8/1/2024

speaker
Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I would like to welcome all of you to Camtech's results Zoom webinar. My name is Kenny Green and I'm part of the investor relations team at Camtech. All participants other than the presenters are currently muted. Following the formal presentation, I'll provide some instructions for participating in the questions and answer session. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded And the recording will be available on Camtech's website from tomorrow. You should have all by now received the company's press release. And if not, you can view it on the company's website. With me on the call today, we have Mr. Rafi Amit, Camtech CEO, Mr. Moshe Eisenberg, Camtech CFO, and Mr. Rami Langer, Camtech COO. Rafi will begin by providing an overview of Camtech's results and discuss recent market trends. Moshe will then summarize the financial results of the quarter. Following that, Rathi, Moshe and Rami will be available to take your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain information provided on this conference call are internal company estimates, unless otherwise specified. This call may also contain forward-looking statements. These statements are only predictions and may change as time passes. Statements on this call are made as of today, and the company undertakes no obligation to update any of that information or any of those forward-looking statements contained, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes, and expectations or otherwise. Investors are reminded that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause an actual events or results to differ materially from those projected, including as a result of the effects of general economic conditions. Risk related to the concentration of a significant portion of Camtech's expected business in certain countries, particularly China, from which Camtech expects to generate a significant portion of its revenues for the foreseeable future, but also Taiwan and Korea, including the risks of deviations from our expectations regarding timing and size of orders from customers in these countries. Changing industry and market trends, reduced demand for services and products, the timely development of new services and products and their adoption by the market, increased competition in the industry and price reductions, as well as due to other risks identified in the company's findings with the SEC. Please note that the safe harbour statements and today's press release also covers the contents of this conference call. In addition, during this call, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed. These are used by management to make strategic decisions, forecast future results and evaluate the company's current performance. Management believes that the presentation of non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors' understanding and assessment of the company's ongoing port operations and prospects for the future. A full reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures are included in today's earnings release. And now I would like to hand the call over to Rafi Amit, Camtech CEO. Rafi, please go ahead.

speaker
Rami

Okay, thanks, Kenny. Good morning or good afternoon, everyone. Camtech ended this quarter with a record quarterly revenue of $102.6 million, representing 40% growth compared with Q2 2023. The distribution of revenue in this quarter is over 50% of our sales were for high-performance computing-related products for the second quarter in a row. approximately 15% for OSATs, mainly for advanced packaging, and the rest were split between silicon carbide, front-end, CMOS image sensor, and other applications. This trend of product mix resulted in increased profitability and I am very pleased with the improvement of achieving a gross margin of 51% and operating margin of about 30%. The demand in the HPC segment is reflected in the PR we issued a few days ago with an announcement about receiving multiple systems order of over $25 million from a global tier one customer to inspect HBM wafers. I am happy to share with you that since we issue the PR, this customer added $6 million, bringing the entire order to over $31 million. The industry trends regarding high-performance computing modules is also reflected in our view of our future revenue. Based on our current orders flow, backlog and pipeline our revenue guidance for the third quarter is 107 to 110 million dollars representing in the midpoint about 35 percent growth year over year we expect continued growth in the fourth quarter as well the main growth driver in the semiconductor market is hpc modules for generative AI for which we are a key equipment provider. Our revenues in this quarter have grown three times since Q2 2023. From order we have on hand, our pipeline, and from discussion with customers, we expect demand for our system for HPC-related products to continue in the second half of 2024 and into 2025. HPC modules include mainly chiplets, HBM, and silicon substrates. The production technologies of HPC modules are developing rapidly, which require our continued development of advanced and cost-effective solutions. For example, one of our new key challenges is measuring and inspecting wafers with an extremely high number of micron-level interconnects at a very fine pitch. The industry is moving from a pitch of tenths of micron to a single digit pitch. Moreover, customers use more inspection steps to maintain high yield and they are evaluating our systems in process steps we have not participated in before. so we can see high potential for expanding our business with our current and new generation systems. Our new generation systems that we completed developing are equipped with state-of-the-art sensor and optics to perform all types of inspection, 3D bumps measurement and metrology. that we believe will address the current and the next generation HPC related products at high volume manufacturing throughputs. We also expect OSATs to implement packaging capabilities for HPC. This trend will allow Fabless and IDM companies to start producing HPC model that will be suitable for AI and additional applications. We expect that our strong position within the OSATs will benefit us with this industry shift as well. Clearly, A major growth in demand for capital semiconductor equipment is generated from the reality where countries with leading economics, such as US, Japan, China and Europe, consider advanced semiconductor components as strategic national assets and therefore expand their design and production capabilities by establishing new manufacturing facility in their respective countries. Concern regarding geopolitical changes only accelerate the decision of those countries to have local infrastructure for the manufacturing of semiconductor components. The strong order flow, some for delivery in 2025, and the high demand for HPC gives us a relatively clear long-term vision. which allows us to organize our operation efficiently to meet the expected demand. To sum it up, the demand for HPC together with industry analyst forecasts for a growing demand for end products such as mobile phone and PC, and the establishment of new facilities in key countries make us believe that we will continue growing in 2025. And now, Moshe will review the financial result. Moshe?

