MKS Inc. (MKSI)
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Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference 2026

Mar 2, 2026

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Joining me today from MKS are Dr. John Lee and Paretosh Misra from IR, get started?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Okay. I'd like to begin with some longer term questions. It's been a few years since your last analyst day, a lot has changed since then. Can you discuss just the direction MKS is headed in, just as a CEO, what are your top priorities over the next two to three years?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. Well, I think the direction really hasn't changed. I think, at the analyst day, you know, four years ago, we talked about packaging becoming more important and part of the you know, really important ecosystem of enabling advanced electronics. That's still the case. I think, more and more of our investors understand that pattern now. Semiconductors still remains one of our core markets, as does electronics and packaging. That strategy was the reason we acquired Atotech, the reason we moved into developing advanced packaging. Between those two markets, we now address 85% of every piece of equipment in every semiconductor fab in the world. Just think about that, every fab in the world, 85% of all the pieces of equipment have multiple MKS subsystems in them.

On packaging, we address 70% of all the steps to enable packaging with laser drilling, via holes, chemistry plating and chemistry equipment. Those two areas are our growth trajectory and strategies for MKS. That really hasn't changed. In fact, I would say it's accelerating.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. I guess as you kind of focus on semi and E&P over the next few years, you sort of talked about, you know, covering 80%-85% of those respective markets. Is MKS's strength as you approach this market kind of scale? Is it a specific tool that stands out? Is it R&D? Just can you level set what your strength is when approaching those markets?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

I think the uniqueness of MKS is that we've been able to figure out how to manage a broad portfolio. We have the broadest portfolio, not just in semi, but also in electronics and packaging. What that broad portfolio gets you is conversations with customers every day. What that gets you is understanding inflections and their roadmaps and how those inflections could affect the products that we make, the critical subsystems, the chemistry, the systems. When you have that kind of insight, you have a lot more confidence in terms of knowing where to go, making those big bets. I think having that broad portfolio allows you to make those bets without having to start something brand new. That's been our strategy for decades in terms of allowing us to outgrow the markets that we are playing in.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. I guess before we start going into your end markets, so you're talking about these inflections, kind of co-developing with almost with customers. Just two to three years out, just what do you think this audience will be most surprised about kind of thinking about MKS?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I don't know if it was a surprise, but I think even some investors today are a little surprised that we're not just a semiconductor critical subsystems company anymore. I think that's been the long part of our history. People are a little surprised now to understand that, well, we're just not just vacuum equipment, critical subsystems, but we're also lithography, metrology, inspection equipment as well. Now we have systems, we have entire tools, and now we have chemistry. I think those are the kind of some of the surprising things that will enable us to grow in the future. I think, we are positioned really well from our standpoint in terms of addressing those two markets, semiconductor and electronics and packaging, with the broadest portfolio, and not just a critical subsystem supplier just by itself anymore.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. It's almost kind of like a broadening of your supplier status.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Exactly.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Got it. Let's start with semi. Conditions are clearly getting better. I feel like the key question now for you guys is just how strong this cycle could be, but just how much demand you're positioned to meet, just what we think about in supply. Can you walk us through just what you're currently seeing on a demand profile and just manufacturing capacity, what you're able to meet?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I think, you know, the industry is very positive about this particular ramp, if you will. I think what's a little different about this particular cycle is that people are much more confident about how much longer it will last, a lot more confidence that it'll be multiple years. When you kind of look at why, I think a lot of that is driven by AI. A lot of the uses of AI are making, you know, those customers money, right? They'll continue to need more chips. I think when you look at MKS's capacity and our ability to meet that, you know, our factories have plenty of capacity. We were prepared for $125 billion WFE two years ago with a 30% surge on top of that.

We just talked about a Malaysia plant that will have a groundbreaking or, sorry, a grand opening in the middle of this year. We'll start putting products into that factory. That's not needed for this particular cycle, we don't think, but it's there in case we do. We're not really worried about our internal factory capacity at all in terms of meeting this demand, whether it lasts a year or two years or even longer. I think we're well-positioned to meet, even larger demand should that arise in the future as well.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Just going back on that $125 billion question. At this moment, I guess you can supply $125 billion plus 30% based on just the current capacity you have.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Correct. Yeah.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I guess just talking about Malaysia, could you just give us a little bit of color on what the kind of capacity would look like, if there's any kind of benefits around margin, financial, margin, anything there, and just kind of location efficiencies from closer customer proximity as well?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. Well, number one, Malaysia is the biggest factory we've ever built in the history of MKS. It's about 500,000 sq ft. That allows us the ability to scale that particular region. You know, it is closer to a lot of the supply chain, so it is more efficient. It's close to many of our customers' factories as well, so a little more efficiency there. Certainly as it comes up, there's always a little headwind to gross margin, just like any big CapEx investment. As it becomes utilized, of course, that becomes accretive to gross margin, and that's our expectation. I think, again, it's something we planned on, you know, two years ago when we decided to do this was a business continuity planning for, you know, just thinking about two to five years from now. We're, you know, ready to open it in another two quarters.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Is that semi or is there some fungibility with other end markets?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah, today the current plan is semi.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Okay.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

