Greetings, and welcome to the Kulicke and Soffa 2021 first fiscal quarter results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Joe Elgindy. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Welcome, everyone, to Kulicke and Soffa's fiscal first quarter 2021 conference call. Joining us on the call today are Fusen Chen, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Lester Wong, Chief Financial Officer. For those of you who have not received a copy of today's results, the release as well as the supplemental earnings presentation are both available in the investor relations section of our website at investor.kns.com. Beginning this period, we've changed our non-GAAP disclosures and adjusted the end market categorization of capital equipment sales. These changes better align non-GAAP reporting with our peer group and provide better insight to the underlying demand drivers expected to affect our business. In addition to historical statements, today's remarks will contain statements relating to future events and our future results. These statements are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from what is indicated in those forward-looking statements. For a complete discussion of the risks associated with Kulicke and Soffa that could affect our future results and financial condition, please refer to our recent SEC filings, specifically the 10-K for the year ended October 3rd, 2020, and the 8-K filed yesterday. With that said, I would now like to turn the call over to Fusen Chen for the business overview. Please go ahead, Fusen.
Thank you, Joe. We are pleased to report strong financial performance, progress in our advanced display business, and the improvement to our outlook on today's call. First, we have recently acquired U.S.-based Uniqarta Inc. in an all-cash transaction, which enhanced our competency and the ultimate potential in the fast-growing advanced display market. Even prior to this acquisition, we worked closely with Uniqarta to accelerate the adoption of advanced Mini-LED backlighting. By combining Uniqarta's domain knowledge and the unique intellectual property with our operational and development competency, we have improved our position in this exciting advanced display marketplace. We expect our next generation advanced display system will accelerate broader adoption of advanced display that utilize locally controllable backlighting and also direct initiative Micro-LED approaches. By the close of fiscal year 2021, we expect to introduce and initiate qualifications for our next generation advanced display system.
We anticipate strong demand for this solution throughout fiscal year 2022 as the broader LCD market begins to adopt new forms of backlighting. Next, the ongoing strength of the general semiconductor and the LED end market and the ongoing recovery in automotive demand has improved our fiscal year outlook. Growth trends such as 5G and advanced display, as well as the fundamental transition in the automotive market, have only recently become meaningful to our business. We expect this new secure trend to provide significant growth and the market expansion opportunities over the coming years. The current demand for our product and solution is strong and extend for several areas. First, the under-investment in the back-end capacity spending over the past two years was historically unique and is now behind us. The return to more typical semiconductor unit growth, which benefit our capital equipment market, has just begun.
Over the coming years, we expect semiconductor unit growth to exceed the historical average of 6% to 6.5%. We also see strong demand in our new advanced display business and expect multiple design win with our APAMA and the Katalyst system, which will generate more significant revenue starting in fiscal 2022. We will provide more updates over the coming few quarters. We are also seeing increased capital intensity due to more complex back-end assembly approaches. Increasing complexity is a more secure driver expected to accelerate further into the futures. I will explain in more detail shortly. Given our close alignment to this trend and ongoing interest from customers, our outlook has improved significantly since our prior earnings call held on November 20th.
Currently, due to improved visibility into our second half, we are now anticipating revenue for the year to be approximately $1.1 billion, representing a significant improvement over 75% from fiscal year 2020. We have aggressively ramped our production capacity and are operationally prepared to support this higher level of demand. The ability to scale production quickly and efficiently is an inherent and a long-established operational competency at KNS. With that said, we are closely monitoring broader supply chain and the logistical constraints. At this moment, we are comfortable we can achieve this steep year on year growth target. Turning to our December quarter's result, we generated $267.9 million of revenue, representing a 51% increase from the September quarters. The APS segment increased by 5% sequentially, driven by higher production level. We continue to make progress to extend our shares within the APS market.