speaker
Moshe

Thanks, Afi. In my financial summary ahead, I will provide the results on a non-GAAP basis. The reconciliation between GAAP results and the non-GAAP results appears in the table at the end of the press release issued earlier today. Revenue for the first quarter came in at a record $102.6 million, an increase of 39% compared with the second quarter of 2023, an increase of 6% from the first quarter of 2024. The geographic revenue split for the quarter was as follows. Asia, 92%. U.S. and Europe accounted for 8%. The higher the normal contribution from Asia relates mainly to the big demand for HBM, which is currently manufactured in Korea and Taiwan. Gross profit for the quarter was $52.4 million. The gross margin for the quarter improved to 51%. up from 50.6% in the first quarter of 2024 and 48% in the second quarter of last year. This is mainly due to a more favorable product mix in the quarter and our ongoing efforts to improve the cost structure of our products. We anticipate that gross margin will remain at a similar level in the coming quarters. Operating expenses in the quarter were $21.6 million compared to $17.1 million in the second quarter of last year and $20.1 million in the previous quarter. The increase is mostly due to planned expansion to support growth of operations. Operating profit in the quarter was $30.8 million compared to $18.3 million reported in the second quarter of last year and $29 million in the previous quarter. The increase is mostly due to the increase in the revenue and the improvement in the gross profit. Operating margin was 30% compared to 24.8% and 29.9% respectively. Financial income for the quarter was $5 million, slightly lower than the $5.8 million reported in the second quarter of last year, and $5.6 million in the previous quarter. The decrease is mostly due to the lower cash balance following the $60 million dividend paid in April, slightly offset by the cash generated throughout the quarter. Net income for the second quarter of 2024 was $32.6 million or 66 cents per diluted share. This is compared to a net income of $21.9 million or 45 cents per share in the second quarter of last year. Total diluted number of shares as of the end of the second quarter was 49.3 million. Turning to some high-level balance sheet and cash flow metrics, cash and cash equivalents including short and long-term deposits and marketable securities as of June 30th, 2024 was $454 million. This compared with $466 million at the end of the first quarter. We generated $49 million in cash from operations in the quarter on the back of increased revenue and a very strong collection. Inventory level increased by $7 million to $109 million. The increase over the previous quarter is to support the anticipated sales growth in the coming quarters. Despite the increase in revenue, account receivables decreased from $86 million to $68.2 million in the quarter as a result of strong collection in the quarter. Our day's sales outstanding improved significantly from 81 to 61 days. Finally, we expect revenue of between $107 to $110 million in the third quarter with continued sequential growth in Q4. And with that, Rafi, Rami and I will be open to take your questions. Thank you, Moshe.

speaker
Operator

So at this time, we will start the question and answer session. If you have a question, you can raise your hand via the Zoom platform. I will introduce you and ask you to unmute, after which you will be able to ask your question. We do have quite a lot of people on the call, so we'll take a few moments now to poll for questions. Our first question will be from Charles Shee of Needham. Charles, please go ahead.

speaker
Charles

Hey, good afternoon. The first question, I want to ask, what's the thought, what's the current estimate from management on the overall contribution of HPC module for the full year?

speaker
Rami

Charles, I think as we discussed in previous meetings, we expect the overall contribution from HPC or the both HBM and chiplet modules to account to anywhere between 50% to 60% for the entire year.

speaker
Charles

Okay. So let's say relative to like 90 days ago, is the percentage moving up or you think it's still in a similar ballpark?

speaker
Rami

I think it's in a similar ballpark.

