Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to FormFactor's Q3 2020 earnings conference call. On today's call are Chief Executive Officer, Mike Slessor, and Chief Financial Officer, Shai Shahar. Before we begin, Jason Cohen, the company's General Counsel, will remind you of some important information.
Thank you. Today, the company will be discussing GAAP P&L results and then some important non-GAAP results intended to supplement your understanding of the company's financials. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures and other financial information are available in the press release issued today by the company and on the investor relations section of our website. Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Examples of such forward-looking statements include those with respect to the projections of financial and business performance, future macroeconomic conditions, the benefits of acquisitions and investments, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impacts of regulatory changes, the anticipated demand for products, our future ability to produce and sell products, the development of future products and technologies, and the assumptions upon which such statements are based.
These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed during this call. Information on risk factors and uncertainties is contained in our most recent filing on Form 10-K with the SEC for the fiscal year ended 2019, and our other SEC filings, which are available on the sec.gov website, and in our press release issued today. Forward-looking statements are made as of today, October 28, 2020, and we assume no obligation to update them. With that, we will now turn the call over to FormFactor CEO, Mike Slessor.
Thanks, Jason. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. FormFactor delivered Q3 results at the high end of our July outlook range, nearly matching our all-time record Q4 of 2019. Responding to continued robust demand for our products, and despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, we steadily improved the efficiency of both our internal operations and external supply chain by adding capacity and increasing factory output in a safety-focused and socially distanced manufacturing environment. This positive trajectory continues in the Q4 as we finish off 2020 and launch the new year. In the Q3 , four semiconductor industry leaders comprised our 10% customers. As we explained in our August Analyst Day presentation, a foundational element of FormFactor's strategy is long-term intimacy with a diverse group of top-tier companies, spanning IDMs and foundries across logic, memory, and specialty chips like RF.
Revenue from these customers is one important indicator that demonstrates our engagement as we meet their near-term production needs. Longer term, we're also working with each of them to understand and meet their next generation test and measurement challenges. This close dialogue helps shape our capacity investments and R&D span, and as a result, we stay synchronized with important customers who are at the forefront of our industry. As the first major 5G handsets ramp in volume, the growth of our Foundry & Logic probe card business is a great example of the value provided by these long-term customer collaborations and associated R&D programs. Our multi-year investments in both RF and high-performance digital test are now yielding dividends as customers utilize FormFactor's differentiated market-leading products to meet their highly complex test requirements for millimeter wave RF front ends and next generation application processors.
As we've discussed in the past, there are substantial increases in test complexity associated with 5G silicon, especially for millimeter wave RF. At the same time, 5G is also driving significant increases in test intensity. Recent comments by one of the major AP suppliers indicate that test times for the chips in the 5G handset are 60% greater than the chips in a 4G LTE phone. All else being equal, longer test times means more probe cards are required, which grows the served market, in which we lead. This combination of increased test intensity, which expands the number of probe cards required per wafer out, and test complexity, which widens FormFactor's competitive advantage, is a hallmark of not just 5G, but also of advanced packaging.
As the industry's focus moves to post-fab integration to offset the slowing of front-end Moore's Law, wafer test and probe cards are taking a prominent role in enabling a variety of advanced packaging schemes, like heterogeneous integration of chiplets and HBM stacking of DRAM die. As we discussed in August, both advanced packaging and 5G are important long-term growth drivers of FormFactor's businesses and are at least partially responsible for the double-digit growth rates we've delivered over the past two years. Turning to DRAM, as expected, FormFactor's DRAM revenues returned to prior baseline levels in the Q3 after a H1 2020 digestion period by our customers.
At present, we are experiencing steady demand in this market with a combination of technology node migrations, the DDR5 transition, and an introduction of 12 and 16 gigabit designs driving healthy and sustained new design activity across our customer base. As a reminder, probe cards are a consumable that is specific to each new chip design, and so demand is generated from not just node migrations, but also the release of new chip designs, such as 16 gigabit LPDDR5. Looking into the regional details, you'll see that our revenue from China reduced significantly in the Q3 , off record levels in the Q2 . Interestingly, this reduction is not directly due to the challenged U.S.-China semiconductor trade relationship but instead reflects one of our major multinational customers shifting production out of the region during the Q3 .
