Nova Ltd.

Good day, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the NOVA LPD third quarter 2024 results conference call. Today, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during today's call, please signal for a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note that today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mary Segal of MSIR. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good day to everybody. I would like to welcome all of you to NOVA's third quarter 2024 financial results conference calls. With us on the line today are Gabby Weissman, President and CEO, and Guy Kidner, CFO. Before we begin, I would like to remind our listeners that certain information provided on this call may contain forward-looking statements, and the safe harbor statement outlined in today's earnings release also pertains to this call. If you have not received a copy of the release, please view it in the investor relations section of the company's website. Gabby will begin the call with a business update, followed by Guy with an overview of the financials. We will then open the call for the question and answer session. I'll now turn the call over to Gabby Weissman, Novice President and CEO. Gabby, please go ahead.

Thank you, Kiri, and thank you all for joining us. I will start the call today by summarizing our third quarter performance highlights. Following my commentary, Guy will review the quarterly financial results in detail. Nova delivered another record quarter, exceeding the high end of the guidance in revenue and profitability, with robust performance across all our product lines and in multiple territories. Our revenue result represents approximately 39% growth year-over-year, and our recurring high profitability outcome reflects the efficiency embedded in our operational model. Our performance is driven by the record sales of our materials metrology solutions, record sales to advanced packaging processes, and the increased demand for our advanced dimensional portfolio. Given our guidance for the fourth quarter, we expect our annual revenues to grow approximately 28% year-over-year at the midpoint, outperforming the anticipated wafer fab equipment growth in 2024. As we now have more clarity on our performance in 2024, I want to share some thoughts on next year. We see robust demand from leading-edge manufacturing, including advanced packaging, and expect it to manifest in our 2025 performance. NOVA benefits from long-term trends driving the need for semiconductors and the substantial investment in wafer fabrication equipment. We persist with our long-term strategy and are confident in executing our plans. We expect WFE growth in 2025 to be higher than this year, and we also anticipate it will be another growth year for NOVA. Our positive outlook stems from the distinct growth in leading-edge demand to support capacity and the pilot lines for gate-all-around processes which drive an increasing share of advanced node processes out of our total product sales. We are also encouraged by the fact that robust, broad-scale demand for AI seems to reflect actual workloads and increased capex spending by end customers. This demand and the growing use of AI in multiple industries drive investments in advanced logic and memory nodes and advanced packaging, which are the critical enablers of both large language model training and inferences. The rapid growth of artificial intelligence increases the intricacy of chip architectures and brings forth complex and challenging process steps. These steps, are derived from the transition to get-all-around and advanced packaging and include hybrid bonding with wafer edge metrology through silicon vias and redistribution layers. These techniques help achieve higher bandwidth, lower latency, lower power, and higher yield. They also require much tighter process control on smaller, denser interconnects and tall, highly complex multilayered structures. They fuel a growing need for innovative metrology capable of solving numerous new structures and material applications. Multiple evaluations and selections manifest the demand for our advanced portfolio by leading customers across territories, and we continue to invest significant resources in developing our advanced metrology portfolio to introduce new platforms and technologies and capitalize on the various emerging opportunities driven by these trends. I want to highlight some additional components that contributed to our performance in the third quarter. First, our materials metrology portfolio delivered record revenue with geographically diverse revenues from Korea, the US, and Taiwan as the most significant contributors. We qualified our latest XPS model, the Veriflex 4 platform, with another leading memory customer. and received multiple orders directly tied to building memory capacity for AI-related devices. We also shipped multiple high-volume manufacturing tools for advanced nodes production at the leading logic manufacturer and expect additional order from this customer to support gate-all-around manufacturing. The Veriflex 4 offers a unique value in its capacity to solve specific, highly complex applications in advanced nodes in logic and memory production. Nova's unique experience in this domain generates high demand and rapid adoption. Second, our revenues from sales of advanced packaging applications have reached new heights, fueled by demand for our dimensional and chemical metrology solutions in foundry and memory. We have several ongoing evaluations with a leading logic customer, which we expect will mature into adoption in 2025. We also expect a record year for our chemical metrology division, which continues to deliver outstanding performance with a revenue growth rate of high double digits. And third, we're encouraged by the strong performance of standalone optical CD solutions driven by demand for advanced nodes processes coming from multiple territories. As shared in a press release during the quarter, one of the world's leading logic manufacturers recently qualified the Prism 2 to solve backside power delivery applications in front-end processes. The selection has already yielded an order for multiple tools and sets another milestone in NOVA's rapid market share growth in standalone optical CD solutions. This follows another selection by a leading memory customer and recurring orders by other major foundry and memory customers, all for the most advanced process nodes. The Nova Prism platform, using its unique spectral interferometry technology and applying proprietary machine learning algorithms, has a proven advantage in addressing these new challenges and providing manufacturers with a relevant insight to support successful production. This is also an excellent example of how AI is an integral part of our unique offering to our customers. Our consistent performance, driven by our unique portfolio, expanding market presence, and ability to identify and address evolving opportunities supports our confidence in remaining on track with our long-term strategic goals. For more details on the financials, let me hand over the call to Guy.