speaker
Charles

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Maybe the second question, do you see the HBM versus chiplet, the mix going into second half, any changes to that? Because you did disclose for Q1, roughly HBM versus chiplet is a two to one ratio, but you didn't provide a number for Q2. If you can provide that number, that'd be great. But more importantly, what will be the ratio for second half?

speaker
Rami

And so, you know, the ratios will change, will vary from one quarter to the other. In general, I think it will be more accurate to talk about the entire number, which will be anywhere between 50 to 60%. But overall, both markets are pretty stable. Thank you.

speaker
Charles

Maybe one other question for Moshi on gross margin. Definitely gross margin has been improving every quarter. Well, actually, since I would say first quarter 2023. What's the expectation for the next two quarters? 51% in June, which is great. But do you see sequential improvement from here for the next two quarters?

speaker
Moshe

Indeed, gross margin has improved in the last several quarters. This was the result of an ongoing effort to improve the cost structure and obviously the product mix. We think that anywhere between 50 to 51.5 is a good range. You know, it's really depending on a product mix from quarter to quarter. So I don't want to commit, you know, now for the next couple of quarters, but this will be within this range that I've mentioned.

speaker
Operator

All right. Thank you. Thanks, Charles. Our next question is going to be from Brian Chin of Stifel. Brian, please go ahead.

speaker
Brian Chin

Hi there. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking a few questions. Maybe just a question on sort of your other more traditional and legacy businesses in like wafer-level packaging, specialty, et cetera. You know, the implication this year is that you know, that 50%-ish of your revenue is maybe even down this year, year on year. Are you starting to see improvement even sequentially on some of that revenue or kind of building some visibility towards growth in that business? Any kind of color you can provide would be helpful.

speaker
Rami

So, Brian, you know, we spoke about it and I can say that definitely We see improvement on our other businesses. Even this quarter, in a sense, is already, I think there is some improvement. And as you can see, our overall, what we saw for advanced packaging, it's close to 70% compared to 80% it was last quarter. In this quarter, we're starting to see some pickup on the OSAP business. Definitely, we're getting good indication about some business from the CMOS image sensors. And overall, I think next year, we will see an improvement, what we are reading, what we understand from customers, that what we call our traditional businesses will definitely be better than this year.

speaker
Brian Chin

Okay, that's helpful. And, you know, back to sort of like the AI packaging, you know, inspection metrology business for you. Other companies, not necessarily even competitors of yours, who break out some of their customers or their business that they're seeing. They've seen even this earnings season, maybe a lot of that business being dominated by a large Korean customer. And then even seeing a bit of a period of digestion as that customer kind of takes a breather. from buying and they've seen sort of, you know, maybe a pause in the business. Are you, you know, in terms of your business, are you seeing more diversification across maybe, you know, the main HBM players? You know, there's a few people on the chiplet side. Are you, are you seeing those kinds of trends or is it kind of more, more diversified in terms of your business? Yeah.

speaker
Rami

So first of all, you know, there was a discussion and we heard some comments about the pause or digestions. We do not see it. And this is really, you know, more related to the relevant customers on the HPC segment, the steps that you are doing. It's a little bit more complex, but at least from the business that we're doing with all the players on the HPC market, We do not see a pause. The business is stable. And I think as Rafi said in his remarks, in the prepared remarks, we definitely see this business continuing into 2025. So from that point of view, we do not see it.

speaker
Brian Chin

And maybe just one last thing, you know, when you have, you know, like the, the press release to talk about the 25 million of HBM orders for second half this year into next year. And when they, when that customer comes back and adds, you know, another 6 million on top of that, is that, is that, you know, their, their misjudgment of the type of coverage that they need relative to maybe the challenges that they have in their business, or is there some other, you know, circumstance behind that?

speaker
Rami

So first of all, I'm not aware for the real reason, but these customers are big customers, and it's not going to be they continue to buy machines, and they will continue to buy machines. In this instance, there was some adjustments to the numbers. They felt that they wanted a few more machines. I think what you're seeing, and I think the sense is, that our customers are predicting that this business is going to grow and they are ready to invest because they are very confident about their future business in the foreseeable future.

speaker
Operator

Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks, Brian. Our next question is going to be from Craig Ellis from B Reilly. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand on the platform. And Craig, you may go ahead and ask.

speaker
Craig Ellis

Yeah, thanks for taking the question. I wanted to start off just by asking a follow-up to Rafi, given comments regarding expectations for OSATs to add HPC and shiplet-related capacity to be a bigger part of the supply chain there. The question is this, Rafi, where are we now in OSATs actually building out the degree of capacity that they'll need, and how do you expect that to play out for Camtech both in the second half of this year and in 2025 for your business?

