Lam Research Corp (LRCX) — Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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 we'll review our financial results for the September 2024 quarter and our outlook for the December 2024 quarter. The press release detailing our financial results was distributed a little after 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time. 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 include 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 the accompanying slides in the presentation. This call is scheduled to last until 3:00 p.m. Pacific time. A replay of this call will be made available later this afternoon on our website. And with that, I'll hand the call over to Tim.

Thank you, Ram, and good afternoon, everyone. Lam posted a strong September quarter with revenues and earnings per share higher than the midpoint and profitability above the high end of the guided ranges. These results mark the fifth consecutive quarter of revenue growth for the company. When combined with our solid outlook for the December quarter, Lam's performance points to strong execution in an industry environment where NAND spending has yet to recover. Our view on calendar year 2024 WFE remains mostly unchanged. Spending is expected to be in the mid-$90 billion range. We continue to see AI driving strong investments in leading-edge logic nodes, as well as advanced packaging segments, including high-bandwidth memory or HBM. We expect domestic China WFE will be down in the second half relative to the first half, with China's share of Lam's overall revenue normalizing to the 30% range in the December quarter. Per our normal cadence, we will provide the full details of our 2025 WFE outlook on our January earnings call. However, at this point, our early view for next year is for WFE growth from 2024's mid-$90 billion range. More importantly, we see an outstanding opportunity for Lam to outperform overall WFE growth in 2025. This is due to the critical role that etch and deposition play as fundamental enablers of higher performance and more scalable semiconductor device architectures. Lam is strongly positioned to benefit both from improvements in NAND spending and increased customer investments across multiple technology inflections. In NAND, we expect the spending recovery to be driven primarily by technology upgrades, which is a highly favorable dynamic for Lam, given our industry-leading position in critical NAND processes. In foundry/logic and DRAM, we are set to benefit from growing investment in gate-all-around, backside power distribution, advanced packaging, and dry EUV resist processing. Each of these advancements is more etch and deposition intensive, and we have talked about our progress in these areas over the past several quarters. We expect to see increasing adoption across all four inflections in 2025. First on NAND, this segment has seen a prolonged cyclical downturn, but technology conversions to more advanced nodes will be critical to meeting the increased demand for high-speed, high-capacity enterprise SSDs, as well as satisfying the need for low-cost, high-capacity storage in client devices. Currently, over two-thirds of bits are still manufactured using older sub-200 layer technologies. We believe customers will continue converting this capacity to more advanced nodes in 2025. With the industry's largest installed base of 3D NAND equipment, Lam should benefit disproportionately as these upgrades occur. Furthermore, NAND manufacturers must also address the growing challenge of word line resistance. This sets up an important materials migration from tungsten to molybdenum, or moly, which offers superior thin-film resistivity, simplifies the process of minimizing leakage, and yields the lowest resistance. Lam has more than a decade of learning embedded in our metal atomic layer deposition, or ALD applications, with customer engagements on moly across NAND, DRAM, and foundry/logic. We have production wins for the moly transition in NAND that will scale in 2025 with foundry/logic and DRAM ramps to follow. Outside of NAND, we continue to build momentum in gate-all-around nodes with our selective etch tools, including recent wins and a large foundry/logic customer. In advanced EUV patterning, our latest conductor etch tool with DirectDrive technology is gaining ground, with broader adoption across key customers. In the evolution to backside power distribution in foundry/logic, we see expansion of our served market and share in dielectric etch and copper plating in 2025 due to the introduction of additional VF formation steps and new metal layers. Advanced packaging has been a highlight this year, driven by the performance needs of advanced AI devices. Lam established early technological leadership in deposition for advanced packaging. Our unmatched experience in copper plating hardware design and process technology is enabling SABRE 3D to deliver best-in-class coplanarity, uniformity, and defectivity at high throughput. This has translated into significant market share gains in 2024 and strong momentum as we look ahead into 2025. Our SABRE 3D revenue has more than doubled this year as both the number of 2.5D and 3D packages and the metal layer count per package has grown. As the complexity of advanced packaging continues to increase over time, more stringent performance requirements should play to Lam's strengths. Finally, in our customer support business group or CSBG, we are seeing strong customer pull for productivity enhancement, extendibility, and reuse of Lam's installed base of tools. In both DRAM and NAND, there is intense focus on lowering bit cost through efficient reuse of the installed base. This has led to recent market share wins where upgrades of existing Lam installed base systems provided better value than the new build alternatives offered by competitors. Similarly, our customers' focus on installed base productivity is driving greater adoption of Lam's equipment intelligence services with an additional 500 process chambers subscribed in the past quarter. So to wrap up, as we look at the changes ahead for every leading etch device and every advanced package, we see more and more opportunity for Lam. The AI era is here. We have transformed our business and expanded our product portfolio to prepare for this next generation of semiconductor industry growth. Our investments are in the early stages of paying off. I'm looking forward to sharing more about why we believe the best is yet to come for Lam at our Investor Day on February 19 in New York City. Now, here's Doug.