Capital equipment represent 83% of overall revenue and increased by 65% sequentially, largely due to improvement within the general semiconductor, LED, and auto industrial end markets. In the December quarters, we disaggregated our dedicated advanced packaging end market categories. What we previously deemed advanced packaging revenue is now primarily allocated to the general semiconductor end market. As we mentioned last quarter, and I discussed earlier, advanced packages are more complex assembly technique, have become material component within our other end markets. This increasing complexity is largely related to the growth of multi-die package, which provide a cost-effective solution to extend form factor benefits. This approach help to overcome the well-known node shrink challenge by increasing transistor density at the package level. We anticipate demand and the capacity needed for multi-die package will continue accelerating and will continue to improve capital intensity of our served market.
Within general semiconductor, we estimate over 40% of December sales support multi-die assembly, which require more assembly capacity than a typical single die package. Within memory, over 60% of our exposure supports HBM, one of the highest volume and the most transistor dense package available. Finally, within the LED market, about 50% is associated with advanced display. For the December quarter, we estimate 38% of capital equipment sales are supporting more complex advanced packaging applications, increasing the capital intensity of general semiconductor, LED, and the memory market. Turning to a composition of capital equipment sales in the December quarters. General semiconductor, which support a broad set of applications such as a smartphone and the consumer electronics, continue to be very strong and has increased by nearly 70% sequentially. As discussed, increasing complexity add an additional layer of demand to this critical end market.
The automotive and industrial end market experienced a dramatic improvement over 100% sequentially. At this point, there are shortage of semiconductors throughout the automotive supply chain, and we have experienced a strong sequential increase in the utilization rate of our automotive install base over the December period. Due to this near-term dynamic, combined with a broader long-term transition to fully electric and fully autonomous vehicle, we are optimistic on our outlook and look forward to further support our broad base of automotive customers over the long term. As expected, LED demand has improved due to the ongoing adoption of our advanced display system and also sequential improvement for general lighting LED capacity. Looking ahead, we are confident in our position, technology roadmap, and the customer engagement with both high volume general lighting and also high growth advanced display applications.
As a reminder, despite clear challenge last year due to COVID-19, we were still able to achieve our fiscal year 2020 advanced display revenue target and expect a production ramp to continue through fiscal year 2022. Our acquisition of Uniqarta further enhance our position within this exciting advanced display market, and we anticipate a meaningful improvement to our outlook. We will provide additional feedback on our development progress and the longer-term advanced display expectations over the coming quarters. After a delayed period of meaningful market expansion, we are very optimistic in the near-term outlook and in our ability to participate meaningful in long-term and the more secular opportunities. We continue to focus on served market expansion through our participation within the advanced LED market, the fundamental transition in automotive, and the ongoing adoption of more complex semiconductor assembly. After two years of suffered demand, industry momentum is currently very high.
Our solutions are increasingly aligned with this major trend, and we anticipate a transition into a multiple year expansion period. Over this period, we expect our self-market growth will accelerate and provide additional opportunities to create lasting shareholder value. I would now like to turn the call over to Lester Wong, who will cover this quarter's financial overview in greater detail. Lester?
Thank you, Fusen. My remarks today will refer to GAAP results unless noted. As Fusen mentioned, demand for our products and services remained strong in the December quarter, with revenue at $267.9 million, up 51% sequentially. We were again able to quickly flex operational capacity to support this dramatic sequential improvement. Gross margins in December came in at 45.4%, and we generated net income of $48.4 million and non-GAAP EPS of $0.86. At this level of business, our operating leverage becomes significant. During the December quarter, we generated operating margins of 20%, an increase of over 700 basis points from the September quarter. Considering the operating leverage and our outlook, we expect to generate strong free cash flows over the coming years.
We continue to be very focused on cost control despite the more favorable business conditions, which has helped drive December quarter operating expenses to be slightly better than expected. We also expect operating expenses to follow our historical model of approximately $53 million of fixed quarterly expense,+ 5%-+7% of variable expense tied to revenue. We do not anticipate a material increase to our operating expense model as a result of the Uniqarta acquisition. Tax expense for the quarter came in at $6.3 million, and we continue to target an 18% long-term effective tax rate. Although anticipate the effective tax rate coming in closer to 15% in fiscal 2021. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the December quarter with a total net cash and investment position of $576.7 million, up $46.5 million sequentially, which represents $9.19 per diluted share.
