Oct 28, 2026 earnings call — Farmers Branch ramp and record Q3 results
Q3 revenue was $280.5 million, up $22.3 million, or 9%, from Q2.
Revenue $0.3B (est $0.3B) · EPS $1.04 (est $0.86)
Key quotes
"We recently qualified the assembly and test portion of this new facility and, only a few days ago, shipped the first production unit to a leading customer."
"Probe card gross margin increased by about 90 basis points to 55.3% as higher utilization, improved yields, manufacturing spending discipline and tariff benefits more than offset the less favorable mix in DRAM."
"We started the year expecting between $10 million and $20 million of TRITON revenue and now expect upwards of $30 million in 2026."
Analyst Q&A 7
Margins and HBM impacts
Q (Sreekrishnan Sankarnarayanan · TD Cowen): Why wouldn't gross margins improve as Farmers Branch ramps? Also, does HBM de-specing or lower speed requirements hurt your business or probe card intensity?
A: Management said baseline gross margin is now 53% and that ramping a facility brings temporary inefficiencies from headcount and ramp spending. They expect to offset those costs with higher volumes and ongoing efficiency gains so margins can be sustained. On HBM, they are not seeing significant impact from de-spec and expect continued strong HBM growth and differentiation on high-speed final stack test.
"On the de-spec, we're really not seeing any significant impact." — Mike Slessor (CEO)
Foundry/logic drivers and TRITON demand
Q (Craig Ellis · B. Riley): What drove the sequential foundry/logic growth and will similar drivers continue in Q4? Also, how durable is the TRITON/Photonics strength into Q4 and 2027?
A: They said Foundry & Logic grew about 10% in Q3 and expect further growth in Q4, driven notably by CPUs for Agentic AI use cases and strong exposure via a large long-term customer. For TRITON, revenue accelerated to north of $30 million in 2026, customers remain bullish, adoption is starting to diversify beyond one ecosystem, and photonics demand should continue as a longer-term trend into 2027.
"One of the key features of this growth, key drivers of this growth is CPUs for presumably Agentic AI use cases, right?" — Mike Slessor (CEO)
GPU/ASIC contribution and ramp flexibility
Q (George Brown · Deutsche Bank): How much did GPUs and ASICs contribute versus CPU/TRITON to TSMC-related growth? And how flexible/fast can you accelerate the Farmers Branch ramp, given peers adding capacity and Teradyne funding?
A: They said they shipped probe cards for a single GPU design to a top foundry in multimillion-dollar quantities and see room to grow share in 2027. For custom ASICs, they have qualified and shipped units but are limited by production volume, making Farmers Branch ramp the company's top priority. They expect to exit 2027 at about $400 million of capability and designed Farmers Branch to add capacity modularly as demand dictates.
"We did say in the prepared remarks that we shipped probe cards for 1 single GPU design to the world-leading foundry in multimillion-dollar quantities." — Mike Slessor (CEO)
Farmers Branch ramp timing and margins
Q (Matthew Prisco · Cantor): How linear will the Farmers Branch ramp be through 2027 and will demand fill the $400 million run rate capability? Also, what drove the 2-point baseline margin increase and can you quantify ramp headwinds for 2027?
A: They expect to exit 2027 at about $400 million annual run-rate capability; revenue timing depends on customer demand and capacity is currently the limiting factor. They said the ramp should be roughly linear from near 0 to that capability. The 2-point baseline margin gain came from cycle time, yield and efficiency improvements lowering unit costs; they did not quantify 2027 ramp headwinds but expect the facility to be accretive once at initial capacity.
"we expect to be able to exit the year at this $400 million annual run rate capability." — Aric McKinnis (CFO)
Capacity constraint and DRAM margins
Q (Yiling Sun · Citi): Will Farmers Branch remain a capacity constraint into Q1 next year? And is DRAM gross margin improvement coming from price or cost moves, and how close is DRAM margin to foundry/logic?
A: They said current production is near limits and Farmers Branch is the relief valve, with capacity coming online roughly linearly to $400 million over 2027. On DRAM margins, they reported record DRAM revenue and company gross margins, and said very little of the DRAM margin improvement is from price increases—improvements come from cost reductions and delivering customer value rather than commodity price moves.
"If I look at the DRAM gross margins and parse them, there's very little contribution from price increases." — Mike Slessor (CEO)
Steady-state margin lift and TRITON capacity
Q (Yu Shi · Needham): Once Farmers Branch is fully ramped, what steady-state gross margin lift should we expect? Also, can TRITON scale 3x–4x more next year and will capacity constrain that growth?
A: They pointed to the previously communicated target model as a guide for long-term operating leverage and said that model already included investments to support a $1.6 billion revenue level. For TRITON, they said 2026 growth reflects years of investment, manufacturing uses external subcomponents and assembly, and they do not expect TRITON growth to be constrained by the probe-card capacity limits.
"And the target model did include the investments required to build out effectively the capacity to support the $1.6 billion revenue level." — Aric McKinnis (CFO)
TSMC business mix and product transfers
Q (Brian Chin · Stifel): How has the TSMC-related business composition changed as the 10% customer grew, and for initial Farmers Branch waves, will you move existing products or favor new customer designs?
A: They said the TSMC relationship broadened from mobile processors to more high-performance compute projects and now includes TRITON—it's a microcosm of their broader growth strategy. Farmers Branch will initially ramp assembly and test for foundry and logic, add MEMS front end in 2027 to free Livermore DRAM capacity, and they will prioritize customers or designs with aggressive qualification plans so capacity is used quickly.
"We are initially ramping assembly and test for our foundry and logic products, and we'll be adding the MEMS front end for foundry and logic products in 2027." — Mike Slessor (CEO)