Hello and welcome to the Entegris First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeffrey Schnell, VP of Investor Relations.
Good morning, everyone. Earlier today, we announced the financial results for the first quarter of 2026. Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that our comments today will include some forward-looking statements. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties is contained in our most recent annual report and subsequent quarterly reports that we have filed with the SEC.
Please refer to the information on the disclaimer slide in the presentation. On this call, we will also refer to non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the SEC and Regulation G. You can find reconciliation tables in today's news release, as well as on the IR page of our website at entegris.com. Joining me on the call today is Dave Reeder, our CEO. With that, I'll hand the call over to David.
Thanks, Jeff, and good morning. The first quarter was a solid start to the year as we continued to execute with focus and discipline against the constructive and improving semiconductor industry environment. We are delivering on our commitments. Revenue increased 5%, slightly above the midpoint of our range, while most other metrics, including adjusted gross margin, EBITDA margin, and non-GAAP EPS, all exceeded our guidance range. I am encouraged by these results, and we remain focused on the significant opportunities ahead to fully capitalize on the organization's long-term growth and earnings potential. As I mentioned, total revenue increased 5% in the first quarter as compared to the prior year, driven by a 7% increase in our APS segment and a 3% improvement in MS.
Our unit-driven revenue, which is correlated to MSI, increased approximately 7% year-over-year, driven by growth in liquid filtration, advanced deposition, and selective etch, all of which are critical product lines for our customers' new technology nodes. We're pleased to see the continued growth in liquid filtration, which posted its third consecutive record quarter. CapEx-driven revenue decreased modestly year-over-year in the first quarter, mostly driven by accelerating order patterns in the prior year quarter in response to tariff actions. Given our current bookings patterns, we expect 2026 CapEx revenue to increase throughout the remainder of the year and contribute more meaningfully to our overall growth profile, driven by strong WFE growth and improving fab construction trends, which support not only the latter half of 2026, but also growth expectations in 2027 and beyond.
Our overall results reflect the improving demand landscape across our end markets and regions. This includes double-digit Q1 growth in Taiwan and broader Asia, supported by strong plan of record positions as well as improving demand within advanced logic and memory, driven in part by AI-enabled applications. Turning to profitability, gross margins improved in the first quarter of 2026. The key drivers to the strength in margins on both a year-over-year and sequential basis were productivity and efficiency actions across our manufacturing network and supply chain, favorability from the useful life accounting change in the first quarter, and product mix. Jeff will provide more details on this later, but we are pleased with the structural improvement in margins and expect to build on this progress in the future. Additionally, we are continuing our efforts to optimize our manufacturing network.
We closed another subscale facility during the quarter in Chandler, Arizona, further advancing our operational initiatives. These actions represent an important proof point in our ongoing efforts to drive scale, optimize our footprint, improve efficiency, and better position the business for growth and improved operating leverage as volumes increase. Free cash flow was also a highlight for the quarter. We delivered $144 million of free cash flow, approximately 18% of sales, despite headwinds from normal working capital seasonality. Our strong free cash flow enabled us to accelerate our deleveraging as we repaid approximately $50 million of our term loan in the quarter. We believe this trend will continue and now expect to reduce net leverage to approximately 3 x by the end of 2026. Turning our commentary to the semiconductor market.
We now expect mid-to-high single-digit industry MSI growth for the remainder of 2026, which correlates to approximately 75% of our business. This contemplates an improved DRAM outlook, a similar unit outlook compared to last quarter in advanced logic and NAND, and a continued mixed outlook within mainstream logic. The outlook for fab spending is also improving, which correlates to the remaining 25% of our business, both fab construction and WFE. Let me now address the end markets. Advanced logic, which represents approximately 40% of our total revenue, remains well-positioned for strong growth in 2026, primarily driven by accelerating demand for leading-edge compute. Utilization rates at the most advanced nodes are already operating near effective capacity, the industry is responding with aggressive capacity investments to support the demand for next-generation nodes.
Additionally, as 2-nm technology enters a more meaningful production ramp this year, we expect strong growth in 2-nm wafer output. Process complexity meaningfully increases with sub 5-nm nodes, driving higher Entegris content per wafer and aligning with our strong positions of record. The memory market, which represents approximately 30% of our revenue, is also structurally strong, underpinned by AI workloads and technology roadmaps that are reshaping DRAM and NAND architectures. In DRAM, demand continues to accelerate, driven by increased AI consumption. Additionally, and as announced, we expect DRAM capital investments to continue at pace, supporting accelerated DRAM MSI growth beyond 2026. NAND demand and MSI are also expected to increase in 2026, though it remains more nuanced than DRAM. This view is supported by both leading-edge technology transitions and AI-driven storage requirements.