Excellent. Thank you, Tim. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today during what I know is a busy earnings season. Before I start, I want to remind everyone that on May 21, 2024, we announced a 10-for-one stock split, which was effective October 2 of 2024. All references made to share or per-share amounts in my remarks have been adjusted to now reflect the stock split. We delivered strong results in the September 2024 quarter. Our revenue and earnings per share came in above the midpoint of our guided range, while both gross margin and operating income percentage exceeded our guidance range. I'm pleased with the company's continued strong revenue and profitability execution, as well as our solid generation of free cash flows for the quarter, which came in at $1.46 billion or 35% of revenue. Let's look at the details of our September quarter financial results. Revenue for the September quarter was $4.17 billion, which was an increase of 8% from the prior quarter. Our deferred revenue balance at the end of the quarter was $2.05 billion, an increase of $495 million from the June quarter. This grew mainly due to customer advanced payments. I believe our deferred revenue balance will trend lower into calendar year 2025, but you will likely continue to see fluctuation quarter-to-quarter. From a segment perspective, September quarter systems revenue in memory was 35%, roughly in line with the prior quarter level of 36%. Within the memory segment, though, DRAM increased, coming in at 24% of systems revenue versus 19% in the June quarter. DRAM spending was focused on technology upgrades to 1-alpha, 1-beta, and some initial ramp of 1-gamma nodes to enable DDR5 and high bandwidth memory. The non-volatile memory segment represented 11% of our systems revenue, which was down from 17% in the prior quarter. This decline is driven by the timing of one customer's sequentially lower investment in specialty DRAM that we characterized as a non-volatile investment, because it has a non-volatile component in the device. The NAND segment has experienced a prolonged down cycle compared to historical norms. However, we anticipate that spending will increase in calendar 2025 as utilization rates improve to more normal levels and our customers begin to invest in conversions to 256- and 384-layer class devices. The foundry segment represented 41% of systems revenue, a slight decrease from the percentage concentration in the June quarter of 43%. In dollar terms, spending was relatively unchanged quarter-to-quarter. The logic and other segment was 24% of our systems revenue in the September quarter, up from the prior quarter level of 21%. The increase was driven by an uptick in both leading edge and specialty node logic devices. Now, I'll discuss the regional contribution of our total revenue. The China region accounted for 37%, down slightly from 39% in the prior quarter, and a little bit stronger than we expected. Most of our China revenue continued to come from domestic Chinese customers. And as Tim mentioned, we expect spending from this region will decline in the December quarter, I think perhaps to approximately 30% of December's revenue. Our next largest geographic concentration was Korea at 18% of revenue in the September quarter, which was flat with the June quarter. And finally, Taiwan and the United States rounded up the remainder of the Top four regions. Our customer support business group generated approximately $1.8 billion in revenue for the September quarter, up 4% from the June quarter and 25% higher than the same period in 2023. The sequential dollar growth was split evenly between Reliant Systems and all other components of CSBG. The spare parts component of CSBG continues to be the individual largest piece of this business unit's revenue. Let's turn to gross margin. The September quarter came in at 48.2%, which exceeded our guided range. Gross margin decreased a little sequentially, however, reflecting a decline in customer mix, as well as an increase in incentive compensation. These factors were partially offset by improved factory utilization as we continue to make progress on our operational initiatives. Operating expenses for September were $722 million, up from the prior quarter amount of $689 million. The increase was partly due to growth in program spending, as well as higher incentive compensation tied to the company's increased profitability outlook. R&D accounted for 67% of the total spending. Operating margin for the current quarter was 30.9%, slightly above the June quarter level of 30.7% and above the high end of our guidance range, primarily because of the higher revenue and continued strong gross margin performance. Our non-GAAP tax rate for the quarter was 13.8%, generally within range of our expectations. Our estimate is for the tax rate to continue to be in the low- to mid-teens range in the near-term. Other income and expense for the September quarter came in at $13 million in income, compared with $19 million in income in the June quarter. The decrease in OI&E was primarily due to foreign exchange fluctuations. OI&E will continue to be susceptible to market-related variations that could cause some level of volatility quarter-to-quarter. Let me pivot to the capital return side of things. We allocated approximately $1 billion to open market share repurchases and we paid $261 million in dividends in the September quarter. I just highlight that, in August, we announced a 15% growth in the dividend, in line with our plan to deliver an annual growth in the dividend. And I just mentioned, since paying our first dividend in 2014, we have now raised the dividend in 10 consecutive years. We have $9.8 billion remaining on our Board authorized share repurchase plan. And we continue to track towards our long-term capital return plans of returning 75% to 100% of our free cash flow. For the September quarter, diluted earnings per share was $0.86, above the midpoint of our guided range. The diluted share count was approximately 1.3 billion shares, which was a reduction from the June quarter. On the balance sheet, our cash and cash equivalents totaled $6.1 billion at the end of the September quarter, up from $5.9 billion at the end of the June quarter. The increase was largely due to cash from operating activities, offset by cash allocated to share buyback, dividend payments, and capital expenditures. Days sales outstanding was 64 days in the September quarter, an increase from 59 days that we saw in the June quarter. Inventory at the end of the September quarter totaled $4.2 billion. Inventory turns improved to 2.1 times from the prior quarter level of 1.9 times. We will continue to manage inventory levels to the best of our ability to align with customer demand. Our non-cash expenses for the September quarter included approximately $80 million for equity compensation, $80 million in depreciation, and $14 million in amortization. Capital expenditures for the September quarter were $111 million, up $10 million from the June quarter. Capital spending was mainly centered on lab investments in the United States and Asia, as well as manufacturing facilitization supporting our global strategy to be close to both customers' development, as well as manufacturing locations. We ended the September quarter with approximately 17,700 regular full-time employees, which was an increase of approximately 500 people from the prior quarter. Headcount growth was predominantly in field and factory personnel to support increased tool installation, as well as growing manufacturing activity levels. Let's now turn to our non-GAAP guidance for the December 2024 quarter. We're expecting revenue of $4.3 billion, plus or minus $300 million. Gross margin of 47%, plus or minus 1 percentage point. The gross margin guidance is reflective of a quarter-to-quarter headwind in customer mix. Operating margins of 30%, plus or minus 1 percentage point. This reflects our continued commitment to managing our expense level as we prioritize critical R&D investment areas. And finally, earnings per share of $0.87, plus or minus $0.10, based on a share count of approximately 1.29 billion shares. So let me wrap up. We continue to execute well in 2024. I believe that's reflected in our September results, as well as guidance for the December quarter. We're on track to achieve modest improvement in our operating leverage for the full calendar year as we prioritize critical investments to extend our technology differentiation, while carefully managing overall spending levels. The investments we're making position Lam well to benefit from the architectural and materials inflections we see ahead. We believe that we will continue to gain traction and outperform the overall growth in WFE in calendar year 2025. We continue to see 2025 as a growth year in both WFE, and more importantly, Lam's top line. Operator, that concludes our prepared remarks. We would now like to open up the call for questions.