You know, it's a big place. Also the site allows us to build other buildings if we wanted to. Remember, we're really a final test and assembly kind of manufacturing house. We can certainly transition to non-semi if that made sense, or E&P for that matter.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Got it. I want to talk about kind of you, MKS, reflective to the cycle. We're back in 2020, you guys grew semiconductor 49%, your two biggest customers are up in the mid-20%. Just as we enter this upcycle, just how should we think about your ability to outperform? Just what are the key differences versus 2020, per se?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Well, typically, you know, where we are in the supply chain, we do outperform. We talk about our long-term outperformance of WFE being WFE CAGR plus 200 basis points. During the ramp, we certainly outperformed, to your point. You know, we did 2.5x in 2020, 2021, and we did 3x in 2016, in fact. I would say the only differences between those ramps and now is that there's not as much NAND actually in this particular ramp as expected versus those two. A little more muted 'cause we do have, you know, great position in NAND. Back in 2016, we didn't really have the photolithography metrology inspection, kind of a different kind of amplitude in terms of the WFE cycle. We have that now. That smooth things out a little bit.

Certainly we didn't have E&P, right? E&P is also growing. The reason E&P is growing is because semi is growing. That's gonna be another area for us to to see positive growth as well.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I guess just to kinda clarify, you don't see as much of the NAND tailwind in 2020, but you have other drivers that you've kinda built up over the last few years that may be able to offset that a little bit.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah, we expect to outperform WFE during the ramp. No one is designing new things in a ramp. They're ordering things that have been designed in, right? These are all the things we've already worked on with our customers over time. As I said earlier, we're addressing 85% of WFE. Whether it's logic that's driving the demand or DRAM or NAND, we're gonna see most of that.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. It does feel given kind of your breadth and depth customers have put out a relatively higher WFE target. Those two customers have historically been your biggest customers. That does bode well for MKS.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

That's right. They put in some numbers in that 20% range, right? Of course, we're in direct contact, constant contact with them in Q4, you know, as well as Q1, we understand their needs, we understand their motivations. They wanna prepare to be able to meet their customer needs. They also wanna prepare for the ramp. Everybody's thinking this ramp might last a lot longer than, you know, a few quarters. We kinda all have to run through the tape at the end of 2026. We can't be slowing down. We might have to be accelerating. Building up inventory, we'll have to build up inventory, they'll have to build up inventory just to be able to make sure that we can run through the tape at the end of 2026 into 2027.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

You're keeping very busy.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

We're very busy. We are totally focused on our supply chain, for sure, because we need them. You know, we think that our supply chain is stronger now than it was the last cycle. You learn things, you make different changes. We went to some bigger suppliers. We went to multiple suppliers. We also even, took inventory, obviously, in certain components. So we're better prepared now, and, you know, we'll see how that works out. I think, you know, our ability to deliver and not disappoint our customers in every ramp, we expect to do that as well.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I guess you called out litho metrology as something that's probably different to your position this cycle, but kinda based on those customer wins over the last two, three years, just are there any specific technology wins or strategic investments that you made that should kinda meaningfully contribute to growth and share gains over the next one to two years?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah, I think, you know, RF power, if NAND takes off, will be icing on the cake. I think litho metrology inspection also will grow because we've actually made those investments over the last 5 years. You know, a lot of our peers talk about this design win, that design win, the number of design wins there. We have exactly the same kind of pattern, except we have 20 product categories. With design wins, that might be an extra $5 million or an extra $15 million. When you add it all up, it's really, you know, much larger numbers. We do have this broad portfolio. As I said again, this allows us to talk to all our customers all the time about what they need.