The key short-term growth driver in NAND for Entegris will be layer scaling and the resulting incremental Entegris content, with wafer start activity expected to improve in the latter half of 2026 and into 2027. Vertical scaling materially increases process complexity, elevating the importance of yield, precision manufacturing, and advanced process steps and materials. These technology shifts are expected to result in double-digit increases in content per wafer for Entegris. Mainstream logic. The recovery and outlook in this end market, which represents approximately 1/3 of our business, remains mixed. We continue to expect tempered MSI growth in mainstream logic through 2026, improving thereafter as new capacity additions, specifically in memory, begin to ease near-term supply concerns, especially with respect to price-sensitive consumer products. As it relates to CapEx, we are incrementally more positive on the portion of our business related to industry CapEx.
The return to growth in fab spending is materializing. This is driven by selective but substantial global capacity additions and pull forwards, primarily in leading-edge logic and memory. Forecasts for WFE spending remain strong as these projects advance. Entegris is well-positioned to deliver value for our customers and to capture the multi-year growth opportunities we expect will emerge as we progress through 2026 and into 2027. To summarize, there are several industry and operational tailwinds fueling Entegris' growth. The industry outlook remains constructive. Semiconductor fundamentals are favorable and support growth in 2026 and beyond. This is driven by advanced logic and DRAM with a more stable near-term outlook for NAND and mainstream logic. Stronger order patterns and increasing backlog provide increased visibility and confidence across our unit and CapEx-driven businesses. Technology transitions will continue to drive upside for Entegris.
Materials intensity and process complexity continue to increase. Beyond node transitions, we differentiate by innovating alongside our customers to advance their technology roadmaps, which is where Entegris creates the most value. We are driving a stronger operational focus. We are executing with discipline to improve our operational performance, accelerate growth, and strengthen our financial profile. Finally, I want to recognize our employees for their focus, discipline, and execution. Their dedication enables all of us to deliver upon our commitments. Before turning the call over to Jeff, I'd like to highlight that following a rigorous search process, Sukhi Nagesh has been appointed as our new Chief Financial Officer effective May 18th. Welcome to the team, Sukhi. His engineering background, significant semiconductor industry experience, deep financial expertise, and strong operational discipline make him the ideal CFO for Entegris.
Having previously worked with Sukhi, I am confident that his leadership will be instrumental as we continue to execute our strategy to unlock Entegris' full potential. With that, let me turn the call over to Jeff to discuss the financials.
Thanks, Dave. Good morning. Q1 sales were $812 million, an increase of 5% year-over-year and above the midpoint of our guidance range. Gross margin on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis was 46.9%, above the high end of our guidance range. These results included approximately 50 basis points of one-time items, which we do not expect to recur at similar levels in subsequent quarters. The sequential improvement in Q1 was driven by productivity and execution across our network, including more consistent performance and ongoing cost controls, favorable product mix, and favorability from the useful life accounting change in the first quarter, which was in line with prior guidance. Operating expenses on a GAAP basis were $239 million in Q1 and were $189 million on a non-GAAP basis.
Adjusted EBITDA in Q1 was $226 million, or 27.8% of revenue, also above our guidance range. The GAAP tax rate in Q1 was 1% and the non-GAAP tax rate was 8%, which includes an unforecasted release of a tax reserve. GAAP diluted EPS was $0.60 per share in the first quarter, and non-GAAP EPS was $0.86 per share, which exceeded our guidance range. Switching to our segments. Materials Solutions delivered Q1 sales of $351 million, up approximately 3% year-over-year. Year-over-year growth was led by double-digit increases in advanced deposition materials and selective etch chemistries, along with continued strength in CMP consumables, underscoring the durability of demand for key technologies.
Adjusted operating margin was 22%, in line with the prior year period, and increased by approximately 100 basis points sequentially, reflecting improved performance across the manufacturing network. Advanced Planarization Solutions delivered Q1 sales of $464 million, representing approximately 7% year-over-year growth. Results were driven by continued strong demand across the portfolio, including the third consecutive record quarter in liquid filtration, a three-year revenue high in FOUPs, and growth in gas filtration. Adjusted operating margin was 29.1% for the quarter, expanding both year-over-year and sequentially, reflecting strong operational execution and productivity, favorable product mix, and the majority of the favorability from the useful life change. Switching to cash flow.
Free cash flow in the first quarter was strong at $144 million, representing a free cash flow margin of 18%, a continuation of the positive trend from the second half of 2025. The increase in free cash flow compared to the prior year was driven by three factors: the improvement in earnings, an increase in cash from operations, primarily due to working capital discipline, and lower CapEx in the period. CapEx is expected to increase as the year progresses but will remain meaningfully below 2025 levels. We continue to expect strong free cash flow generation in 2026. Turning to our capital structure. During the first quarter, we reduced our term loan by $50 million, building on the $300 million reduction in 2025.