Thanks a lot. Tim and Doug, I know that you don't want to project 2025 WFE and I'm not asking you to give us a number, but can you just talk about the puts and takes? I guess, particularly around China. I mean, obviously, there's going to be some additions to the entity list, but it seems like even a bigger factor might be the consolidation of some of this legacy node stuff. It seems like there's a huge consolidation of a lot of these fabs that have been built that are ultimately connected to either Huawei or BYD. So can you just talk sort of conceptually about the puts and takes and particularly about China? I mean, it's down about 10 points of your revenue. Thanks.

Sure. Thanks, Tim, and thanks for not pressing us on an early 2025 guide. We realize there's a lot of questions, and we are trying to give some additional color where we can. We said that we believe year-on-year WFE overall would be up next year. Specifically, our view for China WFE next year would be that it is lower. You can pick all the variety of reasons that you may have just listed, and as a percent of Lam's total revenue, China would represent a lower percentage next year than this year. And so I think that's about all we can say right now. Obviously, in January, we'll give a lot more color on the full market.

I'd just add a little bit. Tim, outside of China, think about everything else going on in leading-edge foundry and logic continues to be quite good. DRAM continues to be pretty robust with DDR5 high-bandwidth memory. What the trailing edge specialty node stuff does outside of China, I think we'll, as an industry, work our way through the inventory positions we're in. So trends are actually pretty good in most of the industries. I'd just remind you of that, and I know you know that.

Yes. Tim, when we discuss percentages, it's important to remember the significant technology advancements and investments I mentioned earlier. None of these will be happening in China due to existing restrictions or the technology levels there. For example, NAND upgrades for us will primarily occur outside of China. Similarly, nodes like gate all are also outside of China. Therefore, as we observe stronger trends for Lam and the industry, it's natural that China's contribution to our total revenue is decreasing.

Right, thanks. And then just like super quick, Doug, for you. So CSBG was up. It was better deferred being up a lot. Is that like Reliant related?

