Greetings and welcome to the VICO First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the form of presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Anthony Papone, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Joining me on the call today are Bill Miller, VICO's Chief Executive Officer, and John Kiernan, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's earnings release and slide presentation to accompany today's webcast is available on the VICO website. To the extent that this call discusses expectations for future revenues, future earnings, market conditions, or otherwise make statements about the future, these forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These risks are discussed in detail in our Form 10-K Annual Report and other SEC filings. VICO does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, including those made on this call, to reflect future events or circumstances after the date of such statements. Unless otherwise noted, management will address non-GAAP financial results. We encourage you to refer to our reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results, which you can find in our press release and at the end of the earnings presentation. With that, I will turn the call over to our CEO, Bill Miller.

Thank you, Anthony. VICO delivered solid top and bottom line results. Revenue totaled $167 million dollars above the midpoint of our guidance non-GAAP operating income 24 million dollars and non-GAAP EPS of 37 cents above the high end of our guidance our semiconductor business had another quarter of strong performance growing both sequentially and year over year growth was led by an increase in advanced packaging including wet processing systems to a leading foundry and hbm manufacturer, as well as lithography systems to an IDM and OSATS. We also shipped several LSA systems to leading customers for gate all-around and high-bandwidth memory. In addition to our solid results, I'm excited to share an important customer award and several significant strategic wins. First, VECO was awarded Intel's 2025 Epic Supplier Award due to our excellence in anneal technology. As one of 37 recipients in Intel's global supply chain, receipt of this award acknowledges us for our commitment to quality, excellence, and dedication to technology innovation. Recognition from a market leader such as Intel has been an internal goal of Vico's, and we believe this milestone validates us as a top supplier in the semiconductor industry. Second, during the quarter, Vico received laser annealing system orders from two leading-edge Logic customers for their gate all-around nodes, including one customer's second NSA500 nanosecond annealing system. For a high-bandwidth memory, our customer continues to place laser annealing system orders as demand remains strong. Leading Logic customers have designated Vico's laser spike annealing platform as production tool of record for new applications at their most advanced gate all-around nodes. Expanding adoption of laser annealing at the leading edge is core to our SAM expansion strategy. Both wins are a culmination of ongoing collaboration with each customer and a great example of our market-leading position in laser annealing. Fourth, we recently announced an IDM qualified our wet processing platform for two new applications and placed initial orders in Q1. These wins validate the growing use cases for our technology for new applications tied to a growing SAM. Before moving ahead, I'd like to address recently enacted tariffs and the prospect of further tariff policy escalations, which are resulting in uncertainty across VECO's business. Recently enacted tariffs are currently causing some customers to delay shipments, could impact future and market demand, and has also resulted in an increase in certain costs. Given the dynamic nature of the situation, we continue to evaluate potential implications to our business. While uncertainty may persist for some time, we remain confident in our long-term strategy and believe each of the wins previously highlighted reflect our strengthened market position, which we expect will enable us to capitalize on long-term semiconductor industry growth. I'll now provide an overview of our role in the semiconductor manufacturing process and in an update on key technologies. BICO technologies remain critical for several leading-edge semi-manufacturing process steps. BICO is the market leader in laser annealing, with our laser spike and nailing system qualified as production tool of record for leading logic customers and one tier one DRAM customer. Our recently launched next generation NSA system expands our capabilities to enable new applications and we're pleased to report our evaluations at advanced logic customers are progressing well. Equally as important, interest from logic and memory customers to evaluate our system remains high. During the quarter, we saw continued demand for our laser annealing systems from leading-edge customers, primarily driven by end-market demand for high-performance computing and AI. In addition, recent orders for GATE All Around and HBM are contributing to expectations for strong growth in our leading-edge laser annealing business in 2025. Vico is also the market leader for deposition of defect-free films for EUV mass blank production with our IBD EUV system. Our ion beam deposition technology is critical to the industry's roadmap, and we're in a strong position to support growing demand for EUV lithography. We see opportunity for growth in this business as our technology continues to expand to adjacent mass blank steps. Growth in AI is accelerating adoption of new technologies and materials that enable device scaling and address the growing need for energy-efficient compute performance. As device geometries continue to shrink, traditional technologies are struggling to achieve resistivity requirements, driving Tier 1 customers to consider new solutions to address their high-value challenges. Vico's recently launched IBD300 system differentiates itself from traditional technologies through its ability to achieve improved thin film properties and lower resistivity with critical metals in memory and logic, which can directly impact device performance, speed, and battery life. Looking ahead, we remain highly focused on working with our customers to integrate our technology into their manufacturing processes and evaluate new applications. In advanced packaging, our wet processing system is production tool of record at a leading foundry, HBM manufacturer, and multiple OSATs. Our system's unique capabilities have enabled our strong position in 3D packaging for AI, providing expectations for growth to accelerate in 2025. And in advanced packaging lithography, we're seeing a recovery led by capacity expansion for AI and high-performance computing, highlighted by today's announcement of $35 million in orders from IDM and OSAT customers, contributing to expectations for growth in 2025. Demand for VECO technologies is being accelerated by leading-edge inflections, such as gate all-around, high-bandwidth memory, EUV lithography, and 3D packaging. Our exposure to each of these high-growth areas of the market offer opportunities to expand our SAM in several areas. In annealing, we project our SAM to grow to around $1.3 billion. Customer roadmaps require precise annealing solutions with tighter thermal budgets to address scaling challenges associated with shrinking geometries and new architectures, resulting in an increase in steps available to laser annealing. In logic, gate all-around architecture and new technologies such as backside power delivery are increasing laser annealing intensity. In memory, high-bandwidth memory and 3D devices are driving customers to adopt laser annealing to solve new challenges. In ion-beam deposition for front-end semi-applications, we forecast growth in our SAM to approximately $350 million for high-value steps requiring critical film performance. In ion beam deposition for EUV mass blanks, we see our SAM growing to over $120 million as the market adopts EUV and high NA lithography, and customers continue to evaluate new use cases for our technology. And in advanced packaging, we see potential SAM growth for our enabling wet processing solutions for a growing number of applications supporting AI and high-performance performance computing. As we look ahead, we believe our portfolio of enabling technologies for key inflections positions are semi-business to outperform WFE growth over the long term. I'll now provide additional details on our evaluation program, which is core to our investment strategy and essential to capturing our largest opportunities. Many evaluations are targeting several applications, which can result in follow-on business between $30 to $60 million per application win, assuming 100,000 wafer starts per month. While the timing of adoption by system, customer, and market will vary, customers are excited about the value proposition our technologies offer, and we're highly focused on executing. Our evaluations in the field are progressing well and we're also investing in additional systems to win new business in logic and memory we expect to ship an lsa evaluation system to a second tier one memory customer in the coming months as well as an nsa evaluation system to a third logic customer later this year there's also potential for additional nsa and ibd 300 evaluation shipments later this year or in the first half of 2020. I'll turn it over to John for a financial update.