I think, you know, I think overall, all of our products are continuing to be that number one or number two, in their position in their particular product category.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Before moving to E&P, I feel a big thing that's happened with MKS over the last four years is you've had demand come intra-quarter.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

... just given how much demand has strengthened throughout the quarter. Just at what point does it become tricky to kinda meet that demand surge late in the quarter? What are you asking in terms of visibility from these customers right now?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I think in the last couple of quarters in 2025, we did exceed expectations within the quarter because lead times are short, four weeks to 12 weeks, and we can turn things within the quarter if new demand came in within the quarter. You know, I think right now we have great visibility with our customers. They have given us targets to meet, you know, for the next several quarters. We know what our goal is, what our bogey is. We're preparing that supply chain for that. I think that's, you know, we'll still be shipping quickly as much as we can every quarter, and I think, you know, our guidance showed a little bit up, semi for sure, quarter-on-quarter. As we've talked about, you know, when semi ramps, it can really take off quickly.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Got it. I'd like to turn to E&P next. I want to kind of break this discussion into tools, which is roughly 1/3 of the segment, and then chemistries, which is kind of the remaining 2/3. Let's start with the tools portion first. Can you just kind of level set the audience on what is this tools business consist of? What's the growth drivers? What's kind of demand outlook you're seeing?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. In E&P, our electronics and packaging market, as you said, tools, equipment is about a third of that market. It's made of two components. One is flexible laser drilling of flexible circuits. That is driven by a lot of things like smartphones or wearables, things like that. A lot of things that need flexible circuits. That's our ESI business, if you will. That's seen two years of normalized, you know, upcycle. It's a consumer product cycle, so, you know, Q1, Q2 are the big quarters, and then it tails off through the year. We've seen that. That's part of that equipment for E&P. The second part is chemistry equipment, and that's what we talked about being at record levels today. We talked about it being at record levels in 2025.

We talked about, full for the first half of 2026. The incremental thing we talked about at the earnings call was we've continued to have another 90 days of constructive discussions and bookings with those customers. You can do that math. That continues. That equipment for chemistry is really, you know, installed base that then follows through with the chemistry, our chemistry, which has a very high attach rate.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I feel like throughout the course of 2025, we kept discussing the durability of chemistry tool growth. It kept sort of surprising to the upside. Just can you approximate that sort of mix within that tool business? Is there any kind of hints you can give the audience on how much of that might be sort of more chemistry related versus sort of flex drilling related?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I would say, on the chemistry equipment side, it's driven by AI customers as well as a China plus one customer base. You know, I would say that we are at kind of that $200 million a year run rate. To your point, we kind of... You know, it's a CapEx industry, so it always has cycles. We were thinking, you know, when's this gonna go into the downturn? Surprisingly, it's continued to stay at this high level. We're not constraining our customers today, but we certainly have enough capacity should the volume pick up. I think $200 million of equipment going in every year would be really great eventually for that chemistry revenue to come follow it.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I wanna talk about that attach rate in a second. Just before we go to that, just how are you thinking about the demand outlook for these customers? You kind of said it's just kept getting, you know, better than your expectations throughout 2025. If you had to have sort of, kind of an outlook for 2026 and 2027, it's okay to not have one at all, but, like, what would you kind of say towards that outlook?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah, I would say this. you know, as I said, constructive discussions for another 90 days. 90 days from now, we'll update you on the next quarter. If that continues, then it'll be two full- years, right, of kind of record level chemistry equipment. It's hard to predict after that, but it's certainly a CapEx industry, so it will have a cycle to it. This one is quite long, longer than it's ever been. And maybe that's a portent of the fact that everybody kind of expects this current WFE cycle to last a lot longer than maybe we'd have confidence in the past. Right now we're just, you know, working hard to meet the demand. And we'll see, you know, quarter on quarter if that continues.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Got it. I wanna switch over to the chemistry portion, 'cause when I think about your chemistry business, you have the consumer electronics exposure, which may not be that great. You have an AI exposure business where things are getting great, but you also have the attach rate from just a more installed base. Just can you level set us on just kind of that chemistry mix per se, what part of it might be AI, what part of it might be consumer electronics?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I would say this. We've talked about it in the past. The PCB industry, we look at it as a third, a third, a third. A third is multi-layer boards, a third is HDI boards, and a third is substrate boards. Increasing complexity, but kind of a third of the revenue is in these three sub-segments. You know, I would say, we've talked about the percentage of chemistry revenue that's AI related. In 2024, that was 5% of our chemistry revenue. In 2025, it was 10%. It doubled. I think in our earnings call, we talked about in 2025, 10% was the average, but quarter on quarter on quarter on quarter it was increasing. We expect that run rate to continue through 2026.

