said or if I said it in the script, it kind of blurs in my mind sometimes, we said it's broad-based in China, in all segments. So it isn't just one, it's a broad set of customers that are investing. So, think of it that way, it's not one or the other. And you're right, and I wouldn't characterize China's inefficient in the investment, it's just when customers are investing for the first time or are relatively new to investing in capacity, you got to buy it. Then you have to ramp it, and it takes time for that to happen. It's not unique to any one geography or any one customer that is really what's going on, and over time customers get more efficient as they ramp things. That's how I think about it, Tim. I don't know…

Yes, no, as you suggested in the earlier question, I think thinking about the model we've put out just back at Investor Day, I think by the time you get to the 2023-2024 timeframe, we've comprehended that those additions in China are effectively the same as additions elsewhere in the world. So we don't think there is some extra inefficient spending in that case that's driving numbers higher for Lam. So I think if you just look back at that model that's a relatively efficient spend across all segments in 2023-2024.

Got it, thank you for that. And then as a quick follow-up. Doug, in your prepared remarks, you talked about winning two service contracts in the quarter, I believe I wasn't sure if you meant to highlight it as a meaningful dynamic here, but did those contracts at all drive incremental growth going forward, or does it change how we should be thinking about quarter-to-quarter, year-to-year volatility and your installed base business or profitability going forward? Thank you.

No, not really, Toshiya. I mean I just mentioned it because one, they were a little bit longer term and two, they were bigger than perhaps typical, and to me is very much part of how we run this business. It's the customer has faith and confidence in your ability to deliver and provide value, it is consistent with what we expect that business to do and it has done in the past. I just mentioned it because it was notable when we looking at the results this quarter.

Thank you.

Yes, thanks, Toshiya.

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question and a great result. Just kind of curious. from a high level, the wafer front-end, you're keeping the same amount in your catching up to. I'm just kind of curious as you look at it, the way the year is shaking out. I think there's a lot of doubts whether you hit that number, is it the same contribution and then any comments on the strength in the second half by geography would be helpful?

Blayne, are you asking about WFE? Was that your question? Just wanted to understand.

I'm curious as you're still seeing the same WFE forecast for the year and kind of curious...

Yes. I think Tim specifically mentioned in his script there's puts and takes in here, right. It's ended up at the same level. I would suggest to you that more consumer-oriented stuff is a little bit weaker, smartphones, as an example, smartphone units aren't the same as we thought at the beginning of the year that is creating a little bit of a downtick. But that's offset by other things going on in hyperscale cloud consumption of silicon, work-from-home type things and net-net, one is up a little bit once down a little bit. We're in the same place that we began the year.

I was curious about the geographic perspective regarding growth in September.

No, we never forecast the GOPs. I wouldn't expect it to be wildly different than what you've seen over the last couple of quarters or so from a directional standpoint.

Thanks.

Thanks, Blayne.

Thank you for taking my question. I'm interested in the growth of WFE outside of China, as I noticed that your first half ex-China sales declined in the last fiscal year. Could you explain why we are observing these trends? I realize this might be a short timeframe for analysis, but I'm curious why we aren't experiencing similar WFE growth outside of China, especially since I assume all markets are subject to the same growth drivers.

Vivek, I mean obviously the majority of WFE spending is outside of China. Two-thirds of it is outside of China. Right. And so you're seeing the contribution of WFE across every geography, right. It's more about what's going on in the end markets. That's how you should be thinking about it right. Foundry is strong this year, NAND up from last year, DRAM maybe up a little bit, but to a large extent that's geographically independent.

No. I guess my question is that when I look at last year's WFE was I think 50-51, this year you're guiding it up $5 billion to $7 billion, but a big part of that growth is coming from China. Right. The incremental growth is coming from China. So I'm just curious why we are not seeing WFE spending outside of China at that same pace or is that just something we will see next year perhaps?

Yes. There are likely three to four incremental contributions from China, while the remainder is from outside of China. Vivek?

Okay. As a follow-up, CSBG, thanks for providing that info. So it grew I think about 7% or so last fiscal year. I'm curious how much it grew the prior fiscal year and what part of that, should we think of that as kind of recurring and this is such an important part of your business that I'm always very curious about how to correlate this to your growth in chambers. Is this correlated to your chamber growth from two years ago or three years ago? Just how should we take this 7% number, and I don't know how to forecast your CSBG business. I guess that's really what I'm trying to ask.

If you're thinking about forecasting, we gave you data points at the Investor Day, which was Pat Lord, who manages this business for us suggested that by 2023-24, it will have grown 40%. So there is your data point for how to forecast it. Chamber count is critically important, but Pat and Tim talked about, it's not just chambers, it's dollar per chamber growing from, I think we forget what year we indexed it back to 2013 maybe...

2013.

It was 1.0 then it had gone to 1.5 and we had objectives to continue growing it to 1.7, which was what was baked in the model. So that's how you should think about it. Chamber count is important. We're also driving some of the innovative service offerings like Tim talked about remote diagnostic on equipment and things, to try to add more value for the customers and get paid for it.

Thank you.

Thanks, Vivek.

Yes, sir. Thank you for taking my question. Just as a follow-up to the prior question, how should we model the customer support over the next few quarters? Should we just track the memory investment you highlighted as doing better than foundry or would it be more in line with the overall revenue trend line that you described earlier?