We currently have $400 million remaining on our term loan, which is the only variable rate debt in our capital structure. At quarter end, our net debt was $3.3 billion and net leverage was 3.6x. As Dave articulated, we expect to improve our net leverage ratio to approximately 3x by the end of 2026, underscoring our commitment to deleveraging. Moving on to the second quarter outlook. We expect 2Q sales to range from $815 million-$845 million, a year-over-year increase of approximately 5% at the midpoint.
Gross margin is expected to be between 46.25% and 47.25%, both on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis, a modest improvement at the midpoint from the underlying gross margin level achieved in Q1, but more than 200 basis points of improvement year-over-year. We expect GAAP operating expenses of approximately $241 million and non-GAAP operating expenses of approximately $194 million, which reflects higher variable comp relative to 2025 and other intentional investments to support the expected growth across our portfolio. EBITDA margin of 27.5% at the midpoint, driven by incremental improvements in gross margins. Net interest expense of approximately $46 million, which accounts for debt paydown to date. We expect our non-GAAP tax rate to return to a more normalized level of approximately 15% in 2Q.
We expect GAAP EPS between $0.53 and $0.61 per share and non-GAAP EPS between $0.76 and $0.84 per share. We expect depreciation to remain largely stable for the balance of 2026 at approximately $35 million per quarter. Looking ahead to our third quarter revenue expectations. Historical industry seasonality supports a sequential improvement in the third quarter. With our current visibility, which we'll refine on our second quarter call, we expect revenue to grow by approximately 5% from the midpoint of the second quarter's guidance range. Finally, I'd like to update a few modeling items for the full year of 2026.
We expect net interest expense to be slightly below $190 million, the non-GAAP tax rate to be approximately 15%, diluted share count of approximately 154 million for 2Q and for the full year, CapEx of $250 million, and depreciation of approximately $140 million. Lastly, we have set a date for our Investor Day in New York City in early November 2026, and we'll share the save the date information soon. With that, operator, let's open the line for questions.
Our first question will come from Melissa Weathers with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, everybody. Thanks for letting me ask you a question. Looking forward to working with you guys in the coming months. I guess for my first question.
Absolutely
Thank you for all the color that you gave in the comparative marks on the market environment that you're seeing. Could you flesh out a little bit more what you're seeing? It's, it's pretty obvious AI is very strong, but I think on the consumer electronic side, the demand is, the jury is still out on where fab utilizations are shaking out for those kinds of products. Just any more color you can provide on those non-AI markets would be really helpful.
Sure. Good morning, Melissa. Good to speak to you again. Look, we view the mainstream market as mixed with memory availability and pricing, you know, impacting price sensitive computer products. We view that as being offset, however, by power management, data center related strength, and then other ancillary AI related strength. You know, on the one hand, you've got potentially some pressure on the consumer products due to the availability and pricing of memory, but yet on the other hand, you have some strength still associated in mainstream with kind of the broader build-out of AI. We kind of view that as a put and take. We view capacity utilization right now in mainstream as being, you know, somewhere between 75% and 80%.
There have been some foundries that have reported that have broken that 80% barrier for the first time in several years since 2022 peak. We view that as positive. We do think that that market is improving. We're looking at it right now with the current view of being mixed. Did you have a follow-up, Melissa?
Yes, I did. Thank you. Thanks for all that. On the CapEx side, I think the numbers we're hearing from WFE companies, and you can see all the fab announcements coming on, it seems like we're gonna have a pretty historic fab build-out cycle coming. Any more color on how we should think about the CapEx portion of your business, whether it's FOUPs or the sub fab systems that you guys do. I think presenting that ahead of these big fab build-outs would be really helpful.
Sure. Let me give you a quick refresher on our CapEx portion of our business. As a reminder, about 25% of our revenue is CapEx related, and of that 25%, about 1/3 is WFE and about 2/3 is fab construction. When you think about Entegris, we typically benefit from kind of three cycles of demand when the market enters an upcycle and starts building out, new fabs. Fab construction related product lines increase first. You typically see revenue approximately 12 months, maybe nine to 12 months after groundbreaking. That tends to be centered more towards gas purification and fluid management products in our portfolio. WFE related product lines and initial filtration during tool qualification start to ramp up. That typically happens somewhere between, call it, 12 and 18 months after groundbreaking.
You'll start to see product lines like gas filtration, AMC, LMC bulk filtration, start to increase for us. You'll start to see the unit-driven product lines. You'll see that demand start to increase, and that's kind of 24 months. After the fab construction piece, after the tool placement and qualification piece, then you start to get kind of the unit-driven business coming in on the tail end somewhere around two years after groundbreaking. Those are kind of the three waves. 75% of our business is unit driven, 25% of our business, CapEx driven. From an end market perspective, we would characterize memory, probably being in wave one of this cycle, and I'm really referring more to DRAM right now than NAND.