Yes, a little bit. What you heard me say is the growth in CSBG was a combination of growth in Reliant and then everything else. So Reliant was pretty strong again last quarter. So yes, Tim, that's part of it.

Thank you.

Yes. Thanks, Tim.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Last call, you guys talked about NAND utilizations moving higher, driving growth in spares. Did you see that trend continue into the September quarter? And you've talked about confidence on NAND WFE growth outlook for next year. Is the confidence level as strong on WFE spending growth outlook relative to let's say, 90-days ago? And are you starting to get some order and forecast visibility to support that?

Yes, Harlan. I want to emphasize that our perspective on NAND involves several factors. We continue to observe strong utilization for the existing capacity. However, what I mentioned earlier is the increasing demand for higher quality bits and better performance to satisfy enterprise SSD requirements and applications tied to the AI transition. This suggests that even without significant increases in overall bit capacity, there will be a need to shift a significant portion of production from 1xx-layer technologies to advanced nodes that utilize features like cell under array or QLC. The moly transition we discussed, along with other advancements, will enhance our competitiveness in the robust segments of the market. This is crucial for Lam, as we play a significant role and capture a large share of these upgrades. We expect the industry to remain in recovery next year. If most spending is directed towards technology upgrades, which encompasses the aspects I mentioned, it aligns perfectly with our product offerings. This is our sweet spot, which gives us optimism about NAND growth, irrespective of any substantial increases in WFE spending. Overall, we anticipate that spending will work in our favor.

Yes, I appreciate that. And then AI and accelerated compute dynamics continuing very strong, right? Obviously, that's pulling the need for more HBM memory, as you mentioned last call, you talked about driving more than $1 billion in HBM revenues this year. Is that number even higher now? And I'm wondering if you can maybe quantify the HBM outlook for this year. As we look into next year, although HBM bit supply is only going to represent 6%, 7% of total bit supply, it's going to account for something like 20%, 25% of total DRAM wafer capacity, right? And that in and of itself is up 60%, 70% versus this year. How are you thinking about sort of the growth trajectory of your HBM and advanced packaging business next year and even over the next several years?

Yes, Harlan. While we are not planning to provide a new milestone number, we did discuss the $1 billion achievement in our advanced packaging business, which is largely driven by the strength in AI. Since our last call, this segment has continued to grow even more than we initially anticipated. I mentioned some of this in my commentary about the SABRE 3D and copper plating. It is currently a very robust part of our business. Companies that have good exposure to this area, particularly in etching and deposition, are experiencing significant benefits from this trend. I don't expect advanced packaging to slow down anytime soon, based on my perspective and my discussions with customers. It serves as an enabling technology that enhances system-level performance, which is difficult to achieve through individual chips alone; it necessitates a true architectural change. Therefore, we remain optimistic about advanced packaging for next year. When we reach January, we will likely provide more details regarding new projections for that segment.

Thank you, Tim.

Thanks, Harlan.

Hi. Thanks so much for taking the question. I had two as well. First, Tim, you talked about the adoption of Moly and 3D NAND, and you also mentioned leading edge foundry and logic and DRAM to follow in the out years. I was hoping you could help us sort of translate some of that, maybe not the specific numbers, but how we should be thinking about your ability to grow the business with Moly in '25 and beyond. Is it a net gain opportunity for you? Or because you're already quite strong in that space, is there an offset to the introduction of moly?

Yes, it is an area where we're quite strong already in tungsten, as you point out, especially in NAND, but it still turns out to be a net gain for us as again, there is a certain benefit that comes from upgrades and moving technology forward, and there's additional benefit if you're basically selling in new high value-add technologies for our customers. And so again, the fact that it helps resolve some of the word line resistance issues that exist and really is a major materials migration that then can sort of carry the industry forward for several nodes after that. It's a kind of step up for us in terms of business through that transition. And then as we see those same transitions occur in foundry logic and DRAM, I think it represents a gain opportunity for us there as well out into future years.

Got it. My follow-up is on leading-edge foundry logic. I believe both you and Doug consider that area to be a strength. A peer of yours recently lowered their 2025 outlook due to competitive dynamics in that space. It seems one customer is performing really well while maybe two others are not doing as well. In your opinion, does the 2025 outlook remain unchanged compared to 90 days ago, or have you noticed any shifts regarding overall leading-edge foundry and logic?

