there, as well as we're looking to expand beyond automotive, of course, as we did last year a little bit with life sciences.

And then shifting over, it's kind of a similar question on the semi side of the house. You know, the company has an extensive history with regards to, you know, the semi-test market, you know, particularly in the back end. And you're kind of going through a new cycle now. You're seeing a pickup and order activity. Do you expect to continue through the second half how long is a typical cycle for something like that i know that typically with regards to it you sort of the back end of the cycles as they go through but i mean is it the kind of thing where you see you know continue typically typically not trying to say this is what this personal this particular situation is but typically you see a pickup and order an activity that lasts for you know six months 12 months 18 months kind of what's a what's a what's kind of a standard way to think about that in terms of, you know, like a cycle for you?

Yeah, it's a great question. I guess if I had the exact answer, we would have a different conversation, right? But, you know, I've been in the semi-business myself for more than 30 years, and, you know, typical cycles, it kind of goes ebbs and flows with the node transitions, which have typically been on the 18-month kind of timeframe, of course, barring any macroeconomic changes to the situation, right? So, for example, today, memory shortages, right, that maybe drive increased capacity needs. So, you know, I would say typically you see something on the order of 9 to 12 months of higher order, capacity increases, technology changes, and then you'd get into a somewhat of a slowdown period. You know, so something along those lines would make sense. But then you throw in the macro part of it, which is today's memory shortages, the AI aspect, and it kind of makes it of a difficult answer to really predict.

But if you just were to say, like, this is the average, you know, in an average scenario, a typical thing when a cycle turns, you're at the beginning of it. And generally speaking, you would see continued strength as you finish off 26 and go into 27.

Yeah, that would be the expectation. Certainly we're watching that guardedly, right? But we typical would be, like I said, we would plan something in the order of six to nine months, maybe a maximum of 12 or so, and then really, you know, start to consider what would happen next. Of course, we then plan for projects for next round of technology growth, which would refuel the cycle again, right?

And then I know the semi-business is one of the better margin businesses for Intest. Could you give us some kind of color with regards to the margin profile for your back-end semi-business relative to corporate averages?

Yeah, I can touch on that. I think we've talked about this before. I mean, our back-end semi-business, as you mentioned, Ted, one of the legacy pieces of the business, certainly the margins there, higher towards the, let's say, sort of mid-50s kind of range, certainly one of the higher margin profiles across our product portfolio. and that shift between those higher margins versus some of the great auto projects but tend to be higher volume, lower margin, that change of mix as we go into the second half, a real driver of the margin shift that we see in the second half versus the first half.

And then my last question, which you alluded to a renewed focus, if you would, on efficiency within Intest. Is this, you know, as you kind of dug in for the last 100 days and you're looking at it and saying, hey, we can do even better than this, is this something that's been, you know, just sort of part and parcel of things in the past? Are you – is it something where we might be – you might be coming back to us in a quarter or so and say, hey, we're taking these different programs. We're going to take this kind of cost out of the business. this, you know what I mean, like, I guess, Duncan, you did that, you guys did that a year or two ago. You see what I'm saying? Like, you know, how much of it is kind of just a continual improvement and how much of it is kind of like, well, we're going to put pencil and paper and this is actually something that's going to be a defined project?

Yeah, it's, I mean, I think we're always in a continuous mode of looking at things. As you mentioned, we did some things last year. We're taking a harder look at things for sure now than we have in the past, per se. Whether there's going to be a project or two, I think it's still a bit early to answer that question. We're still going through some of our analysis and things. One thing we are doing that we're implementing now, which will hopefully yield some good efficiency gains going forward, is working on And more cross-collaboration between the businesses, utilizing our resources a little better. It's hard to put a number on that and the timing, but those are activities that are ongoing. But we're taking a hard look at everything in the business with regards to footprint, you know, consolidation of efforts around purchasing and things like this that we hope will yield some things. And as mentioned in Q1, we hope by, you know, the Q3, Q4 timeframe, we'll be able to come back with some more concrete things.

All right. Thank you very much for taking my questions. You're welcome.

And as a reminder, it's star one if you would like to ask a question. Next, we'll move to Dick Ryan with Oak Ridge Financial.

Thank you. Rich, just a couple more questions on the semi-side. Are you seeing anything show up yet on the front end? Was the front end any part of the increasing funnel that you're talking about in the second half, or is that still something we should be anticipating in 2027?

Morning, Dick. Yeah, it's still more 2027 related in our estimation, although I will say activities are picking up in that space as well.

Now, I think you mentioned new product development, introducing something for the silicon carbide testing. Do you need to get that product line out or is your product portfolio sufficient at this point versus what you're seeing coming at you in the funnel?

The product line is somewhat unrelated. I think the front end semi-business that we've had in the past is there's still evolutions to the product that we're working with customers on. It's more of a demand issue on that side than it is a product development issue. And the more of the developments that we're seeing today in that space are more around the testing, which is more towards the back end of that space.

Okay. A question on the back end, yeah, I mean, with the introduction of robotics and automation, how has that increased your available market that you can go after versus the non-robotic automated side of things?

I think it's an evolution of the product and the market. So traditionally, the back end of the market has been very manual. And as labor is tight and people are moving to get more efficient, things are becoming more and more automated. So I wouldn't say it's necessarily growing the market significantly, although our solutions are enabling us to take more of that market share.

Okay.

One last one on the expanding opportunities across the end markets and deepening customer penetration. How do you see your customer concentration, whether top five, top ten? And how do you see that shaping over the next year or so?

Yeah, I would guess that the goal would be to have a few, you know, to get our top 10 customers or top five customers even, in a way, even bigger. So we penetrate with more of our product solutions than maybe we do today. We're seeing, you know, joint activities between the businesses that are driving some of that activity, which would increase our wallet share at those customers. But I also see it as we've been growing, you know, we've been changing the landscape of those top five customers over the quarter. So we'd like to get more customers up into those levels, but it'll probably change from quarter to quarter based upon their demands, right?

Sure, sure.

Okay, thank you, Rich. You're welcome.

And as a reminder, it's star one. If you would like to ask a question, and we'll pause for just a moment. And this will conclude the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back to Rich Rogoff for closing remarks.

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