Thank you, Bill. Starting with revenue for the quarter. Revenue came in at $167 million above the midpoint of our guidance, down 4% from the prior year and 8% sequentially. Our semiconductor business had another strong quarter, growing 10% sequentially and 3% year-over-year, representing 74% of total revenue. Our results included strong performance from our laser annealing products, with shipments to leading-edge customers for gate all-around and high-bandwidth memory. Both sequential and year-over-year growth were led by an increase in advanced packaging. Compound semiconductor market revenue declined from the prior quarter to $14 million, totaling 9% of revenue. Data storage revenue decreased to $7 million, totaling 4% of revenue in line with our expectations, as highlighted on recent earnings calls. Revenue for the quarter was only derived from service and app. Also in line with our expectations, scientific and other revenue declined to $22 million from $33 million in the prior quarter, totaling 13% of revenue. Turning to quarterly revenue by region, one from Q4, with the percentage of revenue increasing from 39 to 42 percent. Revenue from Asia-Pacific region, excluding China, was 36 percent, an increase from 31 percent in the prior quarter, led by sales to semiconductor customers in Taiwan. The United States came in at 15 percent and EMEA 7 percent. Switching gears to our non-GAAP quarterly results. gross margin total approximately 42 percent in line with guidance operating expenses totaled approximately 46 million dollars below our guidance as we maintain our focus on cost management income tax expense was approximately three million dollars resulting in an effective tax rate of approximately 12 percent net income came in at 200 eps with 37 cents on 60 million shares. Now moving to the balance sheet and cash flow highlights. We ended the quarter with cash and short-term investments of $353 million, a sequential increase from accounts receivable increased by $18 million to $114 million to $254 million, and accounts payable increased by $14 million to $58 million. Included within contract liabilities on the balance sheet decreased by $8 million dollars to four operations total 20 million dollars and capex totaled seven million dollars during our q2 outlook i'd like to offer additional insights into the potential impact of recently announced tariffs which have resulted in an elevated level of uncertainty across our business with possible direct and indirect implications a substantial majority of vicos and our contract manufacturers operations are located in the united states should in the united States shipped to customers in China are subject to substantial tariffs unless otherwise exempted. This is currently causing some China customers to delay shipments. While we are monitoring changes to tariff and trade dynamics, we continue to work closely with our customers to mitigate impacts. Outside of China, we have not seen material changes to our customers' plans. The potential impact on the macro from global trade uncertainty are difficult to predict. We are experiencing higher costs due to tariffs on imported materials from overseas suppliers, as well as increased costs from domestic suppliers incurring tariffs on their imports. While tariff dynamics continue to evolve, our team is working diligently with suppliers to mitigate the impact on cost to our Q2 outlook. Q2 revenue is expected between $135 and $165 million. The midpoint of our guidance range assumes approximately $15 million in shipments to China customers will be delayed, includes a wider than normal range to account for increased risk associated with China customers. Gross margin is expected between 40 to 42 percent, which includes an approximate 100 basis points impact primarily from lower volumes due to tariffs and tariff-related costs. We expect OPEX between $47 and $48 million, net income between 7, and diluted EPS between 12 and 32 cents on approximately 60 million shares. I'll now provide qualitative commentary for each of our markets. Beginning with the semiconductor market, despite expected headwinds from our mature node business in China, we see opportunity for growth. We continue to see strength in leading-edge investment in areas driven by AI and high-performance computing, which will for GATE all-around and it definitely doubled in 2025 versus 2024. We remain confident in our long-term growth outlook due to our strong product portfolio in laser annealing, iron-beam deposition. In the compound semiconductor market, we see opportunities in GAN power, solar, and potential for revenue growth beginning in late 2025 into 2025. In data storage, while service revenue is picked up due to higher customer utilization, stations, customers are not investing in capacity additions. In line with our prior forecast, we do not expect system shipments to data storage. Scientific will continue to see strength in research areas such as quantum computing, which have the potential. With that, I'll now turn the call over to the operator to open up Q&A.