Well, from our perspective, things haven't really changed in the last 90 days. What's driving our business is less about volume and more about technological shifts. Transitioning from a previous node to one that's more advanced opens up new opportunities for us. We can now utilize new tools like selective etch and ALD at rates we weren't able to before, which may explain why our situation hasn't changed much. We see this as a positive opportunity. While we haven't specified an exact timeline, we anticipate that by 2025, we'll see the introduction of significant etch and depth-intensive advancements, such as backside power distribution and advanced packaging in leading-edge logic foundries. These developments are expected to benefit companies like Lam with compatible portfolios. While I can't speak for everyone else's outlook, we believe these technology transitions are quite favorable for our setup.

Very helpful. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Toshiya.

Thanks for my question. For the first one, going back to China. So it's indicated down about, I think, $250 million or so in calendar Q4. Does China stay at these levels for the next several quarters? Can it build off of it? Does it decline? What is sort of the broad assumption? And I think, Tim, in the last earnings call, you had suggested '25 could be a decent year for China, but that view seems to have changed somewhat. And I'm curious what changed, what markets, what are the signals? So just kind of China versus December levels and then what has changed in the overall China view for '25?

Yes, this is Doug. Currently, China is experiencing a slight decline, but I want to emphasize that it's not disappearing. It's just representing a smaller portion of our total revenue. This is partly because we anticipate that China WFE will be lower next year, but other areas are improving simultaneously. Therefore, while the percentage of total revenue from China is trending lower, I want to stress that it is not going away.

Yes, I believe my earlier comment about China having a decent year next year aligns with what Doug mentioned. We have always anticipated a normalization in Lam's business, particularly in our strongest markets like NAND. Additionally, we expect emerging areas such as advanced packaging to gain momentum in 2025. Therefore, we have always predicted that, as a percentage of our total revenues, this segment would gradually decline. I don't think the outlook has changed significantly over the past few months.

Okay. For my follow-up, I have a question about gross margins. In Q3, you exceeded expectations, so what drove that performance? For the upcoming calendar Q4, it's projected to be 47%. Looking ahead, Doug, as we consider the next few quarters and the decrease in the China mix, should we view 47% as the baseline and expect some additional leverage beyond that? How should we think about gross margins for calendar 2025 compared to 2024? Is there a possibility of maintaining gross margins relatively stable year-on-year for the calendar year?

Yes. Vivek, thanks for the question. Yes, listen, there are many, many things that can move gross margin around in the near term here, customer mix, product mix, operational efficiencies and so forth. We've been trying to signal for a while that, hey, this customer mix stuff is going to be a little bit of a headwind as China's percent of total begins to soften a bit. And you're seeing that in the December guide. However, if you remember back when business turned down at the end of '22 into '23, we embarked on what we described as operational efficiency initiatives, trying to pivot the company, grow that footprint in the factories in the Asia region, which as business grows will benefit from those operational efficiencies. So you're beginning to see some of or maybe more than some, you're beginning to see that show up. If you remember before China ticked up as a percent of our revenue, we were at, I don't know, roughly 46%, and now you kind of see it at 47%. So we've pivoted the company actually in a beneficial way from a cost standpoint, and you'll still see more of that as we go forward. But there are a lot of things that move gross margin around. I'm not going to get into guiding it specifically. But those are some of the steps you should be thinking about.

Thank you.

Thanks, Vivek.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. I guess for the first question, I was hoping to focus on CSBG and Reliant. As you think about a world where China is slowing down, is that a piece that we should be thinking about at least as part of CSBG that would decline? And just for my education, as you think about slower China, is that better or worse in terms of CSBG revenue intensity for you guys?

Yes, C.J. I mean, from a Reliant standpoint, when you think about investment in the specialty nodes or maybe the trailing edge nodes, that's where Reliant will ebb and flow. And obviously, you know where the restrictions sit in the China region and so mainly, that's what you've got going on in China. But there's other components of it as well, right, outside of China, there's a decent profile of investment there. But yes, as WFE perhaps reduces a little bit in China, that will be a bit of a headwind for the Reliant business unit. The other components of it, though, spare service upgrades will have a lot to do with what's going on globally in the overall capacity of every process node.

Yes, C.J., I would like to add that I mentioned some points regarding equipment intelligence in previous calls. We've discussed our cobot activities as well. As advanced devices continue to develop and become more sophisticated, the demand for data-driven troubleshooting, tool matching capabilities, and automated maintenance will increasingly contribute to our CSBG revenue stream. We see this as an area where we can keep progressing.

Very helpful. And then I guess maybe on OpEx. You started the year, Doug, talking about the need to invest for projects that have real line of sight for growth. And OpEx will narrowly outgrow top line this year. Curious, are you at the stage where you are funding what you need to fund? And how should we think about operating leverage into calendar '25?

