About inTEST

inTEST Corporation (inTEST) operates as a global supplier of test and process solutions for use in manufacturing and testing across a wide range of markets, including automotive, defense/aerospace, industrial, life sciences, security and semiconductors (semi). The company’s products provide highly engineered, test and process solutions which are delivered with a customer focus that are intended to drive a high level of customer satisfaction. The company’s strategy is to consistently develop unique and differentiated solutions through innovative new product development and acquisitions. The company can provide significant and sustainable long-term growth by expanding its serviceable addressable market (SAM) and building a larger installed product base. To capture this opportunity, the company intends to make investments to drive further penetration in its existing markets. The company’s portfolio of products to its existing customer base, as well as by expanding its customer base within these markets. In addition, the company intends to increase its global footprint and coverage to better serve new and existing customers. Finally, the company’s strategy in this area includes targeting expansion into new markets with its existing product portfolio. During 2022, the company’s businesses continued to gain new customers in both the semi market and in its other target markets and it has expanded its sales and support network to regions of the world where it identified gaps in coverage. The company’s 5-Point Strategy focuses on leveraging its engineering know-how and expertise to deliver innovative solutions. The company continues to invest in engineering resources with the goal of developing new and unique solutions to help solve its customers’ most complex challenges in their manufacturing and quality processes. In 2022, the company launched its Eco-ThermoStream which is more energy efficient and offers more advanced control technologies than competitive platforms and it expanded its automated manipulator portfolio with the mid-tier LSC model. The company has strong customer relationships and believe service and support activities are valuable in strengthening customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. Through ensuring that the company serves its customers’ needs, whether by expanding service coverage and decreasing response time or through expanding and enhancing service offerings, it can drive revenue growth and strengthen its customer relationships. The company expects to invest in resources to fill areas where it has identified gaps in service and support. The company also plans to invest in technology to provide remote service capabilities to monitor the health of its products that are onsite at customer locations. In 2022, the company continued to expand its service partner network across the U.S., Canada and Asia. In addition to driving organic growth, the company’s strategy includes acquiring businesses, technologies or products that are complementary to its product offerings. The company’s acquisition strategy is to add to its solutions by expanding capabilities, such as expanded induction heating frequency or refrigeration temperature range, and to expand its geographic presence. The company also will consider new technologies that replicate the highly engineered, high quality and differentiated solutions of its product portfolio for test and process solutions. The company focuses on expanding its electronic test capabilities, widening its thermal test capabilities in areas, such as environmental test, and building its processing technologies offerings with expanded imaging and heating capabilities. In 2022, the company focuses on the integration of the acquisitions that occurred in the fourth quarter of 2021. The company continues to assess target companies to drive further inorganic growth in support of its 5-year plan. Markets The company focuses on specific target markets which include automotive, defense/aerospace, industrial, life sciences, security and semi. The company’s largest market is semi. The roots of inTEST’s engineered product history are in the back-end of semi in integrated circuit (IC) testing. Semi Market With its induction heating products, the company serves the front-end of the semiconductor manufacturing process including silicon carbide (SiC) crystal growth and epitaxial reactors. A variety of the company’s electronic test and environmental technologies segments’ products are used in the back-end of the semiconductor manufacturing process, which includes the testing of ICs. Other Markets The company provides a variety of solutions to its automotive, defense/aerospace, industrial, life sciences, and security markets. In the automotive market, the company provides solutions that help in the quality and productivity of electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing. The company’s solutions include induction heating solutions for motor manufacturing and automated test equipment for battery cells. In the defense/aerospace industry, the company provides ATE to prime and subcontract manufacturers to ensure quality control is maintained while also providing quicker, more accurate test times of electronic circuit boards. In the life sciences industry, the company provides image capture products, heating systems for medical device manufacturing and equipment for critical applications within the medical cold chain