NAND has not announced a lot of incremental fabs or incremental capacity builds at this stage. They've been a bit more focused on driving incremental layers or bit density. Memory, though, I would say, is kind of in the wave one of this phase, really with DRAM at the forefront. Advanced logic is going through rolling portions of this phase. Probably in the wave two and wave three portion, but obviously with some new fabs that have been announced.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Elizabeth Sun with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question.
Good morning.
I guess my first question is on the gross margin side. Your Q1 gross margin had a nice improvement quarter-over-quarter and also above your guidance, and you Q2 improve a little bit, I guess, more on volume. I guess going forward, looking into second half and maybe beyond in 2027, how should we think about gross margin path? Are going to continue to rationalize some factories and improve manufacturing efficiency?
Thank you for the question, Christopher Danely. I can't tell you how pleased it actually makes me to field some questions about gross margin, particularly because we believe that we're in a period of sustained structural gross margin expansion. As we think about gross margin and what we're trying to drive, as I've mentioned previously, we're simplifying and refining our manufacturing network. We're relentlessly driving higher productivity, higher fixed cost absorption, better yields. There is a tremendous amount of work ahead of us, and it will be lumpy, but we are focused on delivering our full gross margin potential, which we think is significantly higher than where we are today.
Getting directly to your question on Q1 gross margin, First off, our 46.9% that we posted on a non-GAAP and GAAP basis, we did benefit from about 50 basis points of one-time items in the first quarter. If you normalize for that would put first quarter at about 46.4%. That's about 240 basis points improvement sequentially. Bridging you from fourth quarter, about 100 basis points of that 240 basis points improvement was related to the useful life change that we made at the beginning of this year. Very much in line with what we guided at the beginning of the quarter, and as highlighted in our 10-Q. Productivity and other specific efficiency initiatives, including improved plant performance, comprised the remaining 140 basis points.
That kind of bridges you from 44%, where we exited fourth quarter of 2025, to where we delivered first quarter of 2026. Then kind of bridging you for second quarter as well. I'll go back to the fourth quarter simply because that's kind of a fully loaded quarter with respect to KSP as well as Rockrimmon, two of our newer facilities. You know, at midpoint for Q2, we guided gross margin at 46.75%. That's about a 275 basis points improvement from fourth quarter, which again was 44%.
We're expecting about 150 basis points to be related to the useful life change and about 125 basis points driven by improvement in our manufacturing network as well as ongoing productivity and efficiency actions, including the closure of the two facilities over the last two quarters. Also included in this guidance, I did want to highlight, included in this guidance is incremental production staffing and related project costs to enable incremental capacity in the future quarters of 2026 as well as into 2027. Embedded in our second quarter guide are some incremental costs that you have to incur ahead to be able to unlock and enable kind of more capacity in the third quarter, fourth quarter, and then the first half of 2027 as well. We're quite pleased with our gross margin trajectory. Did you have another question, Elizabeth?
Yes. Thanks for the details on gross margin. I guess, the next one is on the congrats on the CFO appointment. I happen to know this, that he has a lot of experience in M&A and corporate development. I'm just wondering, does this signal you guys are ready to do more M&As once your, you know, net leverage going, is below like 3 x as your talk about your target?
It's probably one, we are incredibly happy to announce Sukhi. I'm looking forward to getting him on board. I wish he could have started today, actually, he will be joining us in mid-May, and I can't wait to work with Sukhi again. Just to kind of recap a little bit about Sukhi. I think many of you probably know him, to kind of recap Sukhi's background, he started in semiconductors in the mid-1990s, and on the wafer fab equipment side. We actually started in semis at a similar period in time. He actually started as an engineer, much like myself, in semiconductors. He started as an engineer. He actually has a master's in engineering.
Unfortunately, it's not in chemical engineering like me, but he does have a strong mechanical engineering degree as a background, and he got to kind of, you know, cut his teeth on the WFE side of the business early in his career. He followed that up with an MBA, some sell-side analyst experience, a lot of corporate experience, investor relations, corporate development, corporate strategy. He was an interim CFO. Finally, I got a chance to work with Sukhi at GlobalFoundries. He was there when I joined the company, and he did a phenomenal job of really leading that IPO.
For all those reasons, after a very extensive process, we had a chance to sit down with Sukhi and convince him to join the team of athletes that we're assembling here at Entegris, couldn't be happier to have him on board. Specific to your question on corporate strategy or corporate development, right now we're focused on delivering our leverage reduction, our deleveraging plan. You know, initially this year, we told you that we thought we would be under 3.5 x of net leverage. We're already at 3.6 x of net leverage, and we updated you that we thought we would be closer to 3 x of net leverage by the end of the year.