Yes, C.J., thanks for the question. Yes, we funded pretty much everything, but as we came into the year, we expected that we needed to fund, in fact, maybe even a little bit more, right? Revenue turned out to be probably a little bit stronger. And in fact, remember, as we began the year, I was suggesting, we were suggesting that you wouldn't see leverage from us this year. And in fact, you actually have we've delivered over a full percentage point of operating margin leverage at the midpoint of the December guide. So I think we all feel pretty good. Tim and I feel pretty good about what we've been able to do. As we get into next year, depending on how WP grows, how our top line grows, I hope we'll be able to continue to deliver some leverage into next year as well.

Thank you.

Thanks, C.J. Thanks.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. First one, Tim, I understand, thanks for the early view on calendar '25 WFE, and you said that Lam revenue should outgrow or continue to outgrow WFE. Historically, outperformance happened during strong NAND years, and you do expect NAND WFE to grow. But I'm just wondering, is NAND still going to be the driver, especially with all this noise around Cryo-edge, maybe to 2026 even not 2025. I'm just trying to figure out what are the drivers for outperformance for Lam in calendar '25. And then I have a follow-up.

Yes. Well, I think you probably did see the announcement from Lam in our Cryo 3.0 technology not too long ago. And so I think that some of that noise is what Lam is creating around the benefits of new technology upgrades to our own systems. And so I think the most important thing to think about with NAND is that the most efficient way to go from a certain layer count to a higher layer count and get the benefits of those new technologies is to upgrade the installed base you already have in your fab. And so that's why we're talking about this high capture rate Lam has around NAND upgrades and how that's beneficial both for us and for our customers. And so I think 2025, whatever the WFE spend is in NAND, will be dominated by those technology upgrades and Lam is by far in the best position to deliver both the technology and the economic value to our customers. So that's kind of the way I see the NAND market playing out next year. And it's a little too early for us to say exactly what the spending will be. But again, the requirements for those higher quality bids, I think, are being discussed and talked about in light of these new AI applications pretty publicly.

I believe, Krish, it's everything else we've been discussing for some time now, including advanced packaging, backside power, gate-all-around, and dry photo resist. Tim mentions this consistently because we're poised to excel in these areas as well. So when you consider these two aspects together, that is where our confidence is derived from.

Yes. I mentioned in the script that this comment is likely on people's minds, but it's about the etch and depth intensity of the technology advancements that are emerging. The technology landscape is evolving, which is advantageous for companies that are well positioned to assist in constructing these three-dimensional architectures. This includes backside power distribution, which essentially serves as a three-dimensional structure on the back of the wafer, as well as advanced packaging like 2.5D and 3D packages. These are created using etch and deposition equipment. As these segments of the market are strong performers due to their benefits in power consumption and high-performance devices, particularly in enabling multi-chip packages, I expect etching depth to continue to outperform wafer front-end technology supported by these underlying technology trends.

Got it, got it. Very helpful. And then just a quick follow-up for Doug. The inventory level has been really well managed. You're indicating an up cycle next year. Historically, you tend to start building inventory maybe a quarter or two in advance. I'm curious if the shape of the recovery next year is more unclear, or if inventory management has evolved and become much more efficient, similar to a just-in-time approach.

Yes. To truly understand inventory, you need to look beyond the total number. Much of the inventory is related to memory, particularly in NAND. The inventory we have is mainly for tools that are used in the NAND segment. We can only reduce that inventory when the NAND business picks up, and we expect that to happen this year. So, that requires some patience. On the other hand, other areas are improving, as indicated by the guide at 4.3. Therefore, it's important to have components ready for building tools in those segments. These are the two key considerations regarding the overall balance.

Thanks, Doug.

Thanks, Krish.

Thank you. A couple of follow-ups at this point. Tim, on your comment about WFE growing next year, I'm just curious, either by market segment or by product segment, where would you say you have the best visibility? And where do you think there is still some uncertainty out there?

We are getting closer to providing a complete outlook for 2025, but I want to highlight a few key points. First, we believe that NAND has been in a prolonged downturn, so it's reasonable to expect that NAND wafer fabrication equipment (WFE) will see an increase. We won't specify exact figures, but we anticipate it will rise due to the technology upgrades I've mentioned. For leading-edge logic, we continue to observe strong demand, with many investments aimed at adopting new technologies that enhance performance and reduce power consumption. Lastly, we've noticed that advanced packaging has strengthened in the past 90 days, and I don’t foresee any reasons why this trend wouldn't continue into 2025. While we expect lower WFE in China, overall, we believe several factors essential to our business will contribute to higher outcomes.

