Axcelis Technologies, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Xelis Technologies call to discuss the company's results for the first quarter of 2022. My name is Selviana, I'll be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will be facilitating a question and answer session towards the end of this conference. If at any time during the call you require assistance, please press star, followed by zero, and a coordinator will be happy to assist you. I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call. Mary Puma, President and CEO of Excellus Technologies. Please proceed, ma'am.

Thank you, Sylvia. With me today is Kevin Brewer, Executive Vice President and CFO, and Doug Lawson, Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategy. We are all participating in this call remotely, so I would like to apologize in advance for any technical difficulties. If you have not seen a copy of our press release issued yesterday, it is available on our website. Playback service will also be available on our website as described in our press release. Please note that comments made today about our expectations for future revenues, profits, and other results are forward-looking statements under the SEC's Safe Harbor provision. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to the risks inherent in our business. These risks are described in detail in our Form 10-K Annual Report and other FCC filings, which we urge you to review. Our actual results may differ materially from our current expectations. We do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Good morning and thank you for joining us for our first quarter earnings call. 2022 has begun exactly as 2021 ended for both Excellus and the industry. with significant demand for chips and the capital equipment required to produce them. Turning to Excellus specifically, the adoption of the full Perion product family has been strong and continues to gain momentum across a large and growing customer base. Customer satisfaction remains our top priority. Today, despite the challenging supply chain and logistics environment, solid execution by the full Excellus team has allowed us to keep up with this high level of customer demand, meet shipments, and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction. I would like to thank our dedicated employees once again for delivering these results under these challenging conditions. As a result of this demand and our strong execution, our first quarter financial performance was well above our guidance. Revenue for the first quarter was $203.6 million, with earnings per share of $1.22, gross margin of 44.1%, and a quarter-end cash balance of $297.9 million. Our aftermarket business, or what we refer to as CS&I, continued to contribute significantly to our revenue and gross margin. CS&I revenue in Q1 was $51.8 million. The growing mature process technology market continues to be an area of strength for Excellus, with 81% of first quarter shipments going to mature Foundry Logic customers and 19% to memory customers, with NAND accounting for 9% and DRAM 10%. Our geographic mix was spread more evenly around the world due to significant global investment in the mature process technology market. The resulting mix of our system shipments in the first quarter was China 32%, Korea 18%, Europe 13%, Taiwan 11%, the U.S. 10%, Japan 6%, and the rest of the world 10%. Visibility for 2022 continues to be good from a demand perspective, with significant orders for 2023 already booked. As a result, Excellus now expects to achieve revenue of greater than $850 million in 2022. For the second quarter, we expect revenue of $205 to $215 million, gross margin of approximately 41%, operating profit of approximately $41 million, and earnings per share of approximately $1. Our guidance reflects increases in supply chain and logistic costs that are impacting our gross margin and operating expenses. In a few minutes, Kevin will provide more color on the actions we are taking to mitigate these challenges. The industry is in the strongest cycle ever seen and continues to be driven by the same factors we discussed last quarter. In addition to a strong market, the implant TAM has increased significantly to approximately $2 billion and investment in the power market, both silicon and silicon carbide, continues to grow rapidly. Power devices are more implant-intensive and require our more advanced Perion product extensions. We expect the power segment to account for between 30 and 40% of our system shipments in 2022. This growth is a long-term trend driven by the transition to electric vehicles and should benefit Excellus for many years to come. Overall, we expect that the mature markets will account for approximately 80% of our total system shipments in 2022. We expect memory in 2022 will approach revenue levels seen at the last peak. In 2021, memory accounted for 17% of systems revenue, and we expect it to be approximately 20% in 2022. We maintain a strong and growing position in memory. In April, we shipped a Purion H high-current evaluation to a new memory customer for a DRAM application. Also in April, we shipped a Purion H evaluation system to a new FAB at an existing mature process technology customer. These two Purion H evaluation shipments will position Excellus for further growth in the high-current market, the largest implant product segment. Now I'd like to turn it over to Kevin to discuss our financials and provide an operational update. Kevin?