We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from the line of David Dooley with Steelhead Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks for taking my question. I guess the first thing is, could you just elaborate a little bit more on the advanced packaging orders for your lithography tools? You know, it's been some time since, I can't remember the last time you've announced a large order in this segment of the business. And I know, you know, you mentioned AI and high-performance computing applications. I was wondering if you could just dig in a little bit more. Is there some sort of packaging change or, you know, what exactly is driving this rekindling of this business at this point? Sure, Dave.

The first part, we did have a press release just recently for $35 million in litho orders over the past few quarters from IDM as well as a number of OSATs, and it's really kind of picked the business up, and it's really driving significant year-over-year growth for us in 25, And really, all of this is really attached to advanced packaging lithography. And, you know, if I look more broadly at advanced packaging, our advanced packaging business is going to probably double this year to about $150 million in 2025, partially on this lithography business that we just press released, but also a lot of the activity that we have going on in our wet processing business. So there's a lot of excitement with foundries and OSATs, and it's really being driven by AI, particularly high bandwidth memory and 3D device stacking. So it's an exciting space, and we've announced we actually won some new applications, and we're actually looking to kind of further expand our service-available market and think there's some room to run here with some SAM expansion with some of the products that we have here in wet process.

Yes, that's a nice piece of business there. And it's also, you know, did you, I guess I was wondering, were you expecting the advanced, the lithography business to be this robust or did this kind of surprise you? And, you know, what exactly inside, you know, who's ever advanced packaging business that this is driving these incremental orders? What, you know, is there a new adoption of a CPU in some sort of package or, you know, I'm just kind of wondering, you know, what sort of technology shift in the marketplace is all of a sudden driving a lot of orders for you guys?

Yeah, I would say it's really more capacity buys. I would say there's a number of customers there, as I mentioned, OSATs and IDM adding capacity because of this, you know, this demand really driven by AI and the like.

