Amtech Systems, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the AMTEC Systems Fiscal First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Please note that this call is being recorded and simultaneously webcast. I would now like to turn the call over to Jordan Darrow of Darrow Associates Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the AMTEC Systems Fiscal 2026 First Quarter Conference Call and Webcast. With me today on the call are Bob Daigle, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Weaver, Interim Chief Financial Officer. After close of market today, Amtec released its financial results for the first quarter of 2026. The earnings release is posted on the company's website at www.amtecsystems.com in the investor section. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that Safe Harbor Disclaimer in our public filings covered this call and the webcast. Some of the comments to be made during today's call will contain forward-looking statements and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those contained in our SEC filings, all of which are posted in the Investors section of our corporate website. The company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements which speak only as of today. These statements are not a guarantee of future performance, and actual results could differ materially from current expectations. Among the important factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements are changes in technologies used by customers and competitors, change in volatility and the demand for products, the effect of changing worldwide political and economic conditions, including trade sanctions, and the effect of overall market conditions, including equity and credit markets and market acceptance risks, ongoing logistics, supply chain, and labor matters and capital allocation plans. Other risk factors are detailed in our SEC filings, including our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. Additionally, in today's conference call, we will be referencing non-GAAP financial measures as we discuss the financial results for the first quarter. You will find a reconciliation of those non-GAAP measures to our actual GAAP results included in the press release issued today. I will now turn the call over to AMTEC's Chief Executive Officer, Bob Daigle.

Thank you, Jordan, and welcome to everyone joining our call today. Before I provide commentary on the quarter and recent developments, I'd like to introduce Mark Weaver, our interim CFO. Mark joined us on December 16th to help us with our CFO transition until we appoint a permanent CFO. While we are making progress in our search, I'm confident we are in terrific hands with Mark. I had the privilege of having him as a colleague when he served as the Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller of Rogers Corporation. Among other senior financial roles, he was the Chief Accounting Officer of NXP Semiconductors. We're very pleased to have someone with his experience assist us during this transition. Now onto my review of the quarter. Revenue for the quarter was $19 million at the midpoint of our guidance. and our adjusted EBITDA was 1.4 million, also within our guidance range. The quarter benefited from strength in demand for AI-related products, which accounted for 35% of revenue for our thermal processing solution segment in the first quarter, up from about 30% in the fourth quarter. Another highlight is that our bookings were strong for the quarter. Our overall book-to-bill ratio was 1.1, driven by performance of our thermal processing solution segment due to strength in AI equipment orders. We have the ability to deliver the majority of this equipment in the second quarter due to our short lead times, but customers have requested some deliveries in the third quarter to align with their factory build-outs. As broadly reported, semiconductor OEMs and OSATs continue to increase investments to expand capacity to support strong AI infrastructure demand. We expect demand for the equipment we produce for AI applications to continue to increase in the third and fourth quarters. In addition to traditional advanced packaging bookings, I'm pleased to report that we received initial orders from multiple industry leaders for panel-level packaging equipment during the quarter. Panel-level packaging is an emerging technology that provides cost and throughput advantages that should drive broader adoption and is expected to lead to future growth. We're also continuing to invest in next generation equipment for high density packaging to support emerging customer requirements. We believe this next generation equipment will provide the opportunity to significantly increase our addressable market beyond 2026. We are currently processing samples for multiple customers. For our semiconductor fabrication solution segment, I'm pleased to report our first win for a specialty chemical product that we developed for a medical device semiconductor application. We produced and delivered initial product in the first quarter. Strong customer engagement and a robust opportunity pipeline for our specialty chemicals is validating our strategy to over-served, under-served customers with technically demanding, high-value applications. We also had improved bookings for our Entrepix and BTU parts and services businesses during the quarter as a result of a more proactive approach to business development and improvements we've made in service levels. Unfortunately, weak demand for our Pura Hoffman products negatively impacted overall SFS results for the quarter and offset bookings gains at Entrepix. Demand at Pierre Hoffman continues to be impacted by weakness in the mature node semiconductor market and severe cost pressures at major silicon carbide semiconductor customers. 2026 will be an investment year at SFS as we execute on our strategy to over-serve the under-served, but we expect double-digit growth and meaningful profits from these sticky, reoccurring revenue streams beyond 2026. We believe the strong operating leverage and working capital efficiency that has resulted from our product line rationalization efforts and a migration to a semi-fabulous manufacturing model over the past two years will result in continued strong cash flow and further increases in gross margins as revenues increase. This was our ninth consecutive quarter of positive operating cash flow. Cash generated from operations was $4.1 million for the first quarter, and we ended the quarter with a cash balance of $22.1 million without debt. Adoption of a semi-fabless model, which included the consolidation of our manufacturing footprint from seven facilities to four, should also allow us to significantly increase revenue with minimal capital expenditures. We expect capital expenditures for the year to be below $1 million. In summary, growth opportunities driven by AI infrastructure investments and our differentiated capabilities combined with strong operating leverage as a result of our asset-light, semi-fabulous business model position us very well to deliver meaningful shareholder value. Now for further details on our financial results, I'll pass the call to Mark. Great. Thank you, Bob.