Thank you, Mary, and good morning. Excel has delivered exceptional first quarter financial results, beating company guidance and consensus estimates across the board. Favorable mix, higher tool sales, and strong execution drove solid top and bottom line results in Q1. Throughout the quarter, our purchasing and engineering teams worked closely with suppliers to mitigate supply chain disruption, while our manufacturing team filled the gap and performed at a very high level. Pandemic-related shutdowns, nagging chip shortages, and logistics issues are continuing, and we're working hard strategically and tactically to tackle these issues. As Mary mentioned, 2022 is on track to be another great year for Excellus, and we now expect full-year revenue to be greater than $850 million. End markets are strong and visibility remains good. Like others in the industry, we are dealing with similar supply chain disruption and higher costs, and have included these anticipated challenges into our Q2 guidance and full-year forecast. But the situation is changing almost daily. As noted in our last call, we began production at the new Excellus Asia Operations Center in South Korea, and we have now shipped multiple systems from the AOC as we continue to ramp production levels. This factory adds flexibility and manufacturing capacity to support our $1 billion revenue model. Moving now to our first quarter financial results. Q1 revenue finished at $203.6 million, well above our guidance compared to $205.7 million in Q4. Q1 system sales were $151.8 million compared to $147.3 million in Q4. Q1 CS&R revenue finished at $51.8 million compared to $58.4 million in Q4. We expect Q2 CS&R revenue to be around $51 million and recommend modeling the remainder of 2022 at $55 million per quarter. Q1 sales to our top 10 customers accounted for 69.8% of our total sales compared to 71.9% in Q4. Two customers at 10% or above in Q1 compared to three in Q4. Q1 system bookings were $315.5 million compared to $193.9 million in Q4. with a Q1 book-to-bill ratio of 2.0 versus 1.29 in Q4. Backlog in Q1, including deferred revenue, finished at $625 million, a new record compared to $461 million in Q4. Multiple customers are planning new fabs and expansions for 2023, which is driving bookings out beyond one year. Q1 combined SG&A and R&D spending was $40.8 million, or 20.1% of revenue, compared to $42.9 million, or 20.9% in Q4. SG&A in a quarter was $23.9 million, with R&D at $17 million. In Q2, we expect SG&A and R&D spending to be approximately 22% of revenue. For the full year, I recommend modeling SG&A and R&D spending at approximately 21% of revenue. Q1 gross margin was 44.1% and well above our guidance. Gross margin in the quarter was higher than guidance due to a more favorable mix of systems and upgrades. We are guiding Q2 gross margin of approximately 41%. driven by the expected shipment of a less favorable mix compared to Q1. Full-year gross margin is expected to be approximately 42% due to significantly higher supply chain costs. We are continuously evaluating ways to offset increased costs, but customer satisfaction remains our top priority. Outside of the higher cost mentioned, we continue to make solid progress on core gross margin improvement initiatives that are fueled by growth in our CS&I business, Puriam product extensions, and across the board cost out. Our $1 billion model reflects continued gross margin expansion driven by higher revenue from CS&I and Puriam product extensions, incremental supply chain volume and value engineering, planned labor and quality improvements, and a return to a more typical supply chain and logistics environment. Operating profit in Q1 finished at $48.9 million compared to $46.6 million in Q4. We are guiding Q2 operating profit of approximately $41 million. Q1 net income was $41.6 million or $1.22 per share compared to $35.7 million or $1.05 per share in Q4. Q1 includes a favorable tax benefit resulting from a foreign-derived intangible income tax deduction known as FDII. We are forecasting a 15% effective tax rate for future quarters based on the FDII reduction. We are guiding Q2 earnings per share of approximately $1. As noted earlier, our Q2 guidance reflects the anticipated impacts on our business from supply chain and pandemic-related issues, but remains an evolving situation. Q1 receivables were $119 million compared to $104.4 million in Q4. Q1 inventory ended at $203.8 million compared to $195 million in Q4. Q1 inventory turns, excluding evaluation tools, finished at 2.5 compared to 2.7 in Q4. Q1 accounts payable were $50.8 million compared to $38 million in Q4. Q1 cash finished at $298 million and slightly higher than Q4, which was $296 million. In the quarter, we generated $25.8 million of cash from operations and settled share repurchases of $20 million. Through Q1, we returned over $95 million of cash to our shareholders through stock repurchases. It's an exciting time for Excellus, with significant growth in the industry and solid customer demand for our products. We have executed at a very high level throughout the pandemic. And once again, I want to thank the entire team for continuing to perform exceptionally well in a very difficult environment. I also want to thank our supply chain partners that are working very hard to support us and our customers for the strong support during these unusual times. We are working hard to minimize disruption to our customers who count on us to execute on our commitments. And we remain laser focused on customer satisfaction. Thank you, and I'll now turn the call back to Mary for closing comments.