for pharmaceuticals. In the security industry, the company’s image capture and data management technologies are used in a broad variety of applications. The industrial market is the broadest, most diverse area the company serves with a majority of its products serving a variety of applications. Applications for the company’s induction heating products include annealing, bonding, brazing, curing, forging, heat treating, melting and shrink-fitting. Applications for the company’s thermal test and process products include pressure-sensor testing and cold-trap cooling for industrial processes. Solutions The company focuses its development efforts on designing and producing high quality products that provide superior performance and cost-effectiveness. The company seeks to address each manufacturer's individual needs through innovative and customized designs, use of the best materials available, quality manufacturing practices and personalized service. Temperature-Controlled Testing: The company’s ThermoStream(R) products are used by manufacturers in a number of markets to stress test a variety of semiconductor and electronic components, printed circuit boards and sub-assemblies. The company’s thermal platforms and temperature chambers, sold under its Sigma Systems product line, can accommodate large thermal masses and are found in both laboratory and production environments. Thermonics' products provide a range of precision temperature forcing systems and have been melded into Temptronic's ATS ThermoStream(R) product line. The Thermonics brand is used to market a family of process chillers for test and industrial applications. Ultra-Cold Storage Solutions: With its acquisition of North Sciences the company has expanded its product offerings to include high-performance biomedical freezer, refrigerators and mobile storage solutions that meet versatile applications, including ultra-cold storage solutions for biological sample banks, blood safety, vaccine safety, medical supplies and reagent safety. Induction Heating: The company’s induction heating products are used in process applications where precision-controlled heating is needed. Customers use the company’s induction heating products in conjunction with other technologies in various manufacturing environments to improve production efficiencies and reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. Applications for the company’s EKOHEAT or EASYHEAT induction heating products include annealing, bonding, brazing, curing, forging, heat treating, melting, shrink-fitting, crystal growing, semi-wafer heating and material testing. Digital Streaming and Image Capturing Solutions: The company’s acquisition of Videology added industrial-grade circuit board mounted digital imaging solutions, Zoom Block cameras and complete image capture systems. Videology also offers OEMs imaging solutions designed to the customers’ specifications and that can interface with the customers’ software. Scalable, Universal, High Performance Interface Technology: The company’s universal test head manipulators provide a high degree of positioning flexibility with a minimum amount of effort. As a result, its products can be used in virtually any test setting. The company’s manipulator products are designed to accommodate the increased size of test heads. The company’s docking hardware products offer precise control over the connection to test sockets, probing assemblies and interface boards, reducing downtime and minimizing damage to fragile components. The company’s newest manipulator and docking hardware designs offer automated capabilities that allow for reduced downtime and increased productivity through predictable and repeatable production setup with reduced risk of operator error. The company’s tester interface products optimize the integrity of the signals transmitted between the test head and the device under test by being virtually transparent to the test signals, which results in increased accuracy of the test data and may thus enable improved test yields. Compatibility and Integration: A hallmark of the company’s products has been, and continues to be, compatibility with a wide variety of ATE. The company’s manipulator and docking hardware products are all designed to be used with otherwise incompatible ATE. Robotics-Based Electronic Production Test Equipment: The company’s acquisition of Acculogic adds to its electronic test platform offerings beyond those which exclusively serve semi. Acculogic designs and manufactures robotics-based electronic production test equipment and provides application support services which are sold to electronic manufacturers, including OEM and contract electronic manufacturers, as well as battery manufacturers. Worldwide Customer Service and Support: The company has long recognized the need to maintain a physical presence near its customers' facilities. The company provided service to its customers from sales and service personnel based in the U.S., Europe and Asia. The company’s engineers are easily accessible to, and can work directly with, most of its customers from the time it begin developing its initial proposal, through the delivery, installation and use of the product by its customer. In this way, the company is able to develop and maintain close relationships with its customers. Segments The company operates through three segments Electronic Test, Environmental Technologies, and Process Technologies. Electronic