speaker
Rami

Rafi, you want to answer or you want me to take this answer? Rafi?

speaker
Rami

Rafi, you're on mute. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was in mute.

speaker
Craig Ellis

I was afraid I left you speechless there, Rafi.

speaker
Rami

Look, as we said, our visibility usually is, in general, it's about two quarters ahead. And over that we can read, you know, analyst forecast and discussion with customers. They're preparing their budget for next year in the coming few months. So based on all the information, as Rami mentioned, as I mentioned, we definitely can see that the HPC business continue growing. We mentioned, you know, I think a few quarters that the analysts talk about over 20% growth in some product, even over 30% growth year over year. And I must tell you, that's what we see today. This is the growth rate that we can see from our customer, from discussion. But we don't see any change right now. Now, and even the customer that just Rami mentioned, he didn't say this is for 2025. This is just what you need today. And he definitely predict to place more order in the next few months. So we are very optimistic in that type of product and we are organized for delivery.

speaker
Rami

Let me add, Craig, you spoke about those sites. So definitely we know today more than we knew a few weeks ago. Definitely some of this capacity of what is called the COAS, COAS-like capacity, is starting to move to OSATs. And we are getting some discussions from OSATs that are talking to us about business in 2025. This one, it will happen. And it's in the process. It will come in 2025. And obviously, it's an area that we are very strong. So we believe that this is a positive move from our point of view.

speaker
Craig Ellis

Okay, so it sounds like, Rami, if I'm hearing you and Rafi correctly, that the engagement with the broader ecosystem, as well as with those sats, is in the realm of what we would call discussions for the pipeline, and the pipeline is starting to look good. And as the calendar clicks forward, we would expect that to convert into firm orders, as we've seen before. in the last month of July, where you had $45 million and now one upside by $6 million. Is that right?

speaker
Rami

In general, you're right. I don't want to get into numbers, but definitely our pipeline looks good, and this will start to convert into ratios.

speaker
Craig Ellis

That's helpful. And then the second question is for Moshe. So Moshe, I think we've heard Rafi identified that business activity overall is lending the kind of visibility that results in more efficient operations. And I would expect that to be a tailwind for gross margin. But I know the company's also been working hard on things like input costs and other manufacturing optimizations. As we look at the business now and as we look at the improvement in gross margin over the last year, how much of that is just volume versus some of the company controllables? And as we look ahead, what are the levers to drive gross margin incrementally higher from where we are today? Thank you.

speaker
Moshe

So really, on the gross margin level, volume has certain contribution, but not as much as on the operating level since most of the expenses are direct expenses. Absolutely, the fact that we can organize ourselves ahead of time is a big contribution to the overall efficiency. How much is debt exactly translates into improvement in gross margin? It's a little bit early to say, but it should help smooth out the operation and with hiring people, with processes. But again, it's a bit early to say how much of that will contribute to the gross margin.

speaker
Craig Ellis

Okay, got it. Thanks, Tim. Appreciate the help. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Thanks. As a reminder, if you have a question, please raise your hand on the platform. Our next question is going to be from Vivek Arya from B of A. Vivek, please go ahead.

speaker
Vivek Arya

Hi, this is Michael Mani. I'm from Vect Aria. Thank you for allowing us to ask a few questions. So I think a couple of your HVM customers have provided very strong guidance for volume and sales into 2025. And so does your confidence in hitting that eventual 500 million sales target In other words, do you feel you have more confidence that you'd be able to hit it maybe earlier than expected given the increased intensity of orders? And in addition, how much of attaining that target is contingent on a recovery in your more traditional business? Thank you.

speaker
Rami

Ravi, maybe let me start and you can complete it. Okay. I would say, you know, the gross rate depends on two major issues. Number one is the market. And, you know, some customers maybe have great demand, but they don't have enough facilities. It takes time to build facilities. So even if they want, they cannot build everything they want. So it's not everything depend on us. We can provide system, but sometimes the facility is not ready for installation and running production. So there are too many elements that affect the overall requirement. So from our side, we feel very comfortable with our ability to build machine, to deliver machine, and to keep our competitiveness. because customer ask for more feature for more more special requirement and we feel very comfortable definitely after we complete a lot of r d efforts to meet the future demand so for Everything depends on us. We believe we did everything to maintain our market and potential growth. Now we have to go to the market. We have to be sure that customers have enough capacity and their infrastructure. They can expand it and have enough room to put the production line and to meet the market demand. So the market demand is there. We are ready. The next question is if all our direct customers can do it, can really make their facility ready for the demands.

