Aehr Test Systems printed fiscal Q4 2026 (the 13 weeks ended May 29, 2026) on July 14, 2026 with revenue of $18.8 million, up 33.7% from $14.1 million a year earlier and nearly double the $10.3 million reported in the fiscal Q3 print three months prior. GAAP net income of $1.4 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, flipped the year-ago loss of $(2.9) million, and non-GAAP earnings, which strip out stock-based compensation and acquisition-related amortization, landed at $3.6 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, against a small non-GAAP loss the year before. Management followed with guidance for fiscal 2027 revenue between $130 million and $150 million, implying year-over-year growth of 160% to 200% on a low $50.0 million fiscal 2026 base. That is the load-bearing event of the quarter: a 2.6x to 3.0x topline step-up underwritten by a record $100.6 million of effective backlog as of the report date.
The mechanism behind the pivot is the convergence of three independent customer cycles onto a single burn-in platform. AI accelerator production at the lead WLBI (wafer-level burn-in) customer is shifting from system-level to all wafer-level screening, expanding Aehr's served demand for FOX systems and proprietary WaferPak contactors. Silicon photonics volume for hyperscale optical I/O is ramping into the data center build-out. And silicon carbide, the segment that drove fiscal 2024 revenue to $66.2 million, is showing what management called "encouraging signs of recovery" with $8 million of new WaferPak orders in the last month of the fiscal year, including a direct order from one of the world's largest automakers. Our read is that the equity is being repriced from a "one-customer SiC story" with sub-$60 million revenue to an AI + photonics + SiC option whose fiscal 2027 guide, if even partially hit, places operating leverage on a cost base that has already absorbed the integration of the Incal acquisition.
The single load-bearing risk is customer concentration dressed in a new costume. In fiscal 2026, three customers accounted for 26%, 14%, and 11% of revenue, and the top five contributed roughly 70%. Management describes the lead AI customer, the lead hyperscale Sonoma customer, and the lead silicon photonics customer as three distinct programs, but the share count is thin enough that a single push-out of one of those ramps would compress fiscal 2027 numbers meaningfully. The next data point that tests the thesis is the fiscal Q1 2027 print in late September or early October 2026, where the question is whether the $80.6 million of reported backlog converts into revenue on Aehr's production timeline or slips into fiscal Q2 and beyond.