Test segment consists of inTEST EMS which has operations in New Jersey and California, and Acculogic, which has operations in Canada, California and Germany. Semiconductor manufacturers use the company’s inTEST EMS solutions in back-end testing where its mechanical and electrical products serve production testing of wafers and specialized packaged ICs. These ICs include microprocessors, digital signal processing chips, mixed signal devices, MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems), application specific ICs and specialized memory ICs, and are used primarily in the automotive, consumer electronics, industrial, and mobile communication markets. The company’s products are a combination of standard designs based on industry requirements and those designed specifically to meet a customer's particular combination of ATE. With the acquisition of Acculogic, the company’s Electronic Test segment now also includes robotics-based electronic test equipment and application support services used primarily in defense/aerospace, automotive, battery, life sciences and electronic manufacturing services industries. Environmental Technologies segment consists of inTEST Thermal Solutions (iTS), which manufactures and sells products under the Temptronic, Sigma, Thermonics and North Sciences brand names and has operations in Massachusetts, Germany and Singapore. Customers use the thermal solutions produced by iTS for product development, characterization and production test. This segment also offers ultra-cold storage solutions for the life sciences cold chain market. The company’s Environmental Technologies segment provides these solutions across an array of markets, including automotive, defense/aerospace, industrial, life sciences and semiconductor. The company’s Process Technologies segment consists of Ambrell which has operations in New York, the Netherlands and the U.K and Videology, which has operations in Massachusetts and the Netherlands. Ambrell provides customers with induction heating solutions for a wide variety of manufacturing processes. Videology is a designer, developer and manufacturer of digital streaming and image capturing solutions. The company’s Process Technologies segment provides these solutions across an array of markets, including automotive, defense/aerospace, industrial, life sciences, security and semiconductor. Electronic Test Products Manipulator Products: The company offers three lines of manipulator products: the in2(R), the Cobal and the LS Series. These free-standing universal manipulators can hold a variety of test heads and enable an operator to reposition a test head for alternate use with any one of several probers or handlers on a test floor. The company’s manipulator products incorporate a balanced floating-head design. This design permits a test head weighing up to 1,760 pounds to be held in an effectively weightless state, so it can be moved manually or with optional powered assistance, up or down, right or left, forward or backward and rotated around each axis (known as six degrees of motion freedom) by an operator using a modest amount of force or with a computer controlled pendant. The same design features enable the operator to dock the test head without causing inadvertent damage to the fragile electrical contacts. As a result, after testing a particular production lot of ICs, the operator can quickly and easily disconnect a test head that is held in an in2(R) or Cobal Series manipulator and equipped with the company’s docking hardware and dock it to another electronic device handler for testing either a subsequent lot of the same packaged ICs or to test different ICs. With the LS Series manipulators, the undocking, movement of the test head and redocking can be done automatically through the computer controlled pendant. Docking Hardware Products: The company offers two lines of docking hardware products: fixed manual docking and IntelliDock pin and cup docking. Both types protect the delicate interface contacts and ensure proper repeatable and precise alignment between the test head's interface board and the prober's probing assembly or the handler's test socket as they are brought together, or docked. Fixed manual docking includes a mechanical cam mechanism to dock and lock the test head to the prober or handler. IntelliDock is an automated docking solution that provides operator feedback for each docking step via a touchscreen display, and when coupled with the LS Series manipulator, redeployment of the test head can be done automatically and accurately via the computer pendant. Both types of docking hardware products eliminate motion of the test head relative to the prober or handler once docked. This minimizes deterioration of the interface boards, test sockets and probing assemblies that is caused by constant vibration during testing. The company’s docking hardware products are used primarily with floating-head universal manipulators when maximum mobility and inter-changeability of handlers and probers between test heads is required. By using its docking hardware products, semiconductor manufacturers can achieve cost savings through improved ATE utilization, improved accuracy and integrity of test results, optimized floor support and reduced repairs and replacements of expensive ATE interface products. The company’s docking hardware products offer its customers the ability to make various competing brands of test heads compatible