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Earnings Call: Q4 2022

Feb 16, 2023

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I would like to welcome all of you to Camtek's Results Zoom webinar. My name is Kenny Green, and I'm part of the investor relations team at Camtek. All participants other than the presenters are currently . Following the formal presentation, I will provide some instructions for participating in live question and answer session. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded, and the recording will be available on Camtek's website from tomorrow.

You should have all received by now the company's press release. If not, please view it on the company's website. With me today on the call, we have Mr. Rafi Amit, Camtek's CEO, Mr. Moshe Eisenberg, Camtek's CFO, and Mr. Ramy Langer, Camtek's COO. Rafi will begin by providing an overview of Camtek's results and discuss recent market trends.

Moshe will then summarize the financial results of the quarter. Following that, Rafi, Moshe, and Ramy will be available to take your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain information provided on this call are internal company estimates unless otherwise specified. This call also may 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 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 actual events or results to differ materially from those projected, including as a result of effects of general economic conditions.

Risk related to the concentration of a significant portion of Camtek's expected business in certain countries, particularly China, from which Camtek expects to generate a significant portion of its revenue used for foreseeable future, but also Taiwan and Korea, including the risk of deviations from our expectations regarding timing and size of orders from customers in these countries. Changing industry trends, reduced demand for our products, timing of.

Rafi Amit
CFO, Camtek

Several customers. Last to win was a Tier one player on an opening of $10 on machines in 2043 and 2044. In 2022, we developed certain products and markets which we plan to introduce in 2023. We anticipate it will further increase our market position and expand our profitability in entering new market segments.

Looking at 2023, global economic growth is projected to go down. So far with Also, we do best solutions on chip industry from whom every year we copy influence the industry. After three years, we make a production Customers production capacity before receiving orders from end users. We are also receiving positive signals from several customers regarding expected improvement in the H2 of 2023.

We believe that our leading position in specific segments, broad diversified customer base, and long-term strategic relationships with customers will enable us to again outperform the wafer fab equipment , which is predicted to rise 10% in 2023. Regarding Q1 , we estimate the sales to be approximately $71 million-$74 million, a decline of 60% year-over-year. After doubling in the last two years, by focusing supplying systems on time and providing a good response to customers, we now focus on company efficiency.

Also, we are carefully monitoring certain balance sheet items, such as the levels and accounts for current demands. Moshe will address our plan in more details. I'd like to conclude stating that memory is strategic industry and all leading countries are heavily invested in it. I would like to hand over to Moshe for more detailed discussion of the financial results. Moshe?

Moshe Eisenberg
COO, Camtek

Thank you, Rafi. In my summary ahead, I will provide the results on a non-GAAP basis. The reconciliation between the GAAP results and the non-GAAP results appear in the tables at the end of the press release issued earlier today. Q4 revenues came at a record $82.2 million, an increase of 11% compared with the Q4 of 2021, and slightly more than the previous quarter.

Revenues for the whole year were a record of $321 million, 19% increase year-over-year. The geographic revenue split for the quarter was as follows: Asia, 80%, and USA and Europe accounted for 20%. Gross margin for the quarter was $40.2 million. The gross margin for the quarter was 49% versus 50.9% in the Q4 of last year and the same as in the previous quarter.

In line with our previous guidance range. We continued to experience inflationary pressure on raw material and labor, which are not fully passed on to customers. We are taking steps to mitigate this impact by improving our efficiencies and costs, as a result, improve our gross margin over the mid to long term.

Operating expenses in the quarter were $17.4 million as compared with $16.8 million in Q4 of last year, and $17 million reported in the previous quarter. Operating profit in the quarter was $22.8 million compared to $23.2 million in Q3 and $20.9 million reported in the Q4 of last year. Operating margin was 28%, similar to the previous quarter and to the Q4 of last year.

Financial income for the quarter was $3.8 million, compared with $2 million in Q3 and $200,000 last year. The net income for the Q4 of 2022 was $24 million or $0.50 per diluted share. This is compared to a net income of $19.7 million or $0.40 per share in the Q4 of last year. Total diluted number of shares as of the end of Q4 was $48.3 million. Turning to some high-level balance sheet and cash flow metrics. Total cash, including cash equivalents, short and long-term deposits, as of December 31st, 2022, was $479 million.