As we noted in the past, our China revenue is primarily derived from multinational manufacturers who operate, test, and assembly facilities in the region. FormFactor's domestic China revenue has been a mid-single-digit percentage of total company revenue for the last several quarters. These domestic customers offer a growth opportunity for us, especially in applications where FormFactor's technology provides significant performance and cost benefits, but we'll likely need at least a partial return to historical trade norms to fully capitalize on that opportunity. On the M&A front, as noted in our press release, following the close of the quarter, we acquired High Precision Devices, Inc.. HPD, based in Boulder, Colorado, brings world-class cryogenic thermal control and test expertise to augment FormFactor's existing capabilities and products in this area.
Operation and testing of devices at temperatures from 77 Kelvin or liquid nitrogen temperatures, down to just above absolute zero, is a growing area of our systems business, driven by applications such as low-noise infrared detectors and the futuristic field of quantum computing. The ability to control and manage the thermal test environment from near absolute zero to hundreds of degrees centigrade is a strategic capability in semiconductor test, and we're excited about the addition of HPD to FormFactor's leading portfolio of engineering system test and measurement capabilities. Finally, with near record Q3 results and a strong Q4 outlook, we're already making progress towards our new target financial model that delivers $2 of non-GAAP earnings per share on $850 million of revenue. Test and measurement are becoming a more important and strategic place in the semiconductor industry, driven by trends like 5G and advanced packaging.
Our leadership position in these attractive markets, paired with our differentiated strategy and disciplined execution, will drive continued growth and share gains as we progress towards our target model. Shai, over to you.
Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon. As you saw in our press release, and as Mike noted, our Q3 revenue and gross margin were above the midpoint of our outlook range, and EPS exceeded our outlook range. These are impressive results, close to our record high results of Q4 '19. FormFactor's Q3 revenues were $128 million, a 13% sequential increase from our Q2 revenues. Revenues increased 27% year-over-year and were near our quarterly record high revenues of $178.6 million in Q4 '19. Probe card segment revenues were $151 million in the Q3 , an increase of $17 million or 13% from Q2. The increase was driven by higher DRAM and flash revenues, partially offset by a small decline in Foundry & Logic revenues. System segment revenues were $27 million in Q3, an increase of $3 million or 13% from the Q2 .
Within the probe card segment, robust demand for Foundry & Logic continued, with revenues decreasing less than $1 million from Q2 to $108 million, comprising 61% of total company revenues in Q3, down from 69% in the Q2 . DRAM revenues were $31 million in Q3, an increase of $12 million from the Q2 , and were 18% of the total quarterly revenue as compared to 12% in the Q2 . After a couple of quarters of customers digesting purchases made in 2019, DRAM demand returned to what we believe to be a more normalized quarterly run rate. Flash revenues of $11 million in Q3 were $5.6 million higher than in the Q2 and were 6% of total revenues in Q3, compared with 3% in Q2. Some of the increase is attributed to the acquisition of the Advantest probe card assets during the quarter.
The integration of this business is going well, but this does not change our expectation that flash revenues will continue to be lumpy from quarter- to- quarter. Specifically in Q4, we expect flash revenue to be back to mid-single digit millions. GAAP gross margin for the Q3 was $77 million, or 43.1% of revenues, as compared to 41.9% in Q2. Cost of revenues included $6.5 million of GAAP to non-GAAP reconciling items, which we outline in our press release issued today and in the reconciliation table available on the investor relations section of our website. On a non-GAAP basis, gross margin for the Q3 was $83 million, or 46.7% of revenues, 90 basis points higher than the 45.8% non-GAAP gross margin in Q2. Mainly as a result of higher overall revenue, higher system segment gross margin, and slightly higher probe card segment gross margin.