The Uniqarta acquisition closed in the March quarter, and the cash impact will be reflected in our March quarter results. Considering the strong current demand, we improved working capital efficiency during the December quarter. Days of accounts receivable were down from 101 days to 76 days. Days of inventory improved from 113 to 77 days, and days of accounts payable decreased slightly from 58 to 55 days. For the March quarter, we continue to expect further demand improvements for our products and services. We expect revenues to be approximately $300 million ±$20 million. Gross margins are expected to be approximately 45.5% ±50 basis points, due largely to product mix. GAAP operating expense is expected to be approximately $76 million ±2%, and non-GAAP EPS to be $0.88 ±10%. This concludes our prepared comments.
Operator, please open the call for questions.
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to be place a question in the queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipments, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing star one. One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question today is coming from Tom Diffely from D.A. Davidson. Your line is now live.
Yeah, good morning. Good afternoon. I just wanted to confirm the new outlook for fiscal 2021 is $1.1 billion, up 75% year-over-year?
That is correct.
Wow. When you look at the obviously very strong growth this year, is there any way you can split it between how much of it is driven by just unit growth industry versus share gains, maybe versus increased intensity for your tools?
Tom, I think due to a few reasons. Number one, of course, in the past two years, 2019 and 2020, because of semi-downturn and under-investment from customer, and why not go another way, right? We expect this year will be slightly higher than 6 to 6.5. Number one is really the unit growth coming back.
The number two, I think is very significant. I think we are seeing a different phenomenon. For example, the transition from a 4G to 5G. We are seeing a demand for a multi-die package. Give example is a RF module. This module actually, typically have a four die to 40 dies. Actually, demand increased significantly due to transition to a 5G. Not only the amount or the multi-die package increase, the die is much more complicated. The time to process this package also increased dramatically. Therefore, capital intensity increased. Right? Originally, I think we give a guidance. In normal year, our base should be around $750. Right? We take a three years average. I think 2017 is normal year. 2018, very strong year, 2019 is a very bad year. You take the average, it's about $750.
This should be a representable number of our baseline in a normal year. We estimate this complex additional multi-die package actually increase our capital intensity. We estimate we're at another $100 million to baseline. I don't know if I answer your question or not. Of course, Auto also coming back and everything add up. I think our baseline is much closer to $1 billion than before. That's why I think at Uniqarta this uptime, almost 80 of our product have a strong momentum, and therefore, we feel comfortable that this year we should be able to touch $1 billion.
Okay. No, that's great. That's good color. I guess I want to switch gears here and look at the acquisition of Uniqarta. I guess a couple things. First, is that a competitor to Rohinni? Do they have any revenue associated with them? Is there any way to give us a rough idea of what the cost was?
Okay. I will have Lester answer the cost. I think Rohinni is our first partner, and the product is called PIXALUX. This is our first generation of Mini-LED and Micro-LED system. In 2020, last year, we guide the street, and also we accomplished revenue around $40 million. Last earnings call, I think we guide the revenue for 2021 will be $60 million-$80 million. I think we are more close to a high end. All the system we are going to ship is PIXALUX. This is our first generation of the products.
In my script, I also mentioned by the close of our fiscal 2021, we expect to announce our next generation of advanced display system. This will use 100% of our KNS IP after acquisition of Uniqarta. The second generation system is expected to contribute to our fiscal 2022 revenue. Your question is the difference of these two systems. How do we position it? I think around mid-2022, we will have an overlap of these two systems. We believe our second generation of a system, which we are utilize 100% of our own IP, will have a much higher productivity and should take off, I think, a long time, probably around middle of 2022. I hope I answered your question, Tom.
Yeah. No, that's great. Thanks.
Position price is around $26 million.
Okay. Was there any revenue associated with that or was this purely IP technology?
It's a purely technology acquisition.
Great. Okay. Thank you for your time.
Yeah. Thanks, Tom.
Thank you, Tom.