Okay. And as far as the impact from China and the inability to, or the hesitancies of customers to take shipments, is there, could you talk about which in markets those are associated with, number one and number two is you know what sort of mitigation strategies do you have to be able to ship into china can you get to another location first and then you know ship it into china or or how how how can you get around the current tariff structures to ship tools into china yeah so so

dave we see some customers uh continue to take shipments you know as scheduled and we're seeing other customers delay ship as we anticipate in Q2 currently, and as we guided about a $15 million impact on our Q2 guide. And we mentioned that we are principally shipped product from the United States. So to the extent our customers are importing those goods, they would have to pay for, you know, the tariffs unless there's some exemption in place. Now, there have been some unofficial reports that are being exempted from the tariffs, and our China customers are already seeking exemptions that, you know, could mitigate the exposures. Our customers have indicated that they'll take the shipments, you know, if, you know, tariffs. So, in the near term, you know, We are manufacturing those systems in the U.S., not really much in the very near term that we can do. Now we are looking at plans, and we've had plans as we look at our semiconductor business for expansion outside of the U.S., but that's not going to help in the very near term. You also asked about, I think, in what areas of the business here in China. I would say in Q2, it's about evenly split between customers in scientific markets where we anticipated shipping systems to and about half of the – in the semiconductor.

Okay, final question from me is you've got a lot of moving parts in your semi-business. Could you just maybe just recap again, which parts do you think are going to grow in 2025?

Yeah, I think that's a, you know, great, you know, question, you know, Dave. I'm going to start and then, you know, Bill may choose to add in here a bit. So, really, in the semi-business, there's really two, you know, main, you know, drivers. In the one sense, irrespective of tariffs, you know, our expectation was we had good visibility for our semi-business in China for the first half of, you know, 2020, 2025. And we expected that business to fall off in the second half of the year. Now, you add a little bit more uncertainty, you know, around, you know, tariffs there. On the other hand, we're seeing strength in our advanced business, call it, with strength in high bandwidth memory and gate all around being driven by high performance computing and AI. And high performance computing and AI are also impacting growth in our advanced packaging business. So when we look at, you know, the business attached to gate all around and advanced packaging and high bandwidth memory, we see those areas of the business have the opportunity to double year over year that could potentially, you know, offset or more than offset where we can see growth in our semi-business overall year over year.

So GATE all around, doubling AP, advanced packaging, doubling in China, coming down, netting out neutral to positive.

And then what about lithography?

Lithography is counted for in the advanced packaging. Thanks, Dave. Thank you, Dave.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gus Richard with Northland Capital. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Thanks for letting me ask a couple of questions. Just real quick on some of the wins and the process tools records. Could you just help me understand, are these new, you mentioned new applications and wins, and I just want to understand, are you winning an existing customer's new layers? Is this, you know, an expansion or is this the result of a bake-off?

This is a valuation system with existing customers in advanced logic gate all around where we have had an application at these customers And now we have a second application that we've won with two different customers. So it is incremental. And just to give you a feel for the size of that, Gus, that would be, you know, a $40 to $50 million revenue increase per application per 100,000 wafer starts as they build out the fab over a year or two or so. But, you know, obviously it's very sensitive to the customer's ramp and their business conditions. So that's the variable there. But it is incremental business, but the timing for HVM is unknown still.

Likely to, you know, be more in the 26 timeframe than the – Okay.

And these are incremental steps on the gate all around, correct? And have you won any backside metal? Have those decisions been made at this point, or are you still waiting on customers to make a decision on thermal processing?

Yeah, they're still considering, they're still assessing with these systems they're going to insert, but a decision has not been made specifically on backside power.

Okay, got it. And then just, you know, to understand the guidance, you know, it looks like from the midpoint, guidance came down, 15 million, and it was just primarily all China-related. There wasn't anything else there that caused you to be a little bit more conservative in guidance relative to consensus. Am I understanding that correctly?

Yes, Gus. So we had previously, you know, guided earlier in the year that, you know, we expected, you know, Q2 to be in a similar range to Q1 numbers. So at that time, roughly $165 million quarters for Q1 and Q2, and absent of, you know, customers delaying shipments in Q2 in China until tariffs, you know, get resolved, you know, we would have been right in that, you know, same range.

So that is inaccurate. and then the last one for me um on gann power you know are we any closer to um you know um process tool of record and you know primary versus secondary supplier um for those that that application you're um demoing now or being evaluated yeah we yeah we continue to work with the customer and make progress.