Very happy with the profitability that we're driving, very happy with the free cash flow that we're driving. As we progress through the year, we pay off our term loan, which is something that we're planning this year in 2026 now. We feel like, with that, as well as with increased profitability, we'll be well positioned in 2027 to at least start to consider other alternatives, whether it's shareholder return or other opportunities in the market. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Our next question will come from Timothy Arcuri with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot. Dave, can you talk about just some of the puts and takes on gross margin and how to think about incremental margins from here? I know Taiwan has been sort of a 100 basis point headwind. Is that still the case? When does that go away? Can you talk about Colorado? I think that was only gonna go away next year. Can you sort of walk through, you know, how these sort of roll off? Thanks.
Sure. Without bridging you again, given the details we've provided, I think the best way to think about gross margin is that as we continue to grow volume from here, we should continue to get gross margin improvement from here. That will be both in fixed cost absorption as well as incremental efficiencies that we can drive through our manufacturing network. Now, given the strength in order book that we started seeing in the middle of first quarter, we are still looking to optimize our manufacturing network, but we're balancing that rate and pace with respect to make sure that we can still deliver the demand in what looks like a very constructive semiconductor backdrop.
We're taking a bit probably more measured approach to that as we kinda continue through this year to make sure that we can satisfy our customers with the lead times that they expect and deserve. Specific to KSP is dilutive to our P&L today, as you know and as you articulated. We think that by the end of this year with the ramp that's ongoing, which it's quite a good trajectory with respect to where we were, you know, a couple quarters ago, to where we are now. It is still a work in process. We will have that facility by the time we get to the end of the year, probably breaking even on a P&L basis, plus, minus.
We'll start to potentially, you know, move it into a less dilutive state. We'll probably still be dilutive in 2027, but less dilutive, significantly less dilutive, once we're kind of exiting a fourth quarter 2026 run rate into 2027. Colorado this year is all qualification, last year was facilitizing, qualifying the equipment, and opening the facility, staffing the facility. This year is further staffing the facility and qualifying products with customers. We're expecting very little revenue out of Colorado Rockrimmon this year, with the hope of ramping Colorado in early 2027.
For that reason, both facilities will be dilutive to us in 2026, KSP becoming less so towards the end of the quarter, or towards the end of the year, I should say and then improving in 2027. Colorado dilutive, fully dilutive in 2026, and then starting to ramp revenue in 2027. Did you have a follow-up, Tim?
I did, Dave. Yeah. Can you talk about China and just what's going on in China? Are you seeing any more competition there? We're hearing about some folks trying to do, you know, CMP there and becoming a little more of a, you know, competition for you. Can you talk about that?
Sure. I'll actually touch on a couple of regions, since I know the 10-Q is not out yet. It'll be filed later today, where you'll get to see the full regional breakdown. I'll just give you a little swing around Asia. Strong growth from Taiwan, up 18% on a year-over-year basis in first quarter. Broader Asia in general, including all of Asia, up double digits, slightly more than 10% on a year-over-year basis in first quarter. Migrating specifically into China. China modestly down in the first quarter. Obviously, it does remain a key long-term market for us.
When you look at the first quarter performance, that modest decline was largely driven by some of the CapEx-related businesses that were down double-digits, largely reflecting some dislocated order patterns that were in the first half of last year related to tariffs, as Jeff mentioned in his script. If you were to exclude those, we feel like it would have been a bit more of a normal quarter in China. The first half, we do expect to be kind of impacted by some of those order patterns that were pull ends for the first half of last year related to tariffs. We feel like we have a strong competitive position in our franchise product lines in China, filtration, FOUPs, slurries.
Yield and performance matter in China, though the same way it does, same way it does in the rest of the world. At this stage, we view China largely as de-risked, and we think we're gonna have a solid second half, and we think we're gonna have a solid 2026 in China.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Bhavesh Lodaya with BMO. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Dave, and welcome, Sukhi.
Hi.
Looking forward to our discussion. Following up on your CapEx, WFE CapEx out of the business, Dave. As we see higher volumes start moving through your system, I would presume it comes with pretty strong incremental margins, perhaps better than your company average. Maybe if you could provide some color on where margins stand in that business today versus historical peaks, and how should we think about that side as volumes kind of coming in?
Sure. Look, let me start with utilization. You know, we articulated in last quarter that we had about $1 billion of incremental upside that we could deliver from our manufacturing network. Now, obviously, you have to staff for it, you have to position inventory for it, but that's kind of the physical capacity that we have. Whether it's unit-driven volume or CapEx-driven volume, incremental volume is tremendously helpful from a fixed cost absorption perspective. When you're sitting at the type of utilization rates that we're sitting at today. Without getting, like, kind of too far into the details of unit-driven CapEx or unit-driven margin versus CapEx-driven margin, incremental volume does help us in a pretty meaningful way with respect to fixed cost absorption as it drives our plant utilization higher.