Thanks. Our next question today is coming from Krish Sankar from Cowen and Company. Your line is now live.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. I had a couple of them. Fusen, you mentioned about how there has been underinvestment in backend spend, especially wire bonding. ASE this morning also spoke about wire bonding demand being tight through all of 2021. I'm just kind of curious, what is your visibility today on wire bonders, given what your big customers are saying? Should we assume that if wire bonding is going to remain tight through all of 2021, are they going to add excess capacity this year, or do you think it's going to be more smoother for the next couple of years? I'm going to add a couple of follow-ups.
Krish, I don't know if I understand fully your questions. Can you repeat again quickly?
Sure. You spoke about underinvestment in wire bonding by the OSATs-
That's correct.
For the last couple of years.
Yeah.
Now, that they're doing a catch-up investment, how long do you think it's going to last?
Oh, okay. Krish, let me put this way. I think the estimate from the market this year is about a trillion die, semiconductor die, will be produced, roughly a trillion die. The estimate of a market shares of the bonders, I think about 65% of this die are processed by bonder, between 65%-70%. Bonder is here to stay. The bonder also went through a lot of our technology improvement. Although we did not provide very detailed information. Actually, bonder, a lot of technology associated with that. For example, currently, all the segment maturity actually is a user, the bonder, and many, many there orders taken. Also multi-die package, I mentioned, including this IP and also including a multi-die module, actually is very complicated bonder process, right? To answer your question, I think this year, the revenue for bonder is very strong.
Maybe it's a little bit strong than needed because of two-year underinvestment. We are quite optimistic. The bonder is here to stay. The label, actually, the industry need it, to support the overall industry growth. I think bonder will continue to grow.
Got it. That makes sense. Two other quick questions. One is on PIXALUX. Did you guys update your FY 2021 revenue targets for PIXALUX, or is it still $60 million to $80 million?
Yeah, that's correct. That's what we guide last quarter. Right now, I think we are longing, maybe Like this quarter is about $22 million, right? Hopefully, we will reach a higher end or over a little bit, this year for the FY 2021.
Then the final question, Fusen, on the Uniqarta acquisition. Is it fair to assume that your PIXALUX, the pick-and-place technology that works well for Mini-LED, might not scale up for Micro-LED, that's why you need a laser transfer approach for Micro-LED? Is that the way to think about the acquisition, or are you going to still work in parallel to improve PIXALUX placement speed?
Okay. I think, we do believe, I don't know if you see the script, our PR, press release. This is a laser-based technology. We believe the potential productivity is much, much faster. I'll give you example. The large TV, very, very large TV, if you need Mini-LED or Micro-LED, you probably need to place about 25 million die. I think we are just at the infant stage of this industry's growth, right? We are talking about maybe less than 100 Hz at this moment. That means every second process less than 100 die. I think in the future, the speed need to be much, much faster to support this industry's growth. That's why I think, Uniqarta, we choose it to be a next generation of technology. And I mentioned, we have PIXALUX, and we have next generation.
We believe maybe around middle of 2022 will be crossover. The industry will decide, which one will be a faster technology. We feel like, we will have a faster productivity, probably for the Uniqarta laser-based technology.
Got it. Thanks, Fusen, and really congrats on the strong results. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Craig Ellis from B. Riley. Your line is now live.
Yeah. Thanks for taking the question. Congrats as well on the strong execution in the quarter and meeting the tremendous upside demand. Fusen, I wanted to just start by going back to some of your comments on the market for fiscal 2021, and thanks for all the color so far. The question is this, as we look at the new fiscal 2021 demand outlook for revenues of $1.1 billion, can you help us understand, as you look into the back half of the fiscal year, where do you have-
Okay.
Relatively higher or lower demand visibility across your different end market opportunities?
Okay. Craig, the first quarter, I think we deliver $267.9, right? That's it. The second quarter, I think we guide $300. If you add this together, it's a little bit more than $550, I think it's $567, right? We are looking at if you have a mirror image, Q2, the second half, can be the mirror image of the first half. That means, we expect Q4 probably will have a seasonality as usual, but it's not going to be very significant, right? If we model Q1 is comparable to Q4 and Q2 and Q3 comparable, and actually we've got about $1.1 billion. Does that help?