You know, the PCs and the smartphones does have that consumer product cycle. You know, the lowest chemistry revenue is in Q1 because of the Lunar New Year, and then Q2 picks up, and Q3 picks up, and then Q4 back down again. Those are large markets as well, PCs and smartphones. That's still a strong, healthy component of our revenue.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Can you give us a little bit of clarity on where your kind of chemistries play a part in the AI supply chain? You know, doubling is pretty good growth, but just kind of what are you seeing there? Where are you playing a part in?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I think, you know, those three sub-segments of the PCB market, turns out, you know, we were sort of a little surprised. We thought it was always the high end, this packaged substrate that was going to be driven by AI, and that's true. So a lot of the chemistry revenue goes to that. It turns out that a lot of the substrates have to be put onto HDI layers, which have to be put onto MLB layers. Those are also driving the equipment revenue, but also the chemistry revenue. Chemistry is actually being driven at all three sub-segments of the PCB industry by AI. Equipment for us is really about the HDI level and the MLB level.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Got it. As we think about sort of, you have a bit of a consumer electronics headwind, you have an AI tailwind, but you have a tailwind on the chemistry tool attach rate as well. I know we've spoken about kind of for every $100 million of tool purchases, you get sort of a $20 million-$40 million attach rate. Just can you kind of level set the audience on what that kind of $20 million-$40 million entails? What do we need to get to the $40 million versus, you know, a $20 million?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I think, number one, there's the lead time for it, right? We get the order, it takes us, you know, six to 12 months to build a tool, depending on the size of it, then we install it, we have to qualify it, test revenue. Test the new chemistry. We are already starting to see some revenue come from those tools installed or that we talked about in the last year and a half. Most of the chemistry revenue is coming from tools that were installed, you know, three years ago. For every $100 million of equipment, you're right, we can get $20 million-$40 million of annualized chemistry revenue forever, basically. Whether it's $20 million or $40 million, it depends on the process, depends on the size of the tool.

That's really where that range occurs. You know, that $20 million-$40 million though is at much higher gross margin, right? Our chemistry revenue, gross margin is in that high 50s range. The attach rate is extremely high in the beginning and stays at 85% even after the long term.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Got it. I wanna talk a little bit about kind of sequencing the year for chemistry because, you know, the attach rate is great, I do wanna talk about the consumer electronics weakness that we might see in the second half. Just for this kind of first half, you have the Lunar New Year weakness in Q1. You kind of hopefully that reverses in Q2. Are there any discussions around just a possibility of a consumer electronics tailwind? Just where's your kind of mind at in terms of that front?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

I think for consumer products, there are a couple of things that are a little bit of tailwind. I think the smartphone market this cycle is a little healthier than it has been in the last year or two. I think there's some exciting new form factors coming up in the next cycle this fall or early next year. I think those are good for chemistry, for flex PCB drilling. Then of course, everybody's talking about could there be headwinds because, you know, memory is too expensive, et cetera. As I said in the earnings call, if it does lower handsets and PCs by low single, double digits, low single digits, then I think the AI revenue will more than make up for that.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Got it. maybe not as well if it was down more than low single digits.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I think, we hear some reports that have really large numbers, which are quite hard to believe, right? I would just say this, there's a lot of demand for smartphones and PCs, yes, they can go down a little bit, but if they were going down that much, there would be a lot more demand, and people would figure out a way to get those PCs and those smartphones into the hands of the consumers. If there is a little degradation in supply, then it just pushes out that demand maybe into the next year, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Before I go to financial questions, I wanna talk about kind of, you know, two to three years ahead, what MKSI might surprise on the E&P front for the audience. I guess for 2025, it was the strength of this tooling business. Anything two to three years, whether it might be an inflection or just kind of the strength, the demand, the attach rate, what do you think people will be surprised about regarding your E&P business?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. Well, I think one of the things that, hopefully, happens when we execute on our strategy is that, you know, the idea of being able to serve the with a complete portfolio of solutions should allow us to be more important to our customers and should allow us, therefore, to gain share. I think part of that strategy that we have is we're going to address 70% of E&P and 85% of WFE. If we can do that, we will be able to provide solutions faster to our customers, and therefore gain share. We have laser drilling as well, right? I think in E&P, that's an amazingly exciting area.