Our probe card segment gross margin was 46.2% in the Q3 , a small increase of 20 basis points compared to the 46% in Q2. Our system segment gross margin returned to the anticipated range we had previously reported of high 40s to low 50s, and was 49.8% in Q3 as compared to 44.6% in the Q2 . The increase of 520- basis points was driven mainly by higher sales and lower warranty and E&O costs. Our GAAP operating expenses were $64.7 million for the Q3 , $11 million higher than in the Q2 . Non-GAAP operating expenses for the Q3 were $48.4 million or 27.2% of revenue, compared to $41.1 million or 26% of revenue in Q2.
The increase of $7.3 million is mainly due to higher performance-based compensation, one-time IT security remediation costs, the impact of annual salary raises, and the addition of the business we acquired during the quarter. Company non-cash expenses for the Q3 included $6.5 million for the amortization of intangible assets and $5.5 million for stock-based compensation, both at similar levels to Q2. Depreciation was $5.3 million, an increase of $0.6 million from the Q2 as a result of recent investments made in capacity expansions and acquisitions. GAAP net income for the Q3 was $22.9 million or $0.29 per fully diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $20.5 million or $0.26 per fully diluted share in Q2. The non-GAAP effective tax rate for the Q3 was 12.7%, significantly lower than the 17.4% in Q2.
This reflects new regulations issued in July with respect to Global Intangible Low Tax Income, also known as GILTI. The application of these new regulations resulted in a one-time cumulative benefit in Q3 and will also result in the full-year effective tax rate to be in the lower end of the 15%-20% range we communicated in our previous earnings call. As a reminder, our cash tax rate is expected to remain at 6%-8% of non-GAAP pre-tax income until we fully utilize our remaining US-based NOLs and R&D credits. Q3 non-GAAP net income was $31 million or $0.39 per fully diluted share compared to $26 million or $0.33 per fully diluted share in Q2. Moving on to the balance sheet and cash flows.
We generated $37 million of free cash flow in the Q3 compared to $19 million in Q2, taking our total cash and investments to $244 million at the end of the quarter. The sequential increase in free cash flow in the Q3 reflects reduced capital expenditures. During the Q3 , we fully repaid the loan for the acquisition of Cascade Microtech in 2016. As of the end of the Q3 , we had two term loans remaining on our balance sheet, totaling $36 million. We invested $5 million in capital expenditures during the Q3 compared to $25 million in Q2. The decrease in CapEx is the result of the $19 million spent during the Q2 to complete the acquisition of the new Livermore building. As a reminder, our capacity expansion is expected to bring our 2020 capital expenditures to $50 -$60 million.
At quarter end, our total cash balance exceeded the debt balance by $208 million, a decrease of $6 million from Q2 quarter end. The decrease is mostly attributable to the $35 million used to acquire the Advantest probe card assets during the quarter. Given our substantial liquidity and our healthy and solid capital structure, we continue to invest in capital expenditures and M&A as important parts of our strategy. As Mike noted, earlier this month, we completed the acquisition of HPD for $15 million, net of cash received. HPD's addition is not expected to have an immediate impact on our financial results. As further described in our press release issued today, our board of directors has authorized a two-year, $50 million share repurchase program to help offset dilution from share issuances related to stock-based compensation. Turning to the Q4 non-GAAP outlook.
As Mike mentioned, we expect the overall strong demand to continue with higher demand in Foundry & Logic and DRAM revenues at similar levels to Q3, partially offset by a decrease in NAND. These factors result in a Q4 revenue outlook in the range of $178 -$190 million. Product mix is expected to be less favorable in Q4, resulting in non-GAAP gross margins outlook for Q4 in the range of 44%-47%. At the midpoint of these ranges, we expect Q4 operating expenses to be comparable to Q3. Non-GAAP earnings per fully diluted share for Q4 is expected to be between $0.35 and $0.43. A reconciliation of our GAAP to non-GAAP Q4 outlook is available on the investor relations section of our website and in the press release issued today. With that, let's open the call to questions.
We ask that when you ask your question, please indicate if you direct your questions to Mike or to me, since as you can imagine, we are not in the same room. Operator?