It does. My question was actually a little bit different.
Okay.
It was really related to the visibility that you have into the demand that makes up that profile. Underneath that profile.
Okay.
Is your visibility similar across auto, things, other end markets that you mentioned like 5G smartphones and gaming cards and consoles that are in consumer? I noticed that at least from the investor deck, that memory revenues are very low in the quarter. Do you see memory coming back? If so, to what extent through the back half of the year?
Okay. I think, general semi is strong from Q1 to Q4 continuously. I think auto start to be stronger this quarter. I think our conventional auto is also coming back, and EV is helpful. We do believe, from Q1, we start to see auto will be quite strong, and that will help our wedge bonder a lot. For the memory, at this moment, we don't see full recovery yet. Actually, we start to see recovery coming. We do believe our next few quarter, memory will start to pick up. Memory probably is the last segment. Other than memory, every segment, I think we see very strong demand. We already see initial investment of memory coming in.
From the past three years, actually, the industry utilization rate started going up. The big growth per year, I think compound annual growth rate CAGR is consistently close to a 30% every year. We do believe memory is on the way to come back.
That's very helpful. My next question goes back to some of the comments and prepared remarks from you and Lester, and it relates to supply. Clearly, a phenomenal operations quarter in the December quarter, meeting demand and then implied in the outlook for March with the $300 million in revenue. The question is this, if demand this year were to be meaningfully above the current $1.1 billion forecast, would the company have the ability to flex up supply further to meet that demand? At the current forecast, do you see either constraints or other bottlenecks that would preclude revenues from being higher than that if any of the end markets that you just discussed proved to be stronger than we can now see?
Okay. I think the demand is really strong right now. As you also know, the industry have a minor, maybe a little bit more than minor problem for the supply chain constraint, right? We know there are component shortage, also semiconductor die shortage, and also some logistical constraints. For example, in the freight, also have a difficulty. We are comfortable with a $1.1 billion goal, although we still have upside. The upside maybe will be constrained at this moment with global supply chain constraint. We are not going to give up. Whatever we can do, we will try the best. Answer your question, I think this demand is also very dynamic, right. If you ask us, we can give you at this moment, looks like there are still upside, but there are also significant headwind for the supply chain shortage.
1.1 is the number we feel comfortable, and there is upside, but there is also risk. That is why I think we need to monitor and pull out effort, if we want to realize additional upside.
That's very helpful. My last question is a longer-term question, and it goes back to the target model that the company set a few years ago. The question is this, it's clear that there appears to be, across virtually all end markets, demand strength that has underlying drivers that are multi-year in nature.
Yes.
When the company set its target model, the low end was $1.15 billion, so you're almost getting to that low end this year with current guidance. The question is this, given the multi-year nature of demand, what are the gives and takes to potentially seeing the midterm model revenues in fiscal 2022? I believe that one underlying assumption there was a significant increase in services revenues. Can those revenues ramp quickly enough really to get us towards that $1.187 billion? Might there be other areas of strength that are just greater, for example, the degree of advanced packaging uptake that could more than offset that, if that didn't come to deliver us towards that target financial model midpoint in fiscal 2022? Thank you.
Okay. Craig, I think also this significant ramp. Of course, it's a little bit difficult to predict next year. I think I mentioned today in the Q&A, original, our guidance for the normal year, this [nine], is about $750. Right now with capital intensity, I think we are seeing $850, right? Because of our capital intensity increase. This very close to $1 billion, much closer than before. On top of that, I think, we have upside on 3D chip and TCB. These are new product for us, right? For long-term, I think they are very important. Our 3D chip is a very, very good accuracy and very high productivity. TCB, I think, we actually are quite comfortable with a few design wins. Hopefully will ramp up also for the next couple years. We have 3D chip TCB.