We are meeting all of the in-film and electrical device performance that the customer needs to move forward. Their plan is to pilot in 2026, and we're working to meet their their deliverables for manufacturing configured machine and if their plans continue they'll probably continue to ramp through 27 and beyond so it's a it's an exciting opportunity and you know we've been told very positive things we don't have a purchase order yet all right that's it for me thank you so much thank you guys thank you our next question comes from the

line of Mark Miller with Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you for the question. From the picture you've been painting during the call, I'm just thinking about second half of revenue. I know it's very uncertain, but in the absence of any new developments with tariffs, it sounds like we're looking at least a flattish type second half in sales. Would we be off-base, you know, modeling that?

Thank you for the question. Yeah, I mean, given the macro uncertainty and potential changes in global trade policies, you know, we're not really providing a specific quantitative guidance for the second half of the year, you know, primarily due to a larger range of outcomes. But, you know, that being said, we are continuing to see strength and gate all around in advanced packaging, providing opportunity for our semi-business to grow despite the China market headwinds and tariff headwinds you know our view on you know data storage is that the same like we don't see system revenue picking up in the second half of the year we're not you know forecasting any system revenue in the first half or the second half so yeah I think taking all of that into consideration you know we could see you know business activity at a similar are you seeing any improvements in your tool

utilizations at the disk drive manufacturers? Is it around low to mid-70%?

Yeah, we have seen that steadily pick up. Our customers are bringing capacity online in a judicial manner, and that's showing up for us in terms of service revenue and spare parts and the like as they bring equipment back on. And their utilization rates are picking up from what we what we hear they're continuing to to pick up but um but you know certainly the the order activity from a server from a system standpoint excuse me uh is uh is not there yet thank you thank you mark thank you our next question comes from the line of ross cole with needham and company please proceed with your question thank you for taking my question i just wanted to clarify a little bit in the semi segment regarding offset with between China as well as the GAA and advanced

packaging strengths. So it sounds like you're expecting that to still be relatively flat to slightly up. Is that correct?

Year over year? Year over year in our semiconductor market? Is that the question?

Yes. Thank you.

Yes. Yes. That's what we're saying. In one sense, we've got the headwinds in China. And as we said, irrespective of tariffs, we expected that business after two very strong years in laser annealing to moderate in 2025. We had good visit in China. We had good visibility, you know, for the, you know, for the first half of the year. Second half of the year, we're not seeing, you know, the type of projects continue and that we expect, you know, fall off in that business. And then on the flip side of it is on the positive side that we are seeing in our advanced pieces of the business and business tied to high bandwidth memory, gate all around. And in our packaging business, we're seeing the opportunity for that to offset or more than offset the headwinds in China, given the opportunity for Flattish to grow in the semiconductor piece of our business in 2020.

Great. That was helpful. And then I'd also curious about maybe some indirect tariff impacts. Where are you seeing potential other issues? Could the compound semi maybe have any impact from indirect tariffs from suppliers or anything like that?

Yeah. So, yeah, if we separate out on the demand side, we only have seen impact on the demand side to customers, you know, in China, where there would be substantial, you know, impacts on importing. And so no impacts for demand outside of China. Now, as we think about, you know, Wee Vico as a manufacturer in the U.S., we do import parts from suppliers outside the U.S. that would be subject to tariffs. Think about steel and aluminum that are subject to, you know, tariffs or some of the universal, you know, tariffs. And we principally, you know, import from Europe and Southeast Asia. That's, you know, principal areas. And then, you know, indirectly what we're seeing is we have a U.S. supply base and suppliers, and certain of those suppliers also import parts. And they're seeing, you know, sort of cost increases, you know, there for the same type of, you know, same type of parts. So we are seeing, you know, potential for, you know, cost increases there as well. So we are trying to, you know, mitigate that as much as possible. We're looking at, like, logistics and to the extent of, you know, using parts for, you know, services and supporting install base, not bringing those, you know, parts into the U.S. and using logistics outside the U.S. to the extent those, you know, parts are being, you know, procured. So that's also, you know, an area of indirect that we're looking to mitigate.

Great. Thank you so much. Hey, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back to Bill Miller for closing remarks.

Before we end the call, I'd like to just reiterate our confidence in our long-term strategy. This was further solidified by several strategic wins we announced this quarter, all of which reflected progress in the semiconductor market. As we look at the full year 25, we're continuing to see strength in areas tied to AI, resulting in expectations for gate all around and advanced packaging revenue to double and providing our semiconductor business the opportunity to grow. With that, I'd like to thank our customers, shareholders, along with the VICO team for their continued support. Have a great evening.

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your line at this time.