Thank you so much. To ask a question, you will need to press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Again, to ask a question, you will need to press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press the pound key. Our first question will come from the line of Quinn Bolton from Needham. The line is now open.
Hey, guys. Congratulations on the nice results and the, what appears to be record quarterly outlook for the Q4 . Wanted to ask about the Foundry & Logic strength. If you could give us a little bit more color. Is that fairly broad-based across your large Logic and Foundry customers? A second question, obviously, tighter trade restrictions have been announced during the Q3 . Wondering if you're seeing any impact on the tighter export controls around SMIC. I've got a follow-up question for Shai.
Quinn, it's Mike. I'll handle that one. The Foundry & Logic strength is quite broad-based, as it was in the Q3 as well. If you take a look at our 10% customer list, you can see some nice strength across multiple leaders in the Foundry & Logic space there. We're seeing the same thing continue here in the Q4 . It is reasonably diversified, nicely broad-based. A lot of the drivers we talked about before, certainly major 5G handset launches are behind that, infrastructure data spending, data center spending. Some really nice, robust trends continuing here through the back part of the year. On the China situation, we tried to give you a little more detail in the prepared remarks. The domestic China business for us has been sort of a mid-single digit % of revenue for the past several quarters.
A majority of our China business is serving the multinationals in the region. As a consequence, you can imagine the major domestic foundry is not a really big business for us. Having said that, for sure, as a U.S. company, there have been some headwinds associated with serving them and other domestic China customers. I think like everybody else, we're working our way through investigating the different ways we can mitigate that, whether they be through licenses or other compliance activities.
Great. The other question for Shai, just you talked about a less favorable mix in the quarter. I guess I just look at Foundry & Logic strength with lower NAND and about flat DRAM. I would think that that mix would generally be positive for you. Can you sort of walk us through within Foundry & Logic and perhaps the memory business, what in-segment mix shift may be going on that would sort of offset what I would have thought to be a tailwind with the mix shifting towards Foundry & Logic? Thank you.
Sure, Quinn. That's a good observation. We did say in the past that if you look at the different markets we serve, historically or maybe on average, systems has the highest gross margin, followed by Foundry & Logic, then DRAM, and then flash. A few things. First of all, there is some overlap. There are cases that you can have a DRAM card with a higher gross margin than a Foundry & Logic card. Also the mix within these markets, the product mix within these markets, even within the same customer, can change. It's true that if you look at the trend for Q4, Foundry & Logic is expected to be higher and flash is expected to be down.
The mix within these markets also has an impact, and that's why at the midpoint of the outlook range, we expect to have a gross margin lower than in Q3, even though revenue is a bit higher.
Got it. Shai, I may have missed it, but did you give a quarter-to-quarter sort of guidance for what the systems business would do in the Q4 ?
We did not. We only spoke about the three different markets.
Okay, great. Thank you. I'll hop back in the queue.
Our next question will come from the line of Carlin Lynch from B. Riley. The line is now open.
Hey, guys. This is Carlin on for Craig. Two quick questions. One, starting with you, Mike. You had talked, I think, previously about the Livermore plant asset purchase. If you could just give us an update on how that ramp is coming and what we can expect in terms of timing and production facility conversion, that would be great. I have a follow-up.
I think we're still in the fairly early stages of that. To remind everyone, we bought a close to 100,000 sq ft building, which is going to be utilized entirely for manufacturing capacity, adjacent to our existing footprint in Livermore, California. We're still in the very early stages of outfitting that building. In our current results, we're continuing to get more effective incrementally at manufacturing inside our existing footprint. Obviously, still a lot of social distancing measures in place that make us less efficient inside that footprint than we would have been, say, a year ago. We are getting better at it, and as you can see from the Q3 results and the guidance, managing to squeeze more out of that existing footprint. We expect the new capacity to start to come online in the middle part of 2021.
It's going to be a gradual and incremental start as we continue to match our capacity to the overall customer demand.
