Company: COHU
Filing Date: 2025-04-02
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001437749-25-010672
Chunk: 25

Company: COHU INC
Filing Date: 2025-04-02
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 25
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 Compensation Actions

Consistent with our performance and the compensation objectives established for 2024, the Compensation Committee made the following compensation decisions for our NEOs, including our CEO, for 2024:

| • | Kept base salaries unchanged, as no increases for any NEO was deemed appropriate following a review of compensation market data and in consideration of the continuing softness in the industry; |

| • | No annual cash bonuses were earned or awarded based on 2024 financial results ; and |

Pay for Performance

The Compensation Committee believes that the compensation of our NEOs for 2024 was reasonable and appropriate, was supported by our performance, and carefully balanced both time-based and performance-based compensation elements. The 2024 compensation objectives for our NEOs were established in February 2024 and in March 2024. The Compensation Committee continued the emphasis on performance-based equity within our long-term incentive program by keeping the proportion of performance-based equity granted to our CEO and other NEOs at 60% of the total target award and the remaining at 40% of the total target award value in time-based equity.

The following chart illustrates the mix of elements of the target total direct compensation opportunity for our CEO for 2024. The majority of his compensation, 87%, is considered variable and at risk, 58% is paid upon achievement of certain performance metrics, and only 13% of his total target direct compensation is paid as fixed base salary.

Further, the compensation of our NEOs over the previous five years demonstrates the alignment between pay and performance. The variable cash compensation earned by our NEOs for each year from 2020 through 2024 varied from 0% to 193% of their target annual cash incentive opportunities based on our financial performance. Specifically:

| • | 2020 presented unique challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid ramp in business occurring in the second half of the year. Under the variable cash compensation program, our NEOs, including our CEO, earned 103% of their target annual cash incentive opportunities. |

| • | 2021 continued to pose COVID-19 pandemic related challenges, yet Cohu still achieved record sales, profitability and order levels resulting in the seventh consecutive year of sales growth. Due to this strong performance, our NEOs, including our CEO, earned 168% of their target annual cash incentive opportunities. |

| • | 2022 continued to present supply chain related challenges, inflationary cost pressures and a softening market, yet Cohu still achieved strong