with various brands of probers and handlers by only changing interface boards. This is called plug-compatibility. Interface Products: The company’s tester interface products provide the electrical connections between the tester and the wafer prober or IC handler to carry the electrical signals between the tester and the probe card on the prober or the test socket on the handler. The company’s designs optimize the integrity of the transmitted signal. Therefore, the company’s tester interfaces can be used with high speed, high frequency, digital or mixed signal testers used in testing more complex ICs. Because the company’s tester interface products enable the tester to provide more reliable yield data, its interfaces may also reduce IC production costs. The company designs standard and modular interface products to address most possible tester/prober combinations on the market today. In addition, the company provides a custom design service that will allow any of its customers to use virtually any tester, prober or handler combination with any type of device, such as analog, digital, mixed signal and radio frequency. For example, the company’s Centaur(R) modular interface is designed to provide flexibility and scalability through the use of replaceable signal modules, which can be easily changed on the test floor as its customers' testing requirements change. In addition to the Centaur(R) modular interface, the company offers over 200 different types of tester interface models that it customs designed for its customers' specific applications. Acculogic Scorpion Flying Probe Test Systems: Acculogic designs and manufactures robotics-based electronic test equipment and provides application support services for OEMs, contract electronic manufacturers and battery manufacturers. These systems are used to structurally test an electronic device. Structural testing is a confirmation that the device was manufactured properly. Acculogic’s Scorpion Flying Probe system can be quickly programmed to test almost any printed circuit board. This programming is quickly done with a digitized drawing of the device to be tested. Traditional in-circuit testing systems require a dedicated fixture for each board to be tested. Acculogic’s Flying Probe system can test a virtually unlimited number of boards without any hardware modifications. Acculogic BRiZ Automated Test and Programming Services: BRiZ is an automated test platform that can consolidate any variety of circuit board test and programming into a single, compact, low-cost test station. Environmental Technologies Products ThermoStream(R) Products: The company’s ThermoStream(R) products are used in the semi market as a stand-alone temperature management tool, or in a variety of electronic test applications as part of its MobileTemp systems. ThermoStream (R) products provide a source of heated and cooled air that can be directed over the component or device under test. These systems are capable of controlling temperatures to within +/- 0.1 degree Celsius over a range of -100 degrees Celsius to as high as +300 degrees Celsius within 1.0 degree Celsius of accuracy. As a stand-alone tool, ThermoStreams(R) provide a temperature-controlled air stream to rapidly change and stabilize the temperature of packaged ICs and other devices. The company’s MobileTemp Series combines its ThermoStream(R) products with its family of exclusive, high-speed ThermoChambers to offer thermal test systems with fast, uniform temperature control in a compact package enabling temperature testing at the test location. MobileTemp Systems are designed specifically for small thermal-mass applications beyond the semi market and have found application in the automotive, electronic, fiber optic and oil field service markets testing such things as electronic sub-assemblies, sensor assemblies, and printed circuit boards. Traditionally, the company’s customers use ThermoStream(R) products primarily in engineering, quality assurance and small-run manufacturing environments. Thermal Chambers: The company’s thermal chamber products are available in a variety of sizes, from small bench-top units to chambers with internal volumes of twenty-seven cubic feet and greater and with temperature ranges as wide as from -190 degrees Celsius to +500 degrees Celsius. Chambers can be designed to utilize liquid nitrogen or liquid carbon dioxide cooling or mechanical refrigeration, and sometimes both. These chambers can accommodate large thermal masses and are found in both laboratory and production environments. Thermal Platforms: The company’s thermal platforms are available in surface sizes ranging from 7.2 square inches to 616 square inches. They provide a flat, thermally conductive, precisely temperature controllable surface that is ideal for conditioning of testing devices with a flat surface. Platforms are available with temperature ranges as broad as -100 degrees Celsius to +250 degrees Celsius. Thermal platforms can be designed to utilize either liquid nitrogen or liquid carbon dioxide cooling or mechanical refrigeration. Platforms offer virtually unimpeded access to the device under test and their easy access and compact size makes them ideal for convenient bench-top use. Thermonics Products: The company’s Thermonics temperature conditioning products, which include its process chillers, provide tempered gas or fluid to enable customers to maintain desired thermal conditions within their tool or