Got it. With regards to the Advantest, the $35 million Advantest technology integration, I guess if you could just provide a roadmap kind of integration update, where we are in that process, that would be great. Lastly, just really quick, did you guys see anything in terms of a SMIC buffer stocking in the quarter? Were there any signs that maybe people had started to kind of pull orders in ahead of time? I know China was less intense in the quarter, but any signs of buffer stocking there?
Yeah. Let me deal with that one first, because we did try and lay things out for people a little more clearly in the prepared remarks, so I'd refer you back to those as well. Our domestic China revenue is a relatively small percentage, kind of mid-single digits of total company revenue. The signal to noise on any inventory pull- aheads and things like that are not going to be great for us. A limited exposure. Probably in a few places, we did see some risk reduction that's difficult to parse out from general strategies of inventory buys associated with things like COVID-19 that some of our customers are doing as well. I wouldn't say we got a real clean signal there. And in any event, it's not a really significant part of our revenue given the exposure footprint of the domestic China business that FormFactor has.
On the Advantest acquisition, we're about a quarter in. I think as Shai mentioned in the prepared remarks, things are going really, really well. We're very pleased with both the technology assets and the team that have come in to be a part of FormFactor. You can imagine in the technology integration, those are fairly long-term projects, we're in the early stages of characterization, rationalizing roadmaps where we can use some of these technology elements in FormFactor's DRAM and Foundry & Logic probe card roadmap. As we talked about, that's one of the key pieces, the interconnect technology and the MEMS probe technology that this acquisition brought us. Also brings us a better competitive position in flash, there was a contribution, although not huge, a contribution in the Q3 .
Continuing to make some progress in increasing market share there, doing some operational and manufacturing integration to see whether we can extract a little bit more share in the $250 million served market, this NAND flash.
Got it. All right. Thanks so much, guys.
Thanks.
Our next question will come from the line of Brian Chin from Stifel. The line is now open.
Hi, good afternoon. Nice results. Thanks for letting us ask a few questions. Maybe first question for you, Mike. Revenue from your largest customer does appear to be normalizing in Q3 off a very strong H1 level. I guess I was wondering if your strong Q4 outlook reflects any further normalization from this customer as their rate of 10 nanometer capacity growth moderates.
Yeah, it's a good observation, Brian. In the H1 of 2020, and probably in the Q4 of 2019 as well, our largest customer was at revenue levels that we viewed as above kind of a normalized run rate. You do see in the Q3 results, those coming back down to, as you call it, a more normalized level, which should be expected from this customer. I look at our Q4 outlook and more generally the mix of the business in the Q3 , you see a nice balance between some of these leading customers. Again, we had four 10% customers in the Q3 , comprising some real leaders in the industry.
I think that's indicative, whether they're 10% customers in the specific quarter or not, that's indicative of the footprint of the customer relationships that we have and the overall diversification that we've managed to build in this business. In any given quarter, I would certainly expect any one of these customers, whether our largest customer or working through the list of other major customers, they're going to fluctuate around according to their design release roadmaps and their need for specific probe cards, whether they be for node migrations or new design releases.
That's helpful. Maybe to switch gears, and this either for you, Mike, or for Shai, but more from a supply perspective, I'm definitely impressed you're capable of shipping towards the upper end, potentially, of your 4Q guidance range, again, given the timing of your new capacity next year. I was wondering if you could elaborate more on some of the levers that you are able to exercise right now to increment up your revenue output in the near term, and maybe suffice to say, can you maybe touch the ceiling in terms of your capacity at the upper end of that revenue guide?
It's Mike again. Maybe I'll take that at a high level. Again, as I said in a response to one of the previous questions, I think we're just getting better at operating in this environment. Obviously, as we went through the first part of the year, it was a complete reinvention of a lot of our on-site manufacturing and safety processes. Some of the things that we've done, for example, have been annexing engineering lab space as production space, incremental production space, and then having conference rooms turn into engineering labs, right? You can imagine there's not a lot of need for conference rooms among the G&A population these days. You've sort of pivoted and repositioned inside the existing footprint. I think as we get towards the high end of the Q4 outlook range, there's not much more beyond that in our existing footprint.
