Cohu, Inc. (COHU) Stock Price & How to Invest

Cohu, Inc. is a global supplier of test, automation, inspection, metrology, and software-analytics products and services to the semiconductor industry. Its equipment sits in the back end of chip manufacturing: test handlers (including thermal handlers like its Eclipse line), test contactors and interface products, inspection and metrology tools, and the software that runs and analyzes them. Roughly 40% of sales come from test and inspection systems, while about 60% is recurring revenue from interface products, spares, software, and services, which cushions the deep cyclicality of capital-equipment orders. Cohu serves customers across automotive, industrial, mobile, computing, and consumer chip end-markets, so its business tracks the broad health of the semiconductor cycle.

The investment picture is a classic cyclical semi-cap recovery story with an AI angle layered on top. Cohu came through a multi-year downturn in automotive and industrial chip demand, and full-year 2025 revenue rose about 13% to roughly $453 million as utilization at customers improved, though the company was still reporting losses on a trailing basis. Management raised its 2026 outlook to 20% to 25% revenue growth, driven by high-performance-computing wins (Eclipse thermal handlers and Neon high-bandwidth-memory inspection), a recovering automotive and industrial base, and a larger recurring-revenue stream. The bull case rests on that HPC/AI ramp and margin recovery; the bear case is that Cohu is a small player against much larger test-industry leaders and remains highly exposed to a cyclical, lumpy order book.

Cohu is small and cyclical, so its orders and revenue are lumpy and swing hard with the semiconductor capital-equipment cycle and with automotive, industrial, and computing chip demand it does not control. It was still reporting trailing losses even as 2025 revenue grew, so the stock carries a negative trailing price-to-earnings ratio and depends on a recovery to reach sustained profitability. It competes against far larger, better-capitalized test-industry leaders like Teradyne and Advantest, and its high-performance-computing pipeline must convert from qualification to real production orders. Customer concentration, tariff and supply-chain costs, and geopolitical or export-control exposure in Asia add further risk, and the shares tend to be volatile.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Cohu, Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (FY2025): ~$453 million (up ~13%)
• Revenue (TTM): ~$481 million
• Q1 2026 revenue: ~$125 million
• Net income (TTM): ~-$56 million (loss)
• Non-GAAP gross margin: ~43-46%
• Net cash position: ~$159 million
• Market cap: ~$2.8 billion
• Price/Sales: ~5.8x

As of June 2026 Cohu traded around a ~$2.8 billion market cap on roughly $481 million of trailing revenue, a price-to-sales ratio near 5.8x, while its trailing price-to-earnings ratio was negative because it was still posting losses coming out of the downturn. The valuation reflects an early-cycle recovery and AI/high-performance-computing optimism rather than current earnings, so results and the stock are sensitive to whether 2026 growth guidance of 20% to 25% and margin recovery actually materialize. Figures are approximate and change with each quarter and the chip cycle.

There are three common ways to get COHU exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic basket, so COHU sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the basket route. Describe a thesis where COHU fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

Cohu is a small-cap semiconductor back-end test and handling equipment maker recovering from a chip-cycle downturn, with a growing recurring-revenue base and an AI/high-performance-computing ramp as the swing factor, so it tends to trade as a volatile, cyclical semi-cap name rather than a steady compounder.

Whether COHU is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is COHU a buy?, and where the stock could go from here in the COHU stock forecast.

For income investors, whether COHU pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does COHU pay a dividend?