Display market, I think this can also be an upside for us. Also APS, right? APS, I think I give you an example. 2017, our revenue may be $140 million, and then this 2020 is about $170 million. We do believe in three, four years, we have another upside for another $40 million, $50 million. All year adding together. Hopefully, I think what I answer is this. I think the industry, next couple of years, should be very, very healthy. As long as the industry is healthy, I think our core business is very, very healthy for us. We also have upside in a few area I mentioned. Advanced packaging, 3D chip, and TCB, and also our display and the APS.
I think we are quite optimistic for KNS and the whole industry for 2021 and beyond.
Craig, to add on what Fusen said, on top of the revenue he built for you, given our tremendous operating leverage, we believe that at above $1 billion, which again, Fusen just indicated that there's a clear path to it on a sustainable basis, that the operating leverage would allow us to have an EPS of between close to $3 on a sustainable basis.
That's very helpful, gentlemen. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question is coming from David Duley from Steelhead Securities. Your line is now live.
Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on great results. I guess my question is, when I look at your backlog, it certainly suggests that your order rates were substantially above the revenue that you just reported, probably like $140 million above. I guess I'm assuming that your overall visibility has extended. Could you just help us kind of understand how much more visibility you have now? Then maybe help us understand, have your lead times extended? What are your current lead times for wire bonders?
Dave, our visibility has extended, as you put in the backlog. Customers are putting in PO at a tremendous rate, not just for the next quarter, but for the remaining rest of the fiscal year, given the very tight demand for our product as well as for all products, as well as lead time. Lead time now has gone up significantly. I would say it's almost up to about 40 weeks or so, 30 to 40 weeks. I think we do have much better visibility, which is why I think we were comfortable in terms of giving guidance of $1.1 billion for the year.
Okay, great. As far as contribution, I think on the last conference call, roughly your guidance for the year was like $780 million. Now, you've bumped it up to $1.1 billion. Could you just talk about the difference between what the delta is in your segments of business between the $780 million and $1.1 billion. You've kind of gone through this, but this is asking the question a different way. Where did the upside come from in your annual model from the $780 million to the $1.1 billion?
David, I think it's across all sectors, to be honest. I think general semi is still really driving the business. General semi was close to about 74% of our revenues for this quarter. General semi basically went up by about 70%, right? Automotive more than doubled, went up about 100% from the December quarter. LED went up about 80%, right? We see strength across all the segments. I think automotive is definitely coming back, and you can see that in terms of the headlines every day, in terms of the automotive companies having line down. There's a real push right now. Again, I think the difference is it's just an incredible ramp across the board.
Excellent. With this $1.1 billion kind of target of a revenue for the year, as far as the operating margin performance going forward, I think you just achieved a number we haven't seen for some time. Should we expect this 19% or 20% runway, whatever, I guess it was 20%, is that kind of the expectation throughout this calendar year for an operating margin goal?
Well, David, I don't guide for the year below revenue. I think if you do the math in terms of we believe the gross margin would be consistent around the level we have this quarter of between 45%-46%. We believe that we always set the expense OpEx is about $53 million to 5%-7% variable. There is, I've just guided to a effective tax rate of 15%. If you back at it, I think you come very close to the number you just said.
Yeah, I think it does generate, by the way, a little bit more than $3 in earnings. Congratulations. I look forward to the business continuing to improve throughout the year.
Yeah. Thank you, David.
Thanks, David.
Thank you. As a reminder, that's star one to be placed into question queue. Our next question is coming from Christian Schwab from Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is now live.
Excuse me. Congratulations, guys, on just a fabulous quarter and outlook and ability to ramp that. Fusen, as we listen to this and we look at some of your other peers on the back end, I'm curious your thoughts on this, but it seems to me that we're seeing a tremendous industry shift in value that is actually just starting in the back end of the semiconductor equipment process, where capital intensity is beginning to meaningfully increase. Something we saw when the NAND industry had to switch to 3D and when Foundry Logic had to shrink sub 28, right? We're seeing general semiconductors. You're seeing increased volume in complex chips that used to be one package that are now four or six or eight.