speaker
Vivek Arya

understood thank you and uh maybe one on your uh uh next uh your upcoming platform so nice to hear this additional color on the uh this next generation system do you have any updates on when we expect this to be released to the market um is this more geared towards hybrid bonding as an application and um what kind of uplift from asp do you uh expect

speaker
Rami

Rami, do you want to give some information? Let me start. So first of all, I think that at this stage, it's too early to provide more information. It's definitely, we will provide, I would say, we will start to provide more information to the public in the next few months. It's not something that we'll take tomorrow. And we're not at this stage yet. really ready to say more information. What I can say, definitely that there will be an ASP improvement on these new products.

speaker
Rami

Now, as we said, for example, just to be clear about it, that we could see some of them, for example, as I mentioned in my script, that customers move from about, let's say, 100 million bumps per wafer to 500 million bumps per wafer. It's a lot. It's totally five times more. And we need to develop a solution. Now, it's not enough to inspect it in the fine pitch. Also, customers look on the efficiency, on the economic. You want to be sure that it can meet its cost. So altogether, it is a lot of parameter that allow customer to maintain its cost structure and to get a good result. So some of that is still in the beginning. Not all of them are already in high volume. This is after they finish the R&D. They start moving from R&D to production. And we will see it, I believe, in the next year. We can see more and more very tough, I would say, application moving to high volume.

speaker
Operator

Thank you very much. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Our next question will be from Vidvati Shrotra from Evercore. Vidvati, please go ahead.

speaker
spk06

Hi, thanks for taking my question. So the first one I wanted to understand was, you know, the remaining pieces of your business, you talked about strength in the traditional markets, like the compound semi CIS front end. Could you give us a sense of how the revenue split out between the three and, and the specific area where you're seeing more strength versus 90 days ago?

speaker
Rami

So I, I think in general, we're seeing improvements. I would say mainly in the front end and the compound semi, definitely these, we see some improvements as we speak. On the CMOS image sensors, we're getting indications for improvement. I would say late this year, beginning of next year. And the overall business, of what we call the non-HPC business, definitely the OSAT business is already stronger this quarter than it was in previous one. And we're expecting these businesses to start to grow in the coming quarters. So definitely that's a very important part of the business. And I'm confident at this stage now from the numbers that I'm seeing that we will continue to see these improvements in the next few quarters.

speaker
spk06

And would you provide a split of how the revenues split between the three? Is that something you can provide?

speaker
Rami

I can say that what I can tell you that this quarter, for example, the compound and the frontier were about 15%. It's a little lower. I mean, I would have expected in a better quarter to be closer to 20%, maybe even higher. The CMOS image sensor is really very low at this stage. It's ones and twos. Definitely, this is something that should be in the range of about 5% when we take about the overall business. So these are the numbers, and we'll see. I think they will improve as we move along.

speaker
spk06

Thank you. That's very helpful. And then the next question I had was on your next generation systems that you talked about. Is this you know, I understand that this is to address applications like the number of bumps increasing. But but are you also kind of penetrating into the inspection steps? And another question I had here was, how does the qualification process work? Like you have the products, you know, kind of shipping in, like, I think a little bit into your customers, but how much time does it take to really qualify this into the fab lines?

speaker
Rami

So that's a good question. So first of all, we've already started with the process of qualification. As we said, you know, I've prepared the remarks. And this differs. I mean, in a lot of our customers that know us and look at the qualification and the, I would say, testing that we have done here at ComTech and would accept it as part of the evaluation process, they might ask us to run some wafers and we would do it for them and they would buy the equipment. At other customers, you know, it would take... very few months of running the machines. But overall, it depends on the application. But in a lot of the cases, I would say that the evaluation, it's maximum in weeks or very few months to cases. They would accept our equipment based on the results and the testing that we've done internally.

speaker
spk06

Got it. And is this addressing the newer generations? Are they addressing more inspection step now versus your Eagle platform? What would you say is the biggest differentiator?