I think, I think what's new for some of our investors is that when we talked about buying Atotech, 2021, and we said packaging matters, I think a lot of people really just didn't understand that, especially a lot of our customers or investors were semi-oriented. I think people are starting to understand that now. A lot of more of the questions are on E&P. People are understanding that market better. you know, we have talked about E&P potentially. It is already as important as semi, which coming from a semi guy is a big statement, right? E&P, if it was not for the ability of the industry to put 40 layers together or 60 layers, below those chips, you wouldn't need as many chips for AI. You just wouldn't.

It is already as important as making those chips better. I think that's the, that's hopefully gonna be the strategy that we demonstrate to the investors over the next few years.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I don't want to put you on the spot, E&P grew more than semi in 2025. If I look at E&P and semi, you're allowed to say both, but which should we be more excited for?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

both.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Okay.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

No, I would say this, semi was relatively muted for us in 2024 and 2025. Even though we outgrew semi in 2025, it was by 4%, 3%. That's nothing compared to what we talked about earlier, where it's 2x potentially, right, during that ramp. That's the expectation. In 2026, we should see that kind of normal historical overperformance during the beginning of a ramp. That shouldn't be a surprise. Having E&P continue to grow because that's more of a consumables revenue stream, that's gonna be exciting as well. That will demonstrate that people are utilizing the tools out there. When our tools come online with chemistry, even better for us from a market share standpoint.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Last two questions on financials, and then I'll pass it to the audience for questions. You have a little bit of a dilemma in gross margin because you have better tool sales, that's a little bit lower gross margin than the chemistries, and you also have the impact of palladium costs. Just could you kind of level set the audience on where your gross margins are now, why they're, you know, maybe a little bit lower than last year, and where you kind of see gross margin progressing for the year?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I'll ask Paretosh to talk about that. Yeah.

Paretosh Misra
VP of Investor Relations, MKS

Yeah. Shane, I mean, you know that our gross margins even last year were pretty good if you exclude the tariffs. As you look ahead for Q1, when you look at our outlook, I mean, the basic moving drivers are the same, the volume and the mix. In Q1, we have the Lunar New Year, that impacts the E&P business because of the chemistry, but keep in mind, even the specialty industrial has chemistry, so it impacts at two places. As you pointed out, palladium, which is a pass-through, no impact to our gross profit, but it does create some dilution. We can't predict palladium, but we what we have in Q1 is what the prices have done in the last three to six months. That's an adverse impact.

As you look into these moving parts, you know, you can, that gives you a clear path forward as to what the gross margins will be, and you look into Q2, Q3, Q4.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I guess just on the clarification on the palladium point is that's the biggest input cost for the E&P chemistries. You pass it on for revenue but not gross profit, so it kind of weighs on the gross margin line a little bit.

Paretosh Misra
VP of Investor Relations, MKS

Yeah. Exactly.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. On the kind of seasonals for the year, I guess just given the utilization on the chemistry front, Q1 just looks a little bit lighter for gross margin.

Paretosh Misra
VP of Investor Relations, MKS

Yeah.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Okay. Last one before I open it up. At your 2022 Analyst Day, you outlined a 26% operating margin target. In 2024, it might have seemed like a little bit of a distant target, but just given the industry tailwinds that we're seeing, it may seem a little bit more realistic. Just where are you guys at on operating margin? What should we expect for the year?

Paretosh Misra
VP of Investor Relations, MKS

Yeah. I mean, look, high volumes or high revenue make a lot of these targets a lot easier. What we have said for for Q1 and for the rest of the year, but for the Q1, we have given you specific OpEx guidance, and for the rest of the year, what we have said is that OpEx will grow less than revenue. You know the OpEx percentage sales was, what, 26% last year, and Q1 is also at around that level. That gives you a good base level, and then you can build it from there.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. I'd like to open it up to the audience if anyone's got any questions. Oh, Steven.

Speaker 4

When it comes to the E&P equipment side of the business, right, is there any reason that that piece for us should undergrow substrate and PCB CapEx? I think if we look at substrate and PCB CapEx plans going forward, right, the Asia guys are extremely aggressive when it comes to this CapEx ramp, right? I mean, if hypothetically their CapEx is all up 30% year-on-year into 2026 or 2027, is there any reason that that portion for us won't grow the same sort of magnitude?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. Thanks for the question. I think, one bit of clarification, just so, you know, the audience understands. The equipment we are shipping is, we said, for HDI and MLB because it's a horizontal piece of equipment. For substrates, it's vertical. We don't do the vertical equipment, so there we just compete for chemistry. In general, if you're going to increase your CapEx, our customers are gonna increase their CapEx. For PCBs, for AI, they have to increase the vertical, the horizontal, and the horizontal for HDI and horizontal for MLB. In general, we shouldn't see any kind of difference. We do have leading market share in those horizontal tools, and so, as well as the chemistry. I think, as you know, we have the top 30 PCB substrate customers as our customers.