We do expect our plant utilization to grow higher as we progress through the year, even in the absence of any other specific initiatives that we have. From that perspective, we're very much pleased with what kind of the CapEx order books looks like today. We have been booked, you know, kind of through this, the latter half of 2026, if not into 2027, on some of these CapEx items. We do expect gross margin to grow modestly as we deliver that fixed cost absorption with incremental volume. Did you have a follow-up, Bhavesh?
Yeah, and a different one. There's been a meaningful amount of inflation in terms of polymers and chemical feedstocks. Are you seeing any challenges in procurement or pricing for your raw materials? Then do your contracts with your customers build in just a simple pass-through of these costs, or is there a lag as you price it through to your customers?
We have seen some modest inflation. Actually, let me start with the contracts. We do have for some key suppliers, we do have some contractual terms with respect to price increases, as well as our long-term agreements with them to take a certain amount of volume. There are key suppliers to us that have relatively fixed contracts, both from a pricing perspective as well as a volume perspective, that we have to, you know, we have to abide by and as do they. For the vast majority of our supply chain, however, we have, you know, we have agreements, we will do, you know, certain annual negotiations. We feel like those annual negotiations were pretty productive for us.
We feel like we're in a good spot cost-wise from an inflationary perspective with perhaps one exception, I'll touch briefly on it. You know, the Iran and Middle East conflict. As you know, it's a fluid situation, one that I'm sure everyone in the industry, including yourselves, are monitoring. It's probably a bit too early to quantify the full cost impact there, but we have seen some early cost pressure on raw materials related to some of the availability coming out of the Middle East, and specifically that's in the areas of some of the noble gases as well as some of the resins.
It looks like right now, at least our position on this right now is that we think it could be temporary, we've just absorbed those costs. To the extent that this cost pressure kind of persists, either in logistics costs or raw feedstock costs for us, we would evaluate increasing pricing in the future. At this point in time, we view the inflationary pressure as largely as expected. Some unexpected that I just mentioned related to the conflict in the Middle East, absorbed in our P&L for now, we'll reserve the right in the future if it becomes too big of a burden to go back and kind of renegotiate some of the pricing with our customers. From kind of, as we sit today, I would say steady as she goes, to continue to be reviewed as we progress through 2026. Thanks, Bhavesh.
Our next question will come from Jim Schneider with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if David, if you could maybe kind of comment on what you think has changed the most in terms of the wafer start outlook for the year. It sounds like that is mainly DRAM, either increasing utilization rates or pull-ins in terms of capacity. I was wondering if you've given a color on that, and then maybe if you could explicitly address the analog sector where it seems like we have the stand to improve the most from a utilization perspective this year.
Sure. Thanks, Jim. What's changed the most from, you know, when we spoke to you in February until today? I think at the beginning of February, the forecast for the industry was that fab construction would be up low single digits. I think when you look at fab construction today, the forecast for the industry is high single digits. That's a pretty meaningful change. It doesn't mean that we'll get necessarily that revenue in period in 2026. As I mentioned early in the call, from groundbreaking to kind of first revenue for us is around 12 months. That's a big change. Fab construction going from, you know, kind of low single digits, essentially flat, to high single digits.
I think that, you know, kind of speaks to the state of the industry, the current utilization, particularly for advanced logic and memory, and I think that bodes well for kind of the setup for 2027. I think that was a meaningful change, not a big change for us, again, in period for 2026, but I think the foreshadowing for 2027, and the setup is quite good. MSI, you know, we were originally forecasting that MSI would be low to mid-single digits. We did update the forecast for MSI to be kind of mid to high single digits. I would say modest change there on units. I would say that was a little bit of a blend between advanced logic, DRAM, as well as some incremental NAND.
I would say we're still kind of expecting flat from our expectation in February with respect to mainstream. I think those are kind of like the big puts and takes between our February call and our market commentary in February and where we sit today in April. To get to the second question that you had, which was really around mainstream. You know, mainstream, I think if you stood back and looked at it objectively, I think you'd say that the first quarter has probably been a little bit better than we originally expected.
I think from that perspective, you know, there were, again, some of our customers that have recently released, not all of them have, but some of them that have released have kind of talked about improving inventory in the channel. They've talked about utilizations, if they're a manufacturer that have broken kind of the 80% level, which for many of them have not been breached since the peak in 2022. All of them, I think, have kind of highlighted memory availability.
Strength in kind of AI-related and data center-related products, but memory availability potentially being a concern. I think we view that market, as I mentioned earlier, as kind of mixed. We've kind of included a mixed view. Again, this is 30% of our revenue. We've included a mixed view in our guidance for 2026, as well as kind of an initial flash that we gave you for third quarter of 2026 as well. Thank you, Jim.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Charles Shi with Needham. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks. Good morning, Dave and Sukhi. I'll start with the first question around your exposure in advanced packaging. We know this is one of the growth areas for materials, and probably one of the variable between you and your closest peer in terms of some of the near-term performance. We know you probably were going to talk a little bit more about that at the Investor Day, but the Investor Day probably still six months out, we still would love to hear some thoughts, early thoughts, any new actions undertaking right now at Entegris. We know you talk about the thermal material, you talk about some of the carrier stuff.