speaker
Rami

So first of all, a lot of it is inspection, but a lot of our business today is inspection. Even when we talk about, you know, advanced packaging, HBM, the chiplets, A lot of this is doing also inspection stages. This is metrology and inspection. I would say in general, our inspection business is much larger than our metrology business. And I think one of the advantages that we bring on our machine that it will do metrology and inspection. No doubt our inspection today is state of the art. We expect to continue and increase. This is a This is a large market. There is a lot of market share that we can run after. And we definitely expect that with the newer machines, we'll increase our market share in the inspection even further.

speaker
spk06

Got it. That's helpful. And I'll just squeeze in one last one. So can you talk about what you're seeing in the China markets and how that has done in the first half of 24? I know you don't break it out on a quarterly basis, but any color there would be helpful given the trade concerns that have been coming up.

speaker
Rami

So, you know, I would say that things have not really drastically changed in China. The government there is backing this industry. This is a strategic move for China. And we definitely see more and more investments there all around in trailing edge farms. And this is where we are playing in the front end. And we're seeing a lot of awesome business expansion, including advanced packaging. So we do not see a weakness in China. We see a stability and continued of investment, and we expect to see this business continuing to grow.

speaker
spk06

I see. Could you give a sense of how that China splits out advanced packaging versus like trading edge fabs? If you could provide any color is one bigger than the other, that would be helpful.

speaker
Rami

I think for us in general, we've been in the, our business primarily has been in the trailing edge. And, you know, it's McSignal, automotive applications. And this has been our main market, our target market. In general, we've not been running after, I would say, the, you know, the leading edge nodes in China. This has not been our target market.

speaker
spk06

Right. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator

Thanks, Bhatti. Our next question is from Tom O'Malley of Barclays. Tom, please go ahead. Hi, all.

speaker
Tom O'Malley

This is Will Levy on for Tom O'Malley. Thank you so much for taking my question. Just have a question on the FRT acquisition. How is it trending since you acquired it? And are the upsides you guys are seeing in advanced packaging, any of this attributed to FRT at all?

speaker
Rami

All in all, I can say, and Rafi, I will start and maybe you can... Okay, okay, fine. So all in all, we're very happy with the acquisition. Obviously, there is an effort to integrate FRT into ComTech, and this is underway. From the business side, we're definitely seeing opportunities. The upside... is not coming from FRT. FRT is still, as we said, it's a relatively small business this year. We said we gave a target of roughly 30 million. We will meet this target. So definitely it's not yet in the big numbers. We see opportunities. We are talking with customers. I think that in general, customers are very excited about the fact that we acquired FRT. They're very happy. I believe that we will get significant numbers, a significant business as we move forward and continue to integrate FRT. We'll get a lot of opportunities there, opportunities that will enlarge the FRT business and also create new opportunities for us. So to summarize, definitely we are on track with the FRT acquisition and our thought process that it will complement our business and we will be able to sell these products through our sales force are indeed correct.

speaker
Tom O'Malley

Got it. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Thanks. Our next question is from Gus Richard from Northland. Gus, you may go ahead and ask a question. Gus, you're still on mute.

speaker
Gus Richard

Apologies. Thanks for letting me ask a few questions. In terms of HBM, going from HBM3 to HBM4, does your inspection intensity increase, and do you have a sense of by how much?

speaker
Rami

You know, Gus, I think it's a little bit too early at this stage to really pinpoint the steps that we will do on the HBM4. It's also based on the final... I would say configuration or the technologies and processes that our customers will use. But definitely a lot of our business in general in HBM are coming from inspection. And yes, that's an area that will probably intensifies as these technologies move to hybrid bonding.

speaker
Gus Richard

Got it. And then in terms of hybrid bonding, just clearly your intensity goes up both for, you know, chiplets and CPUs and SRAM.

speaker
Rami

Definitely.

speaker
Gus Richard

Got it. And then of your advanced packaging, how much these days is a fan out?

speaker
Rami

Well, it's hard, you know, in general, If we talked about close to 70 percent, about 20 percent is 15 to 20 percent is our tradition and what we call all such is about 15 percent. And the rest of the other customers doing what we call wafer level packaging. Fan out is a big number out of it. So I don't have the number exactly in front of me. But definitely FanOut is a market that is growing. There are many opportunities there. And we have developed some new steps to address some of the challenges there. And it's going to be a number that, you know, in the range of 10 plus percent in half our business.

speaker
Gus Richard

Got it, and this is a difficult question. Heaven forbid tensions escalate in the Middle East, but I'm just wondering how you guys are thinking about contingency plans. Is it impacting your business? And if it does get significantly worse, how do you manage through it?