On top of that, we're seeing drivers like 5G and automotive, medical, Wi-Fi upgrade cause disproportionate volume even greater than the general industry is doing. With that, multi-die packaging is creating increased complexity, which is causing where we started increase capital intensity. It doesn't seem like there's other technologies that could disrupt this trend. It just seems where the industry is going in a post Moore's Law world, if you will, that we're just going to see more and more multiple chip packages for an extended period of time, and we've under-invested for years. Unless there's some type of economic dislocation that is caused globally again, probably more than likely if we can't get COVID under control, this could be very similar to the shift that we saw on the front end.
This could be a three to five-year trend that just keeps on going and then stays extremely capitally intense, especially if we're going to go from 200 million 5G smartphones to 3 billion X plus or minus over the next four to five years. Am I thinking about that right? Is that what you guys are trying to say?
Actually, we agree. We are quite optimistic overall industry. Christian, on top of what you say, I think we also tried to get into very exciting new business like display. I think this will also provide additional engine for us, and we to deliver at this moment, we have our best tool for industry. We are going to keep our differentiation against any potential competitor. With the strength in the industry and also more than Moore's Law, industrial trend and plus a new opportunity we are getting in, I think we are quite optimistic at this moment.
Right. I guess my last question has to do with cash. What are your thoughts? We are over the course of the next few years, with these type of trends and revenues and the way your model flexes, we're going to have substantial amount of cash on the balance sheet in a couple of years. You already have a substantial amount.
Sure.
Can you give us an idea of, if you think about you've been historically a very shareholder-friendly repurchaser of your shares in the open market.
Yeah.
Can you kind of tell us what you're thinking as far as cash?
Sure. I will add something, and then have Lester also contribute a few sentence. At this moment, because I give you an example of a PIXALUX. From the first day of development to generate revenue, I think we take a little bit, just more than two years, and we are seeing a sizable revenue. We also believe we have a few other products maybe in the same way, and we will continue also in the new display industry. Make the story short. In the short term, I think we have a many growth engine. Uniqarta is additional one. We believe additional technology can help us grow. This is one path. I think we probably like a lot. We're doing dividend, we're doing stock buyback. We are not going to give up. This will continue.
If M&A, I think, will be the last choice, I think we will be very careful. There's a trend we need to deal with. There's a lot of new technology that can aid for our future growth, and they are in a startup stage, and we are also looking at many of these, right? Make the story short, I think organic growth, we are quite confident. We can do very good just internal growth by ourselves, by acquire some spatial technology. That's one way. For the shareholder return, dividend, and also buyback, we will continue. If M&A right opportunities come up, we will not give up. So far, I think we are not paying huge over attention in the bigger M&A at this moment. Lester, you want to say?
Yeah. Christian, I think we've always consistently deployed the cash as quickly as it becomes available, like, in the different geographies, because obviously, as we've mentioned before, we do have certain restrictions in bringing certain cash on shore. I think as Fusen said, we have deployed a significant portion of our free cash flow, in terms of both the share repurchase as well as the dividend. On the share repurchase, we've returned close to 80% of free cash flow to our shareholders since 2015. If you look back last year, that fiscal 2020, we returned out close to 110%, year before, close to 250%. I think that's significant.
I think the other uses of cash as Fusen allocated is that we do believe that there will continue to be interesting technology bolts on that will help accelerate our development like Uniqarta has for our advanced display, as well as for some adjacency technologies that would help us build. We do look at prudent acquisition. A reminder is the acquisition of Assembléon is what allowed us basically to have PIXALUX and the next generation, because that's based on the Assembléon platform. I think between all those, we'll continue to closely monitor the cash situation and, we talk about capital allocation every quarter, both Fusen does with the board.
We'll do what's most prudent both in terms of organic initiatives like PIXALUX, like our advanced packaging plus, technology buys in terms of like Uniqarta, and then obviously, return to the dividend and, optimistically, share repurchases.
Yeah. That's fantastic. No other questions. Again, congratulations on great results and outlook. Thanks.
Thank you. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Joe for any further closing comments.
Thanks, Kevin, and thank you to our participants for joining today's call. We'll be presenting at several upcoming conferences over the coming months. As always, please feel free to follow up directly with any additional questions. Have a great day, everyone. This concludes our call. Thanks.
Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.