Yes. The advantage of the CSBG business is that it remains stable and does not fluctuate significantly with changes in quarterly shipments. We have over 60,000 chambers installed, and our CSBG revenue comes from tools that are over 20 years old. There are upgrade cycles and consumable parts, as Doug mentioned, which contribute to our revenue. Therefore, I don't expect to see fluctuations in this area. The CSBG business serves as a stabilizing influence on the company's revenue, which is why we are making substantial investments in it, providing value to customers through the reuse and extension of existing tools.

Yes, I believe this is the first quarter that you're actually breaking this out and I was just trying to better understand whether the Customer Support Business Group would grow faster with memory or with foundry or with a bit of same for different end markets.

Yes, I can. I believe it's the second quarter for which we've released this data. There are a couple of important points to consider. First, we have stated that the business will grow each year, primarily due to the increasing installed base, and we are continuously investing to enhance our services and create value-added products for that base. We haven't specifically commented on whether it will grow every quarter, as various service contracts and upgrade decisions by customers can impact that on a quarterly basis. However, you can expect year-over-year growth. It may not necessarily be segmented, but I've previously emphasized the critical applications and Lam's strong focus on them. These applications are essential as they are sticky and often lead to increased parts and service requirements since customers need to maintain peak performance in their systems that are dealing with demanding applications in their fabs. Consequently, we see more demand in the Customer Support Business Group related to critical applications where Lam excels. Thus, growth may be less about specific device types and more about application demands. Additionally, critical applications typically lead to more frequent upgrades since customers strive to keep their installed base aligned with the latest technology advancements.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. I know you mentioned that you were addressing the supply challenges, but could you provide insight into what the quarterly revenue progression might have been without those challenges? You indicated in March that you deferred around $300 million in revenue due to the supply issues. Should we consider June as having recovered from that, and is the increase in September primarily driven by demand for shipping, or how would things have appeared without the supply challenges you encountered?

Yes, Joe. I didn't quantify that. I'd say we've got nicely caught up. I also said we're not completely caught up at the end of the June quarter and that's as much as I think we're going to give you right now. We're driving efficiencies. We're getting much better. I think, Tim and I are pretty happy with how the supply chain is performing.

All right. Great, thank you very much.

Thanks, Joe.

Yes, thanks for taking the question and congrats on the results from me as well. I think you mentioned that your capacity from a manufacturing perspective is over $3 billion per quarter now with all the issues with the supply chain. Is there a scenario over the next few quarters where you see potentially demand outstripping what you can deliver?

We have a global manufacturing factory network that we are very confident in. It seems unlikely that demand will exceed our capabilities. While I did not specify a maximum output for our factory network, I wanted to point out that we faced supply constraints in the last quarter, which affected our ability to provide our usual guidance. With capabilities exceeding $3 billion, we are optimistic about the September quarter and we believe we will continue to increase that capacity over time. Although we will not disclose our exact manufacturing capacity, I am confident that we can continue to meet rising demand.

That's helpful. Regarding capital return, should we interpret your comments about maintaining your long-term target model for 75% to 100% of free cash flow as a sign that we might see an increase or a re-acceleration in share repurchases this quarter and towards the end of the year?

Yes, probably, Joe. We mentioned last quarter that we were pausing, but we actually returned to the market a little before the end of the quarter. So we're back, evaluating opportunities, and I have consistently stated that our approach is opportunistic, and we'll continue to operate this way.

Thank you.

Thanks, Joe.

Operator, we have time for one more question, please.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to dig into the operating costs a little bit. Just understanding that people aren't really traveling right now, you're probably saving some money, you mentioned some tailwinds around remote servicing. But should we expect operating cost to ramp up meaningfully in 2021 assuming there is some sort of post-pandemic return to kind of a normal level of business and travel and marketing? And I kind of noticed that you added some headcount as well. So I would assume that that would roll in and I don't know if that continues through next year. But just kind of wondering how next year works from an operating cost standpoint?

Weston, I'm not going to give you a forecast for next year yet. I think there'll be pluses or minuses assuming we get back to normal; we get a vaccine, the therapeutic regimen, what have you. I think we're going to learn from how we're operating right now and be better over time. I mean that's what Lam is really very good at. Looking at an opportunity, getting better and systematically doing it that way. I think we will do that. And yes, if we get back to normal travel, it will come back a little bit. I don't think it would come back to where it was, but again, we'll keep managing the P&L in the right way.

Yes, I think the only thing I'd add is at the same time; we've obviously, I think we have a great track record of managing OpEx and you can kind of look at the results to support that. But we are investing in our 2023, 2024 plans. I mean, you've seen some of our announcements recently. The construction of a technology center in Korea, obviously there are expenses associated with that. It's a strategic investment to expand our R&D capabilities, put it closer to some of our largest customers. We are building a new manufacturing facility in Malaysia, which again is going to expand our global manufacturing network, provide additional business resilience, and help take some cost out of the manufacturing structure. So, there are some near-term investments that we're confident in our long-term plan. And so we are pushing those through even right now. And we are seeing some of that reflected in our expenses as well, so, maybe that's offsetting a little bit some of the savings that Doug talked about. But I wanted to get into the product and R&D, we continue to push more into R&D because we think it's the long-term growth engine of the company and we are really confident in our product pipeline and new products coming out.

Okay, that's very helpful context. Thanks.

Yes, thank you, Wes. Okay, operator, yes.

Thank you all for joining today, we appreciate it. And stay safe and healthy. Thank you.