process. Applications include general industrial, chemical processing, energy, electronics, automotive, defense/aerospace and semiconductor markets. Ultra-Cold Storage Solutions: The company’s high-performance biomedical freezers, refrigerators and mobile storage solutions meet versatile applications, including ultra-cold storage solutions for biological sample banks, blood safety, vaccine safety, medical supplies and reagent safety. Process Technologies Products EKOHEAT Products: The company’s EKOHEAT induction heating systems with power ratings from 10kW to 1 MW are manufactured by Ambrell and are used to conduct fast, efficient, repeatable non-contact heating of metals or other electrically conductive materials in order to transform raw materials into finished parts. EASYHEAT Products: The company’s compact EASYHEAT induction heating systems with power ratings from 0.5kW to 10kW are manufactured by Ambrell and used to conduct fast, efficient, repeatable non-contact heating of metals or other electrically conductive materials in order to transform raw materials into finished parts. Applications for both EKOHEAT and EASYHEAT products include annealing, bonding, brazing, curing, forging, heat treating, melting, shrink-fitting, soldering and testing. Digital Streaming and Image Capturing Solutions: The company’s industrial-grade imaging solutions are designed and manufactured by Videology. They provide custom solutions for OEMs and end users and specialize in meeting customer’s design specifications for imaging systems. These products are generally purchased in higher volumes than the company’s other products. Marketing, Sales and Customer Support The company markets and sells its products globally and across multiple markets, as previously discussed. North American and European semiconductor manufacturers, as well as third-party foundries, test and assembly providers, have located most of their back-end factories in Southeast Asia. The front-end wafer fabrication plants of U.S. semiconductor manufacturers are primarily in the U.S. Likewise, European, Taiwanese, South Korean and Japanese semiconductor manufacturers generally have located their wafer fabrication plants in their respective countries. Electronic Test Products: In North America, the company sells its inTEST EMS products to semiconductor manufacturers through internal account representatives and independent, commissioned sales representatives. North American sales representatives also coordinate product installation and support with its technical staff and participate in trade shows. The company’s internal sales account managers handle sales to ATE manufacturers and are responsible for a portfolio of customer accounts and for managing certain independent sales representatives. In addition, the company’s sales account managers are responsible for pricing, quotations, proposals and transaction negotiations, and they assist with applications engineering and custom product design. Technical support is provided to North American customers and independent sales representatives by employees based in New Jersey, California and Texas. In Europe, the company sells to semiconductor and ATE manufacturers through its internal sales staff. Technical support is provided by its staff in the U.K. In China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand, the company sells through the use of independent sales representatives who are supervised by its internal sales staff. In Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan, the company’s sales are handled by its internal sales staff. International sales representatives are responsible for sales, installation, support and trade show participation in their geographic market areas. Technical support is provided to Asian customers primarily by employees based in Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan. The company’s robotics-based electronic test equipment and automated test programming services are sold in North America through a combination of internal sales staff and manufacturer representatives. Customer support is supplied by a team located throughout North America. In Europe, these products and services are sold through manufacturer representatives and supported with direct employees based in the company’s Hamburg, Germany facility. In Asia, these products and services are sold through a mixture of distributors and manufacturer representatives. Customer support is provided by trained distributors and supplemented by direct employees from North America and Europe. Environmental Technologies Products: The company markets its Temptronic, Sigma Thermonics, and North Sciences brands under the umbrella name of inTEST Thermal Solutions and sales to ATE manufacturers are handled directly by its own sales force. Sales to life sciences customers worldwide are handled directly by the company’s own sales force or by its network of independent representatives and distributors. Sales to semiconductor manufacturers and customers in other markets in the U.S. are handled through independent sales representative organizations. In Singapore and Malaysia, the company’s sales and service are handled through its internal sales and service staff. In the rest of Asia, the company’s sales are handled through distributors. In Europe, sales managers at its office in Germany, as well as regional distributors and independent sales representatives, sell to semiconductor manufacturers and