Thank you, Kevin. We are pleased with our first quarter results and excited about the opportunity to achieve revenues greater than $850 million in 2022, a year earlier than previously expected. Sellis has a competitive Purion product line, a broad and diverse customer base, a strong balance sheet, and a dedicated team of employees. We are well positioned for significant sustainable growth. The implant market is increasing thanks to strength in the overall semiconductor industry, but also due to a rapidly expanding mature process technology segment. The capabilities of Purion product extensions, like the Purion Power Series, combined with the implant-intensive nature of the image sensor and power device segments, uniquely position Excellus to benefit from the electrification of the automotive industry. We are experiencing one of the most exciting times in the history of the semiconductor industry, and we are confident that we are making all the right investments to achieve leadership in ion implantation. Excellus is working through current supply chain and logistics-related headwinds And we are committed to maintaining high customer satisfaction levels during these challenging times. With that, I'd like to open it up for questions. Sylvia?

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press 01 on your touchtone phone. If your question has been answered or you wish to redraw your question, press 02. Once again, it's 01. And the first question comes from from . And once again, if you have a question, please press 01 on your touch-tone phone. Patrick Cole from Stifel, you're on the line. Please go ahead. If your line is muted, please unmute yourself. Patrick, if your line is muted, can you please unmute? And just a reminder, if you have a question, please press 01 on your touch-tone phone. Patrick Holt from Steeple.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you now. Please go ahead.

Yes, we can. Wow. great, great folks. Congrats again. And, and thanks for taking my question. Maybe first off for you, Kevin, in terms of the supply chain issues, the lockdown, this is something that's obviously affecting everyone. As we look at the June quarter, can you qualify what the biggest issues are? Is it parts procurement? Is it labor availability? Is it the COVID lockdowns? And maybe from a gross margin perspective, How much of that is impacting at least the June quarter in terms of these, quote, supply chain issues?

Yeah, that's good. So in terms of the lockdowns in China right now, the biggest impact to us is probably on the CS&I side of the business, getting material in and distributed throughout China. There have been shortages coming out as well. There's some... particular suppliers we have, Patrick, that have been down waiting for commodity level things out of China. So there is impact on the supply chain side for sure. I think one of the things that probably hit us the hardest since this pandemic has started in this quarter was suppliers having shortages with chips. We've been working through this issue for several quarters. In many cases where there was proprietary designs, we were able to kind of work around them with our engineering teams and find alternatives. But this quarter seemed to be more difficult in terms of some of our suppliers getting hit hard. So that's something that's been out there for a while and it's something that probably, you know, was a little bit harder this quarter. So, you know, the supply chain is kind of difficult across the board. There's a lot of stuff you know, from chip shortages to commodity shortages to, you know, logistics issues that have been out there for quite a while now, just getting material moved in and out. So we're continuing to work with those. We're very focused with our engineering team helping out. You know, the supply chain people are working hard to kind of mitigate that. And so, again, we're moving on. In terms of, you know, the margin impact, this quarter in Q2, To be honest with you, a lot of it is a big shift in mix from where we were in Q1. But, you know, as the year runs on, these higher supply chain costs are starting to catch up with us. I think, you know, as you know, we've had some pretty good margin improvement throughout the pandemic. Last year we had, you know, we added quite a few points to our bottom line margin, even in a difficult environment. But it's catching up where some of the things we're working on aren't quite keeping up as fast. I see that, you know, those issues continuing to plague us really into the second half, which is why I thought it was important to put a full year gross margin target out there at 42% so people can kind of model and see where we're going. But, you know, beyond that, there's still a lot of good things going on with our margin improvement initiatives. So we're continuing with our value engineering projects. We've still got, you know, we're working on growing the CS&I business. We've got evals out there. There are additional product extensions that we'll convert over, and those are high margin. So, you know, we're pedaling the bike fast trying to keep ahead of these higher costs, which at some point is going to let up. I think if you ask me to quantify on a full year basis what the impact the supply chain is, I would say conservatively it's negative 150 basis points. It could be as high as 200 negative basis points. So there's quite a bit of pressure on the supply chain side right now with cost, which is why, you know, I feel comfortable as we move out of this year and move towards our billion-dollar model, which is, you know, it's farther down the road. We get some of these near-term headwinds behind us. We continue with our cost-out roadmaps and, you know, We feel very comfortable with our billion-dollar model, and we've put an update in our presentation factor for this year where we think we'll be at greater than $850 million. I would also say that even though the margins are lower, if you look at our models for $850 before, we had higher operating expenses in there, so we've been able to pull that back about 100 basis points. So that kind of helps offset the... To hit on the bottom line, we can cover a little bit of the margin pressure with OpEx. And then there is a favorable tax pickup, too. So I think at an EPS level, we're more than fine to our models when you net out everything with kind of the ins and outs.

Great. That's really helpful, Kevin. That's my follow-up question, and I'll throw it out to all of you. The CS&I business continues to deliver for you guys. it's very accretive to margins, and you're projecting some growth in the second half of the year. What's the biggest driver given that, I guess, utilization rates are high right now for chip makers, the supply chain is an issue for all parties involved? Is it upgrades? Is it spare parts? Is that the biggest driver, or is it a mix of different products?