That's helpful. Tim, regarding the tech transitions you mentioned, there are many questions about NAND and others. I notice that your revenue mix, with logic and foundry, is currently around 60%, which is quite different from before. You discussed areas like backside Power GA increasing the intensity for you. I'm curious, aside from the increase in deposition and etch intensity, how do you view your market share? We've heard about tech transitions from some of your competitors as well. It seems many are benefiting, but how do you assess your market share? What is the market share assumption implied when you state that you will outperform WFE next year?

Well, I think that in some of these areas, I talked about specifically when you think about what foundry logic, leading-edge foundry logic is really doing is, it is pulling in nodes like gate-all-around. For us, that allows us to expand SAM and gain share in markets where we didn't previously compete. So every selective etch win for us is basically new market. ALD is expanding in new share markets for us. So we do have opportunities where, again, we've I talked about transforming our product portfolio, and we've expanded the product portfolio to address those markets. And so for us, many of those are not only they’re new wins and their share gain. And for those who've already been participating in those markets at prior nodes and prior technologies, you'd probably see a lot more replacement revenue versus actual share gain. So I think that is one thing that distinguishes Lam. We're coming from a historically lower exposure to that particular segment. Advanced Packaging, again, very strong product portfolio for that. Backside power, I think everybody knows we're extremely strong in terms of our positioning in copper plating. There's a lot more uses, you add more metal layers on to the backside of the wafer represents share gain of overall WFE when you see cases coming like that. So I think you're right to say that a lot of people are going to benefit from continued technology advancements and general equipment intensity increases overall. But we do think that then net position increases faster than many of the other segments, and therefore, Lam has an opportunity to gain share.

Very clear. Thanks, Tim.

Thanks, Pajjuri.

Hi, everyone. I appreciate the opportunity to ask a question. I want to focus again on the trade-off regarding gross margins in China. It's evident that while wafer fabrication equipment is expanding and your market share is expected to grow next year, a decline in China will negatively impact your mix there. Although I understand you prefer not to provide guidance on gross margins, do you believe that the other factors affecting gross margins will be sufficient to counterbalance the negative impact of a shift towards a lower mix, potentially dropping to 25% of your revenue next year? Should I view gross margin as hitting a low point before starting to rise again due to these other influences? How should we interpret this situation?

Yes. Stacy, listen, some of the things I pointed to, you have to think through it holistically. And part of it will depend on revenue levels. And obviously, I'm not going to guide specificity into next year. But we have done a whole bunch relative to pivoting the footprint of the company to be closer to where the customers' fabs are lower cost structure, more affordable supply chain, shorter freight distances. I mean those things are going to be beneficial as we get into a growing top line, offset by some of that customer mix. I'm not going to give you specifics yet, because I'm not sure exactly what revenue is next year, but I feel pretty good about our ability to continue to drive the operational side of gross margin improvement. And then the customer mix will be one of the things we're working to overcome. But I'm not going to give you enough specificity that you want right now. But certainly, we'll do that as we get into next year on the next call.

Okay. And at a minimum, I guess, you do see revenues up at least, so that should be a positive.

Yes, it should be, Stacy. Yes.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. My first question is on China WFE. It sounds like you're expecting China WFE to come down, but not as much as your peer that reported last week, they're expecting the China sales to come down 30% next year. Are the dynamics between lithography and depth edge that will help explain why lithography could be coming down faster or maybe something to do with your alliance business or spare parts or anything. If you have any thoughts on that?

Atif, obviously, it's extremely hard, if not impossible, for us to compare what someone else is thinking versus what we think, because we don't know what they're thinking for sure, to be perfectly honest. I would observe, though, if you look at how much perhaps some of our peers' growth in that specific geography grew versus what we did, the numbers are very different. And the lead times are very different between different tool types. And so something shipped sooner than others. And so you can't make a direct comparison because, frankly, I don't know exactly what somebody else has seen. But others have grown a lot more in that region than we have, and so you have to kind of factor all this stuff in, I don't know, Tim, if you want to add anything?

No, I think it's very challenging to make those comparisons for all the reasons that Doug mentioned, particularly regarding the rate at which people have been shipping and lead times, so there isn't much more we can say.

Thank you. And then my follow-up, Tim, I was positively surprised to see that one of your large memory makers in Korea is adopting Dry Resist for their 1C DRAM 6 generation process. We've been under the impression that maybe drive this happens when the high NA to come out. Have there been any changes in terms of the adoption curve for Dry Resist?

I’m not sure how Dry Resist became closely associated with high NA, but we believed that when it comes to high NA, there may not be another option. We have been working diligently, and in response to your earlier question, the advantages of Dry EUV and dry UV processing include multiple steps: the underlayer, the resist, and the dry development. These processes offer economic benefits by allowing for shorter exposure times. We have also discussed the improvements in pattern fidelity and the advantages of using dry development over wet processes in terms of defectivity. Ultimately, with each customer, they reach a point where the benefits become compelling enough for them to make a change, and this transition isn't necessarily connected to a specific technology node. Therefore, I believe we will see customers gradually adopt different technology nodes over time.