During the Q4, we had a strong positive cash flow, and we generated $19.9 million in cash from operations. Altogether for the year, we have generated $57 million. Accounts receivable increased to $80 million in the quarter, primarily due to the timing of revenue and collection within the quarter. Days outstanding for Q4 were 90 days. Since the beginning of the year, we experienced strong collection, and we expect the accounts receivable balance to come down by the end of Q1.

Inventory level was $70.9 million, and it went down by $3.9 million over the quarter. In the last few years, we increased the inventory in order to support the growth, especially in light of the supply chain issues. The reduction this quarter is in line with our target to optimize the inventory level given the new business environment. Moving to the guidance. In Q1, we expect revenue in the range of $71 million-$74 million.

Our gross margin is affected by the business volume and the increase in the Bill of material resulting from the supply chain issues, inflation and labor cost. We therefore expect gross margin to be around 48% in Q1. Our focus in the last few years was on meeting the phenomenal growth. In order to improve the gross margin this year, we plan to focus on cost reduction through engineering and design optimizations and supply chain initiatives.

These steps take time, and we anticipate that they will assist us in gradually improving our margin over the coming quarters. We continue to invest in R&D to meet our customer roadmaps and be well-positioned for growth. We are adjusting all other operating expenses to the current revenue level in order to move us closer to our target operating model when growth returns to our markets.

The current strength of the US dollar versus the Israeli shekel is helping our current operating expense level as well. I would like to highlight the contribution of our cash reserve on our results. We have close to half a billion dollars in cash that enjoys the increasing interest rates and puts us in an excellent position to grow inorganically, and we are actively looking at opportunities. With that, Rafi, Ramy and myself will be happy to take your questions. Kenny?

Operator

Thank you, Moshe. At this time, we will begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please raise your hand via the Zoom platform. I will introduce you and ask you to unmute, after which you can ask your . As we have a lot of people on the call, we'll take a few moments now to poll for your questions. Okay. Our first question will be from Blayne Curtis from Barclays. Blayne, please go ahead.

Tom O’Malley
Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

Hey, this is Tom. I'm not sure what happened with the queue in there, but I just wanted to understand, in the December quarter, you normally give a breakout by end market, from a % perspective of what contributed to the revenue. Could you just break it down between advanced packaging? I know you said greater than 60, but any more granular, it'd be great. Compound semi, front-end set, front-end CMOS, image sensing and then other, just any granularity there would be really helpful. Thank you. Just for the quarter.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Okay. Hi, Blayne. This quarter-

Tom O’Malley
Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

It's Tom.

Operator

Tom.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

It's Tom. Sorry. Hi, this is Ramy. If we look at the Q4, our advanced packaging came to close to 67%, this is the mix of the orders. Overall, if we look at the yearly basis, it's about 60%. Our compound and front-end business, they were together just about 20%. There were a few others. The CMOS image sensors this year is a little bit lower than other years, and this is the, for the reason of the sales of mobile phones. It ended up about 6%. There were a few, small items.

Tom O’Malley
Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

Yeah. 6% was for the full year, you're saying, or 6% for the December quarter?

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

December quarter and overall this year was around 6%. The CMOS image sensors, as we anticipated, was lower than usual, our usual 10% for this segment.

Tom O’Malley
Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

Okay. Then you guys were making some comments about the full year. You're saying you think you'll do better than broad-based WFE, but you're also saying, "Hey, the H2 is gonna be stronger than the H1 ." Could you just help identify, you know, which end markets are gonna be weaker in the March and June quarter? How should we think about what June should look like off of March, given the fact that it sounds like June is the bottom for you guys? How extreme should that look? Thank you.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

First of all, we didn't say that June is going to be anything about June. I'll talk in a minute about what we're seeing beyond Q1. Let's talk about the segments. The segments are going to be similar next year. I'm expecting, and as I look at our backlog and the pipeline, advanced packaging is going to be very strong next year coming from the Heterogeneous integration.

A lot of the move from DRAMs to High Bandwidth Memories, this is also going to contribute significant revenues. Silicon carbide is going to be strong, and the overall other markets are going to be okay. From the segmentation point of view, we don't see anything different. Keep in mind that we have 250 customers. That helps us a lot in balancing the business.

We've acquired 50 new customers this year, and I'm expecting that some of them will buy additional equipment in 2023. This will give us a balanced forecast. Looking at Q2 and beyond, the entire year of 2020 and 2023, we have a solid backlog and a solid pipeline. You have to remember that we are working in a dynamic environment. Things are changing. We did not get any major cancellations. However, there is more hesitancy than before. Therefore, it is too early to give a forecast for Q2 or even talk about the rest of the year. But as we say in our prepared remarks, we expect to outperform our market segment.