Is there anything more than that, right now in your thinking that Entegris can get a little bit more exposure in advanced packaging? For one, we do think, CMP seems to be a very important area, especially with adoption of a more hybrid bonding type of advanced packaging, and you do have good amount of a CMP slurry pad business, but I wanna get some thoughts there, first. Thank you.
Thanks for your question, Charles. Look, we agree with you. We think the advanced packaging market is an attractive market. Unfortunately, our exposure to advanced packaging right now is limited due to just the prior investments that we didn't make necessarily in advanced packaging. That stated, we do have some products that have performed well in this space and that we did, we were able to launch some more minor spends of products to be able to address this market. Specifically advanced flow control for thick resists, delivery solutions for copper plating and photoresist, CMP, as you mentioned, for high bandwidth memory and TSVs in particular, and then of course the carrier offering.
We do have a portfolio of products that we have been able to penetrate the advanced packaging market with. Our current revenue exceeds a $100 million a year run rate. We're excited about some of the traction that we're getting in this market for the areas where we've been able to kind of make investment and bring products to market. We are excited about some of the products that we have in the pipeline. That's really for the future, however. It's not for today. It's not necessarily for 2026 revenue.
The 2026 revenue products are the areas that I highlighted earlier. We will have more details for you at Investor Day in November, recognizing the nature of the question that November is still about six months away. That's, that's what I can give you today, and we're excited about the $100 million + that we're driving from the business. Did you have a follow-up, Charles?
Yes. Dave, since your 10-K came out intra-quarter of the last couple of months, we looked at the some of the customer specific financials. We did notice that the largest foundry, which is the number one customer for you, the revenue from that particular customer last year, I would call probably flat to modestly up, and that was a little bit maybe trailing what I consider their own growth. Was wondering if you can give us some thoughts, what happened last year, why the growth wasn't keeping up very well with the leading foundry, and any thoughts about this year. Are you able to catch up to their growth? Obviously we heard you talking about 2-nm production ramp that is actually happening later this year, but I wanna get some thoughts around that. Thank you.
Sure. Speaking first to last year to 2025, there was a pretty significant build-out in 2024 that from a CapEx perspective was meaningful, and that put some pressure on year-over-year comps. We actually felt pretty good about the unit volume for 2025, but obviously we had some year-over-year dynamics in 2025 versus 2024 from a CapEx perspective. Early results here in 2026, which you'll get in our 10-Q later today. While I won't talk about specific customers, we can certainly talk about regions. Taiwan was up 18% on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter. A lot of strength across the portfolio there, strength that we're anticipating will continue. Good results from Taiwan, again up 18%, year-over-year in Q1.
Really some good results across broadly across Asia. Asia as a whole was up a little north of 10% on a year-over-year basis. Obviously, that includes Taiwan, that was up 18%. It also includes China, that was down modestly. The other regions in Asia performed well as well. As you know, we have key customers in Korea, we have key customers in Singapore, we have key customers in Japan. Good to see that kind of broad region perform well, as well as good to see Taiwan perform well. Thank you, Charles.
Thank you. Our next question comes from John Roberts with Mizuho. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and welcome, Sukhi. Back to China, are you through with your re-qualification of sourcing into China? I think you were actually gonna rationalize some products, just not re-qualify. Is that any headwind to the China sales?
Yeah, China, I think in Q1, I think about 85% of our revenue for China, it was in that ZIP code was from in region for China. That's about where we exited in terms of regional qualification in 2025. We'll probably pick up another 5% of the product portfolio that we sell there in 2026. We'll probably take that 85% number up to 90% by the end of this year. I don't anticipate that we'll ever get to 100%. I think there'll be some products that just given the volume of sales, it won't justify the expense of relocating their production route. I do think that we'll go from kind of 85% where we are today to probably more than 90%.
We do expect to get to 90% throughout the course of 2026. Then above 90%, we'll work on in 2027 just with this kind of upper limit of it. It will probably never get to 100%. There'll always be some amount of products that will be impacted either geopolitically or by tariffs.
And, uh-
Did you have a follow-up, John?
Yep. In Materials Solutions, are the constraints in the memory market driving any product shifts within the Materials Solutions segment?
Not really product shifts. I think, if you look memory total, maybe it's best to break it down and be more specific. NAND, there's some shifts in the market with NAND. NAND is very much focused on driving bit density. Bit density is driven by layer count. As layer count moves from low 200s to, you know, 300 or 300 + layers, it does introduce new materials, for example, moly, which the company has spoken about. We do like that trend, incremental bit density while it does consume capacity. You don't get more, you don't get more wafers, you don't get more MSI, but it does consume process steps and capacity.