Thank you.

Thanks, Atif.

Thank you for the opportunity to ask a question. I apologize for bringing up China again, but as you discuss December and next year, how are you approaching the Commerce Department's export controls? Have you had any discussions that provide a general idea of what the restrictions might entail? Or are you simply making educated guesses like the rest of us? If you are guessing, how are you arriving at those conclusions?

Yes. I believe that the perspective we've shared reflects our best understanding and estimation of what we anticipate will occur. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a guess; perhaps an informed judgment. I assume that all of you have reliable sources of information to inform your views. So, that's our position. Currently, the most we can articulate is what we've communicated regarding our outlook for China’s WFE both for the next quarter and into the following year.

Thank you for that information. As you look ahead to December, if China's contribution falls to 30%, you are still expecting double-digit growth excluding China. I want to confirm if this is the case and what gives you the confidence in achieving that growth.

I mean, Joe, we approach our guidance with numbers in the same way each time. We know what customers expect from us and what we anticipate they will order. To the best of our ability, we assess the performance of every single region, customer, and fab, and we compile this information consistently each quarter, which is what we've just done. The only addition this time, due to the discussions surrounding China, is that we provided a specific figure for China, which is not something we typically disclose on a geographic basis. However, the $4.3 million we guided you to came from the same process we follow every quarter to gather the necessary data to back that up.

Okay. Thank you so much.

You’re on.

Thank you for fitting me in. I apologize for Joe mentioning one more question about China since I had another one as well. I'm curious about the $250 million figure that was projected in December. Initially, it was expected that the Chinese DRAM would be front-end loaded. It seems that has changed, and you likely see that the non-volatile aspect has decreased, which I assume reduces the impact. So, if CSBG is expected to decline in December, it appears that it would account for most of the $250 million figure. Could you clarify which segment this headwind is related to?

Man, Blayne, I don't know if I can answer your question. Is it possible CSBG is down next quarter? Sure, it’s possible. The Reliant component does attach to the specialty node stuff, which is obviously correlated to a certain extent with China, not only, but elsewhere also. But there's other stuff going on in there that ties to upgrade cycles and utilization and so forth. I don't know if I'm helping you. I'm just kind of rambling here a little bit.

It's fine. I just want to ask you also, I think the messaging on NAND is a lot more positive. I think people have gotten incrementally more negative on timing of NAND. Just kind of curious the timing that you'll see those upgrades. Obviously, you've had this headwind from the Chinese customer. But do you expect that tailwind to be a tailwind kind of the rest of this calendar year? Or is it truly a '25 storyline?

We were discussing this mainly from a 2025 viewpoint; however, we do not specify any timing within that year. This is based on the notion that the down cycle has been prolonged, which has affected a significant portion of the capacity at technology nodes that we believe can be greatly enhanced for current applications through technological upgrades. We are engaging in discussions with customers and will provide more information on timing once we have a clearer understanding as we head into early next year.

Got it. Thanks so much.

All right. Thanks, Blayne. Operator, we will take one more question.

Thank you. I have a question regarding DRAM and the discussions surrounding it as we approach next year. What are your thoughts on the trends you are observing in that area? There have been quite a few mixed signals recently. Has anything changed for you in the past 30 to 90 days?

No, Chris, it really hasn't changed in the last 90 days. You've got a product cycle in DRAM, DDR4, going to DDR5, you've got the high bandwidth memory that's going on there and that's pulling through a need for incremental equipment. We believe that grows again next year; I don't think too much has changed relative to our outlook in ramp.

Okay. Just as a follow-up and there'll be one more close it out on one more China question. With what you said about China 30% of revenue exiting the year, is it safe to say by what always hold with the expectation for some of the other segments, Foundry Logic for NAND to grow next year that most likely that China comes in, if we look for the full year at below 30% of total revenue as we look in the whole year? Obviously, I know it depends upon what your total revenue looks like. But it feels like you're seeing growth elsewhere and probably not in China from the fourth quarterly level. Is that at least a rational way to think about it?

Yes, Chris, it's not unreasonable to be thinking about it that way. And frankly, like I said, we're not guiding 25 numerically yet. It's possible that China trends down below 30% for sure. It's too soon for us to get numerically specific on next year, but we will certainly do that on the call next quarter.

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you.

Yes. Thanks, Chris. Operator, that concludes the call here. Thanks, everybody, for joining, and I'm sure we'll be talking to most of you as the quarter progresses.