Yeah, so... Yes, kind of all of the above. I mean, certainly, as we continue to ship more PRM product to the field, you know, there's some level of entitlement that goes with that, right? So there's spare parts that comes with that, and then at some point after the off-warranty, there's the, you know, service and the break-fix type of things. So that's... There's no doubt that spare parts from utilization and more tools out there is a big piece of it. But, you know, upgrades is another area where we've always... continue to focus on that. And we're having good results driving new upgrades to the field, which, you know, typically tend to be very good margin events, too. And, you know, the bottom line with upgrades is if we can develop them, we can probably sell them. So, you know, there's not a lot of third-party competition on upgrades. They don't have the technology or the capability to design them. So, you know, that's a part of the business that we can control. So we have, you know, our engineering teams are continuously working on various upgrades that can improve either yield or throughput. These are all things that the customers like, and that's part of the business that we're continuing to work on the growth at. So it's really upgrades and the spare parts that's driving it. It's not the used tools because trying to find cores these days is almost impossible. So the growth is coming in those areas, which are two areas that are good for us, Patrick, in terms of the margins.

Great, thanks again and congrats. Yes, thank you.

We have no questions at this time. Again, to ask a question, please press 01. And our next question comes from Mark Miller, The Benchmark Company.

Congrats again on another great quarter. Just trying to think, your tax rate went down last quarter. What are you projecting for taxes for the rest of this year?

Yeah, Mark, I would model it 15% for the rest of the year. Yeah, 15%. I think we've always kind of told you to hang in the 20-21%, but with this new deduction for a foreign ship product that we're getting. And that's really because we've exhausted our NOLs now so we can take advantage of this new deduction. It's going to keep our tax rate down. So I would model it 15%.

SG&A is going up somewhat in the June quarter and also for the rest of the year. Is that driven more by R&D or, I'm sorry, OPEX is going up more than the March quarter. Is that being driven by R&D or SG&A?

Yeah, it's a little of both, but really, full year, we're projecting to be at 21%. So it's going to come back down. And even though it's up a little bit in Q2, full year should be at 21%. And if you look at where our models had us, Mark, on the 850 model that we put out last December, it was 21% to 22%. So we're going to hang on the lower end of that and pick up some savings on the up X. So We're right on our models. We're actually low on our models, so a full year of 21%.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Our next question comes from Hans Chung from D.A. Davidson.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. So I just wanted to follow up on the cost margin. You mentioned the big shift in mix, and Can you elaborate more on, I mean, what was the dynamic here? Like, what kind of shift and how should we think about, like, just going forward, maybe the second half? I know you put out the four-year guidance, but just kind of any color would be helpful.

Yeah. So on the mix side of things, each of the product lines carry different margin levels. And there is a chart that's in the investor presentation that shows how the contribution level is at the standard margin level on high energy, high current, medium current. And you can see that on the bar chart, there is a difference that's very noticeable between each of those product lines. So this quarter, the shorter answer is it's less high energy weighted. And then the other thing that can impact this quarter to quarter, too, is the mix of CS&I in terms of how much revenue comes in from CS&I. We don't provide a gross margin on CS&I, but it's accretive to the overall bottom line margins. So there's a little more growth on the system side this quarter versus CS&I because it's flat with last quarter and our revenues are coming up. that puts a little bit of drag. But as I mentioned and as you pointed out, the full year will be 42%. And as I mentioned with Patrick, there's quite a bit of drag right now coming out of the supply chain, anywhere from 150 basis points conservatively to probably as high as 200 basis points. So that's really the bigger gross margin story. We always have had fluctuation of quarter to quarter, and it will continue that way based on mix and stuff, which is why We always try to just focus on the full year because it tends to average out from quarter to quarter.

Got it. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you.

This concludes the Q&A portion of the call. I will now turn the call back over to Mary Puma, who will make a few closing comments.

Thank you, Sylvia. Thank you all for joining us today. We hope to see you at our very active upcoming investor event schedule. We will be participating in the 22nd annual B. Reilly Institutional Investor Conference in Los Angeles in May, and we are participating in three conferences all in June. The 19th annual Craig Callan Institutional Investor Virtual Conference, the 50th annual Callan Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference in New York City, and the CIFL 2022 Cross-Sector Insight Conference in Boston. During Semicon West in July, we will also be participating at the CEO Summit, as well as hosting our own Excellus Investor Breakfast Seminar, and we will be attending the D.A. Davidson Big Sky Technology Summit in Montana in August. We thank you for your continued support, and please stay healthy.

This concludes the presentation. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. You may now disconnect. Good day.