This sounds interesting, $LRCX CEO at the Bernstein conference:

'A tool that was installed in 2021 for a critical application doesn't have exactly the same capabilities you need to manufacture leading edge memory in 2024, if that's when the recovery starts. And so therefore, those tools will have to receive technology upgrades. And so that will be sort of the second evolution of the recovery.

Especially in the NAND space that may be somewhat lost is Lam gets from a revenue perspective, about the same amount of money for an upgrade per bit added in capacity as we do from a greenfield. And that's primarily because if you think about what the upgrade is doing in a NAND device, we're primarily wanting to create a taller stack, more layers. And what you need to do to create a taller stack is you need to add etch and deposition tools to do that. And so therefore, we capture a much higher percentage of every dollar of WFE spend from an upgrade than we do for a greenfield.

We've said that the lifetime value is quite high in those systems through both upgrades as well as spares and services. And so now back to your China question, upgrading that installed base versus rebuilding elsewhere, that's ultimately going to be their decision, but I think from Lam's perspective, whether it gets upgraded or rebuilt elsewhere, both of those represent tremendous opportunities for us from a revenue perspective.'