We feel like that's where the focus on NAND is right now, is on driving bit density, at least in the first half, with potentially incremental wafer starts in the second half. Incremental bit density drives incremental materials for Entegris, particularly in areas like moly and selective etch. That's a trend that we would like to see continue, and we'd also like to see them continue to, you know, fully utilize those fabs to 100% capacity. Both drive bit density and drive more MSI. I think first half is more of a bit density story. For DRAM's operating really near capacity at this stage.
Even with, you know, being fully utilized or near full utilization and even with potentially some technology changes in DRAM, there's not a significant change in the materials there. I think the most significant change was just simply the HBM once a lot of DRAM kind of migrated into HBM. That is incremental processing. We do have some slurries and some other products in that incremental advanced packaging process steps or in those advanced packaging process steps. That's a trend we'd like to see continue as well. Thank you, John.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Parkinson with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Harris Fein on for Chris. Thanks for taking my question. Just given the geopolitical environment, you know, there are some fears about energy availability. You mentioned noble gases, some key inputs like helium for fabs located in Asia. Just as you run the business and you have conversations with your customers, how would you characterize the degree of concern around that?
You know, there haven't been kind of semiconductor-specific concerns around energy. I think in general, there's concerns around just energy consumption and availability, especially as you think about data centers, you know, tapping big parts of the grid. We haven't really seen anything specific to semiconductors or semiconductor fabs. Obviously, it's a key consideration when you think about building a fab. Most of those fabs secure that energy in advance for usually for some pretty long periods of time. Did you have a follow-up, Chris?
Yes. The other one on the third quarter.
Oh Harris , I'm sorry.
Directional. No worries. On the third quarter directional framework, I think, you know, you mentioned historical seasonality supporting a sequential improvement. I just want to clarify, does that third quarter guide contemplate any cyclical recovery on the mainstream logic side, or is this just contemplating normal seasonality and any cyclical recovery would be upside to what you're communicating?
Yeah. Our third quarter guide today, we just tried to give you a little bit more visibility, based on what we're seeing kind of in our order book. third quarter includes a little bit of seasonality. It also includes some of the visibility that we've received in our order book, particularly with respect to CapEx. We wanted to, you know, give you a flash of what we thought that looks like. Now, that 5% sequential guide from second quarter to third quarter from our second quarter midpoint, that would be about 8% year-over-year growth if you were to do that math and then look at third quarter kind of guide 2026 versus third quarter 2025 actuals.
We feel like that's a, that's a pretty good guide at this stage, given where we are in 2026. We're pretty happy about that. It's really just including some seasonality, some of the current order book that we currently have visibility to. It really doesn't include anything, any meaningful recovery with respect to mainstream. Thanks, Harris.
Our next question will come from Edward Yang with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.
Hey, Dave. Appreciate the time, good to see the improvement. First question is on R&D, that's been ticking down every quarter for the last several quarters now. I'm just wondering what's driving that. Related to your R&D engine, you know, how does the pipeline look for POR wins that you could leverage above and beyond cyclical recovery?
Sure. Thanks, Edward. There's certainly no intention to kinda tick down R&D. Obviously, if revenue is growing kinda faster than we originally expect, you tend to get this phenomenon where, you know, you kinda set a budget for about 10% of revenue to be invested back into R&D. You get kind of these, let's call them period gaps. We do feel good about, you know, roughly this 10% level of revenue being reinvested back into R&D. We feel like that's a pretty good benchmark. Again, plus minus, and it's very different by business, and where different businesses are in their growth cycle and maturity cycle, as well as R&D intensity cycle.
From that perspective, we feel like our model of roughly 10% of revenue invested in R&D is, for a bunch of reasons, is the right one. Pipeline for PORs, we actually feel pretty good about both our current plans of record, our current market share, as well as the PORs that are currently in our pipeline that we are, you know, competing for. You know, as manufacturing becomes more complex, as you move to higher layer counts and memory, as you move to more advanced packaging for DRAM, that requires incremental slurries, incremental pads, incremental filtrations.
Then, of course, as you move advanced logic from kind of 2 -nm to sub 2 -nm, the landscape and the precision required and the contamination and material purity required, those requirements all get orders of magnitude harder. We feel like that plays very well both to our development cycle, as well as to our current product line. I feel very good about our innovation engine. It's something that we're looking forward to showcase a little bit at our Investor Day in November. Some more to come. Thanks, Edward.
Thank you. This does conclude the Q&A portion of today's call. I'd like to turn it back over to Jeffrey Schnell for any additional or closing remarks.
Yeah. Thanks, everybody, for joining our call today. We look forward to discussing more with you in the coming quarters.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's Entegris First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Please disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.