Obviously, mix does play a role. There are more favorable mixes that bear more revenue per, if you like, square foot of manufacturing space. We're getting pretty close to straining the existing footprint. Having said that, you've got yield improvement, the ongoing CIP that really has been a foundational piece of how FormFactor continue to lead in the industry and improve gross margins and financial results, and those are things we'll be depending on as well. We get to the middle of 2021 and start to loosen those reins and bring on some significant new capacity capability in the new building.
Maybe one last really quick one, but if you think of foundries, for example, they seem to be running fairly tight capacity themselves, and other folks, yourselves included, maybe in kind of a similar camp. Do you think that's giving folks, yourselves, other folks in the supply chain, maybe a little bit better visibility even into early parts of next year?
If I look at lead times, certainly, I would say on average, they have gotten a little bit longer, but not dramatically so, right? We are still fundamentally running a turns business where, to start a quarter, we have a significant amount of designs to win and work to do to fill in the rest of the shipments and revenue for the quarter. There are certainly cases, because of the customer capacity situation, where their wafer cycle times and design lead times are a little bit longer, and that's offering some measure of increased visibility. It hasn't fundamentally changed the nature of the business. Still a turns business, and our headlamps only go so far into the fog.
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you.
Thanks.
All right. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Our next question will come from the line of Tom Diffely from D.A. Davidson. The line is now open.
Yes. Good afternoon. Mike, obviously very good to see four 10% customers, all the diversification in the quarter. On a go-forward basis, would you expect the logic foundry customers, the two large guys, to be consistently in the 10% customer range while the memory players kind of come and go depending on their quarter?
I think at any given quarter, I tried to allude to this in one of the answers to Brian's question, I think you're still going to see some lumpiness in the 10% customer list, both in the memory or DRAM providers. Of course, one of those customers is both a foundry customer and a DRAM customer.
Yeah.
Even as we build out our business and grow our business at the world's leading foundry, it's still going to be a little bit lumpy. Much less so than it was even a year ago, as we are shipping multiple designs in high volume across both mobile, high-performance compute, and RF. I would still expect some fluctuations around the 10% level that might cause them to move in and out of that list. Over the long term, we certainly expect them to be a 10% customer, a perpetual 10% customer for FormFactor. Over the short term, I think you could see them move on and off the list.
Okay. That's helpful. Going back to your answer earlier on the flash, the NAND business. At this point, are you using the acquired technology on a go-forward basis that might improve the margins in that space? Or are you still opportunistically using your old traditional technology?
Yeah. It's a mix of both, Tom. The product we acquired as part of the Advantest acquisition, nicely positioned for mainstream flash. As we said when we announced the acquisition, qualified at one major NAND flash manufacturer. We're working to expand that customer base across the worldwide FormFactor footprint, an example of maybe the revenue synergies that we can bring to some of these acquisitions. There are areas of the high end of NAND flash where we're still being opportunistic with our legacy technology. A product strategy that has a lot of sub-segmentation in it, that's pretty usual given the design-specific nature of the space. A very dense, high-performance piece of NAND flash is going to need some of the legacy FormFactor technology, maybe more mainstream commodity NAND flash, the Advantest product, much better positioned.
Okay. Finally, Shai, when you look at the 500- basis point improvement in the probe card margin year-over-year, is that strictly just because of revenue or volume, or has the mix towards more RF benefited that as well?
I think when we talk about product mix, then yeah, RF is part of our Foundry & Logic, which historically has a higher margin. That helps. The increase in Foundry & Logic helps with the margin going up. We are glad to show that we make progress toward our model of 47%. Higher revenue overall also helped the margin, is to spread the cost over a higher base, of course. Both of them.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Thanks, Tom.
The next question will come from the line of Amanda Scarnati from Citi. The line is now open.
Hi, good afternoon. The first question I have is on TSMC. It's nice to see them finally crossing that 10% threshold. Can you talk a little bit about how large that customer can become? Looking at it in different ways, is there a limit to how much business TSMC is willing to outsource to FormFactor? How do you look at that going forward?