We're certainly intimately involved with all the discussions that they have with CapEx. We see that they are aggressive, for sure. If they, if they have those kinds of numbers, we should see our fair share, is how I'd characterize it.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I wanna follow up on that. As we go to higher layer counts, how does that intensity differ between the vertical and the horizontal?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Every layer is made one at a time, so that's important. That's important because in MLB, those layers are increasing the fastest. HDI the next, and then substrate's not increasing, but not as fast. If you're going to increase MLB layers the fastest, you need more equipment, and then HDI, and then substrate. I think in that sense, you probably need even more equipment for MLB and HDI than you might need for substrate.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Just between kinda like the horizontal tooling versus, I guess, the vertical laser drilling.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

The vertical chemistry tools, those are for substrates, but the horizontal are for HDI and MLB. Those are the tools we're making. Those, HDI and MLB, are the layers growing the fastest, the number of layers are growing the fastest versus substrates. All are growing, but MLB is the fastest, HDI next, then substrate next.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Any other questions? I guess just going back to that E&P front, just can you kind of level set the audience on what your lead times are for these tools? Because you've kept talking about kind of orders strengthening throughout last year, like what your current capacity is, sort of the questions that we asked on the semi front and capacity, but kind of plugged into E&P.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. you know, we're kinda running at a $200 million a year run rate. That capacity consumes the major factory we have, which is in China. We've done a little expansion there. We have not built a new building there because we have an entirely, you know, larger independent site in Germany, and that site is already taking some of the overflow. We have plenty of capacity to do both. Now longer term, as we look at strategic planning for the company three to five years out. If we think equipment is going to continue to grow because it's more critical, then of course we might start thinking about capacity then. We have plenty of capacity right now.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Enough capacity to meet stronger demand signals that your customers are giving.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. Yeah.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I think it's on that $200 million, just how long do these tools take to install and when should we start thinking about that $20 million-$40 million attach rate? Like, when does that start kicking into the numbers?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. As I said, you know, we get an order and then it takes us, you know, six to nine months to build the thing. During that time, we actually recognize some revenue 'cause we can, because we already have prepayments.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Mm-hmm.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

As we're building it. That's kind of a little subtlety, but it's important to know. The first, let's call it nine months, you know, we still have the tool. We haven't shipped it.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Yeah.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

We're recognizing revenue. We ship it. Installation can take six months, and then commissioning, and then they're testing a particular process for their customer. If they get qualified, they can run. You could add another six months, you could add another 12 months, right? Depending on that customer. That's why we say 18-24 months from the first recognition of revenue, you should start seeing some of that revenue from that piece of equipment. Then it's just a matter of when does that become fully utilized. When it's fully utilized, that's a $20 million or $40 million number that we're talking about.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

I guess for the strong tool shipments that you had in 2025, we probably shouldn't factor that $20 million-$40 million this year, but maybe start trickling that in for 2027.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

I think that's fair. I think, we were seeing some of it already, but these are like, pilot line, you know, chemistries. It's not really that $20 million, $40 million.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Mm-hmm.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

I think that would be a fair way to look at it. The chemistry revenue we expect to grow this year. We grew last year. That's on equipment we installed in 2022.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Yeah.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

2021.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Got it. Just last question from me. Anything that you think that investors misunderstand about MKSI? Anything that you think you're probably a little bit more excited about than kind of this audience on MKSI, and then we can wrap up?

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Yeah. I would say that the uniqueness of MKSI is the fact that we're the only company that is addressing semi and packaging of semi, right? There's no one else doing that. A lot of our peers and even our customers who talk about, in semi, who talk about packaging, they're talking about CoWoS. That's the one or two layers of the redistribution layer. We're talking about the 50 layers below PCB. That's what we talk about when we talk about packaging. As I said, there's no other company who's leveraged in both of these. The most important point is that you need both of them equally to enable today's advanced electronics like AI.

Shane Moore
Equity Research Analyst of Semiconductors, Morgan Stanley

Great. Well, we'll call it a day there. Thank you, John. Thank you, Paretosh.

John Lee
President and CEO, MKS

Thanks, Shane. Okay. Thanks, everybody.

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