speaker
Rami

So first of all, the team here in Israel is prepared for several scenarios. And we expect to be able to meet our commitments, and this means including deliveries, customer support and development. I think we went through it, and this is the situation. Obviously, longer term, we are also thinking about production out of Israel. We are planning to add manufacturing capacity in Europe. at our new FRT facility in Cologne, Germany. So we have a plan in the short term to overcome anything that may happen in the short term. Longer term, we also have a plan.

speaker
Moshe

And obviously, we can't really be prepared to all possible scenarios, but we definitely made some efforts to be prepared to whatever we could prepare.

speaker
Gus Richard

Got it. I apologize for having to ask that question. And then, you know, in terms of your planning for capacity for next year and the year out, you know, how close are you getting to be, you know, filled out? Is the expansion in Germany part of the ability to deliver more product? And, you know, is there a significant investment required?

speaker
Rami

So, no. So, from the overall investment, first of all, you know, our manufacturing, the basic manufacturing is done by two very big subcontractors, which are international companies, Jabil and Flex. So, from that point of view, we have enough capacity. Here, In the facility in Israel, we have enough capacity for over $600 million of manufacturing. And as I said, we will add additional capacity in Europe. So I think from the overall capacity, for any scenarios of upside, we have enough capacity. And this includes also from a material point of view, we can ramp up a clean room, space, people. So I think we're very well covered from this point of view.

speaker
Gus Richard

Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to ask some questions. Thank you, Gus.

speaker
Operator

Thanks, Gus. Our next question is from Ezra Wiener of Jefferies. Ezra, please go ahead.

speaker
Ezra Wiener

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I guess two here. The first is just in terms of new orders, obviously talked about second half into next year. Can you give a little more detail on the split and I guess relative to your plan, if any of that was incremental? And then the second would be, you've talked about your long-term model and gross margins getting to about 52%, about at 500 million. Looks like you're getting pretty close to passing that next year. Can you just talk about what leverage would look like from there?

speaker
Moshe

Yeah, so with respect to your first question, what portion of this additional business is above our previous expectations? Well, when we prepare our expectation, we take into account current backlog on hand, plus some potential upside from business that we are going after. So I think we are very close to what we have expected, you know, originally. Hard to say what part of it is an upside. But we are going to end the year very nicely with a nice Q3 and plus additional continued growth coming into the fourth quarter as well. Your other question relates to the gross margin. So I think we said in the next few quarters, we will operate at the level of 50.5, 50 to 51.5. We definitely have plans to reach 52% with the contribution of our new projects. that we are going to launch in the coming weeks or coming months, they will definitely have a positive contribution to the gross margin. So overall, we are not going to change our expectation that when we reach the 500 plus million dollar revenue level, we should be able to operate on a higher gross margin close to the, or around the 52% that we've mentioned.

speaker
Ezra Wiener

Got it. Then one quick follow-up. You discussed advanced packaging at 70%. Just wanted to clarify that's 70s, not 70. Just trying to put all the pieces together. And at 70, you would be down quarter over quarter there. If it is 70, not 70s, can you kind of give a little bit more detail on why that is?

speaker
Rami

It's around 77.0%. And the overall, yes, indeed, it's a little bit lower and this is the result of the other businesses that are growing. And we were, as we say, the HPC was over 50%. Definitely these numbers also vary from quarter to quarter. You know, it's related to shipments and when customers are planning their clean rooms. So I wouldn't pay too much attention here to the changes between quarter to quarter. I think the business in general, as we said, the HPC is indeed stable, and we expect to finish the year anywhere between 50% to 60%. The other businesses, the wafer-level packaging, the front-end compounds, CMOS image sensors, and a lot of other applications that we're doing will continue to grow in terms the third and fourth quarter, and definitely in 25. So this mix is something changes, but the big numbers will not change.

speaker
Operator

Got it. Thank you very much. Thanks, Ezra. So that will end our question and answer session. Before I hand back over to Rafi, I would like to let everyone know that in the coming hours, we will upload the recording of the conference call to the investor relations section of Camtex website. at camtech.com. I would like to thank all of you for joining this call. And Rafi, please make your closing statement.

speaker
Rami

I would like to thank you all for your continued interest in our business. I want to especially thank the employees and my management team for their tremendous performance. To our investor, I thank you for your long-term support. I look forward to looking with you again next quarter. Thank you and goodbye.

Disclaimer

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