customers in other markets. The company communicates with its distributors regularly and have trained them to sell and service its thermal products. Process Technologies Products: The company markets its EASYHEAT and EKOHEAT precision induction heating equipment to manufacturers who require specialized industrial heating in a wide array of industries, including automotive, aerospace and semiconductor, and are sold globally through a combination of regional sales managers and independent distributors. In North America, direct regional sales managers provide sales coverage augmented by independent sales representatives. In Europe, direct sales managers provide sales coverage augmented by independent distributors. In Asia, distributors have responsibility for sales and service of the company’s products. The company generates a significant portion of its sales leads through its website, as well as through trade show attendance where it displays its products and technology. The company also provides induction heating product support through its SmartCARE Service offering, which includes equipment repairs and training, preventative maintenance, enhanced warranties and spare parts. The company’s field service engineers, located in the U.S. and Europe, provide service and support globally. Additionally, a number of distributors in Europe and Asia have factory-trained service technicians. The company markets its Videology industrial camera solutions to OEMs and end users both directly and through distributors. The company has both manufacturing and service capabilities in the U.S. and the Netherlands. The company acquires its sales from repeat long-term customers, new leads through its website, regional sales managers and distributors, as well as through trade show attendance where it displays its products and technology. Customers The company markets its products to end users, including semiconductor manufacturers, third-party foundries and test and assembly providers, as well as to OEMs, which include ATE manufacturers and their third-party outsource manufacturing partners. The company also markets its products to independent testers of semiconductors, manufacturers of automotive, defense/aerospace, industrial, life sciences and security products, semiconductor research facilities, and manufacturers and manufacturing process integrators for a variety of industrial process applications. The company’s customers use its products principally in production testing or process/manufacturing applications, although its ThermoStream(R) products traditionally have been used largely in engineering development and quality assurance. The company sells to most of the major semiconductor manufacturers in the world. An important aspect of the company’s 5-Point Strategy includes broadening and diversifying its customer base. The company plans to do this both through acquisitions, as well as through leveraging current customer relationships, increasing its portfolio of product offerings and expanding its global footprint to better serve existing and new customers. Engineering and Product Development Expense The company’s engineering and product development expense was $7.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2022. Patents and Other Proprietary Rights As of December 31, 2022, the company held 49 active U.S. patents and had three pending U.S. patent applications covering various aspects of its technology. The company’s U.S. patents expire at various times beginning in 2023 and extending through 2042. During 2022, two U.S. patents were issued and seven U.S. patents expired. The company also holds foreign patents and file foreign patent applications, in selected cases corresponding to its U.S. patents and patent applications, to the extent management deems appropriate. Competition The company’s principal competitors for manipulator products are Advantest Corporation, Esmo AG, Reid-Ashman Manufacturing and Teradyne, Inc. The company’s principal competitors for docking hardware products include Advantest Corporation, Esmo AG, Reid-Ashman Manufacturing and Teradyne, Inc. The company’s principal competitors for tester interface products are Advantest Corporation, Esmo AG, Reid-Ashman Manufacturing and Teradyne, Inc. The company’s principal competitors for Acculogic products are Digitaltest GmbH, Seica S.P.A., SPEC S.P.A., and Takaya Corporation. The company’s principal competitors for Thermostream products are FTS Systems, a part of SP Industries, and MPI Corporation. The company’s principal competitors for environmental chambers are Cincinnati Sub-Zero Products, Inc., Espec Corp. and Thermotron Industries. The company’s principal competitor for thermal platforms is Environmental Stress Systems Inc. The company’s principal competitors for liquid chillers include Huber Kältemaschinenbau AG, Julabo GmbH, Boyd Corporation, and Advanced Thermal Sciences Corporation. The company’s principal competitors for life sciences products include Panasonic Health Care Holdings Corporation, Haier Group Corporation, Thermo Fisher Scientific Corporation, and Eppendoerf AG. The company’s principal competitors for EKOHEAT and EASYHEAT products are Inductotherm Corporation, Park-Ohio Holdings, EFD Induction Corporation, Trumpf Huettinger GmbH, Ultraflex Power Technologies and CEIA SpA. History inTEST Corporation was founded in 1981. The company was incorporated in New Jersey in 1981 and reincorporated in Delaware in 1997.