Yeah. Obviously, the effort to first get qualified several years ago and then grow our business at the world's largest foundry is a key strategic element of where we're trying to take the company. That business, really, we're competitive and used only at advanced nodes, and we've talked about that being 10 nanometer and below, obviously with a bit of an amplifier if there's advanced packaging involved, because of the fundamental value FormFactor's technology has there. As with most of our customers, it's a competitive business where we're competing against other probe card providers, and so that caps it in some sense. When you look at that foundry business in contrast to everywhere else, there's probably still some upward momentum available because it's a leading-edge node business.
As more of that foundry's wafer starts move to advanced nodes, if you like, that piece of available market to us is going to continue to increase. We've talked about it in the past being comparably sized to the business with our leading customer, and I think that's a reasonable way to continue to think about it long term. You're not going to get thier next quarter, and as I said in response to some of the previous questions, expect them to move up and down a little bit around the 10% level. Long term, I think the growth trajectory that we've shown so far, essentially going from zero three or four years ago up to a 10% customer, there's still some legs left in that story.
Great. Moving on to sort of the Cryo tech business, both the acquisition you announced today and then also the announcement you made back in September in terms of new technology capabilities. When could we expect to see any sort of revenue from Cryo? Is this sort of more of a longer-term technology trend? Are there some near-term opportunities?
I think in terms of significant revenue that would change your model or something like that, it's out there a way, right? These are really bets we're making at the right-hand end of our roadmap, guided by some of our key customers who are driving applications like quantum computing that require very low temperatures, essentially approaching absolute zero. From a significant revenue perspective, it's probably even outside the scope of our long-term model that gets to $850 million in 2023. Having said that, these businesses are bearing revenue right now. It's part of the reason why we have the confidence to invest in an acquisition like HPD and continue to invest R&D in it. Its customers are engaged with us, and clearly pulling for more capable development platforms, which eventually will move into production.
As I said, it represents probably a growth component for our next long-term target model once we get past the $850 million.
Great. Thank you.
All right. For those who would like to ask a question, again, please press star then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Again, for those who would like to ask a question, please press star then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question will come from the line of Robert Mertens from Cowen. The line is now open.
Hi, this is Robert Mertens on behalf of Krish Sankar at Cowen. Thanks for taking my question. Just one along the lines of probe cards for advanced packaging. Maybe you could give a little bit more clarity on puts and takes and how you see that business growing over the next year or so in terms of sort of the customer concentration and margin profile of that business, how you see that over the next year. Thank you.
Yeah. A good question, and one that maybe so everybody's baselined, I'd encourage you to go back and look at our August Analyst Day presentation, because we tried to frame it in some sense there. If I look at things going forward, clearly the leaders in the industry are going to rely more and more on advanced packaging to fuel their innovation roadmaps, whether it's chiplet strategies, HBM in memory. There's some pretty compelling product differentiation that our customers can achieve by employing advanced packaging. We're still pretty early in that, but because it's relatively early, you're going to see it concentrated, I think, among the leaders.
People like the 10% customers that we've had in the Q3 are obviously going to be the people driving and innovating at the leading edge of those advanced packaging roadmaps, and part of the reason why we're working so hard to stay engaged with those customers. We believe they're going to be the drivers of advanced packaging, which, as we've seen in a variety of other applications, will then fan out to the rest of the industry. Pardon the pun. From a concentration perspective, again, it's going to continue to be with the leaders. I think from a margin profile, there's always competition, so I would not expect a huge uplift in margins.
Having said that, there are some elements of value that we provide in the advanced packaging applications, whether they be much tighter densities or higher speeds enabling things approaching known good die tests, that do bear a higher gross margin, a higher price than, say, a commodity probe card in a monolithically packaged part.
Great. Thank you. That's very helpful.
I am showing no further question at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Mike Slessor.
Great. Thank you everybody for joining us today. We've got a couple of IR events coming up to close the year. If we don't talk to you during those, stay safe, stay healthy, and we'll talk to you again soon. Take care.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.