Tom O’Malley
Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

Thank you.

Operator

Thanks, Tom. Our next question will be from Charles Shi from Needham. Charles, please go ahead.

Charles Shi
Senior Analyst, Needham & Company

Hey, can you hear me?

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Yes, Charles.

Charles Shi
Senior Analyst, Needham & Company

Yeah. Yeah, thank you very much. I wanna ask a bit about the gross margin. It seems like you are facing some inflationary cost pressure, and you're taking action to address those. You actually got it down Q1 gross margin by a smidge. My question is, I think historically, it's not just the volume that and also the cost input that influence your margin. I think your product mix sometimes play a bigger role. I know you didn't really talk about product mix in 23, but is there a favorable or unfavorable mix that could be, I mean, a positive or negative to a gross margin for the full year in 23? 'Cause you have good backlog. I think you have some visibility into the mix. Thank you.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Hi, Charles. I would say the following. Yes, you are right, you know, product mix has a lot to do with the gross margin as well, but we decided to focus this time on the cost structure because we see some pressure on gross margin from the cost elements. We see some increase in the bill of material, both from components, you know, labor cost. Altogether, we see some pressure. Yes, product mix, you know, may have a positive impact.

I think that the 48% that we gave as a guidance should play at the bottom. We may see over the year some improvement coming also from the initiatives that we are already taking. As I said, it will, it may take time, but, you know, we expect to see some impact already in the H2 of the year. Also from the product mix that might be more favorable than we currently think.

Charles Shi
Senior Analyst, Needham & Company

Thank you. Maybe the second question, really wanna go back to the question asked by Tom earlier on the full year, what we think about the segment mix is going to be. I think you said it's quite similar, but I also heard you say advanced packaging, which includes memory DRAM, seems to be doing good or doing well this year. Should we kinda expect that the advanced packaging as a percentage in your mix maybe is growing a bit this year? With others, you said that they are okay. I don't hear that they are gonna be. I don't hear like the conviction from you that they're gonna be as great as the advanced packaging segment. Yeah.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

No, no. We went into... I talked about the segmentation only. I didn't talk about the forecast. That was the second part where I said we're not in a position today to do any forecast beyond the Q1 that we have already stated. Regarding the mix, whether the advanced packaging will be a little bit more than 6%, it's still too early to say. It's definitely we see in the backlog and the pipeline that this is going to play a major part of our business. I would say at least 60%, whether it will be significantly more as the fourth year, I still don't know.

Charles Shi
Senior Analyst, Needham & Company

Okay. Thank you. Maybe the last one. I really wanna ask you about the geographical mix, what you're seeing today based on your order book, Asia-Pacific versus US, Europe. Do you see that mix kinda changing to 23? Maybe Asia-Pacific, maybe growing a little faster in 23 relative to Europe, US and Europe or do you see the other way around?

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

No, I don't think there is going at this stage. It is what we see on the current numbers in our plans. I think that the Asia 80% versus US and Europe 20%, at this stage we expect this to stay.

Charles Shi
Senior Analyst, Needham & Company

Thank you very much.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Thank you, Charles.

Operator

Thanks, Charles. Our next question will be from Gus Richard from Northland. Gus, please go ahead.

Gus Richard
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Northland Capital Markets

Yes, thanks for taking the question. I was just wondering if you could talk about, you know, sort of where you're slotting tools at this point? You know, how much has that lead time compressed and just, you know, any general thoughts around that?

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

You know, the main issue, and I think we spoke about it also in the last call, what we see today that customers are very hesitant in turning the pipeline into radios or even scheduling the shipment time. The reason for that, they're waiting to see that their end customers are giving their business. As a result, we've seen our lead times go down from about, I would say, four-six months, coming down to something like three-four months. Just I'll give you these are the rough numbers. Definitely, and this is the reason that from our point of view, it's very hard today to forecast beyond the Q1 .

Gus Richard
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Northland Capital Markets

Got it. You mentioned in your prepared comments about some new products, and I was just wondering if you'd give a little more color, you know, in terms of, you know, expansion of market opportunity or, you know, any color on the types of applications you're gonna be addressing?

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

You know, this is. In general, I will be very careful about it because some of this information is obviously very confidential. I would say that there are two areas where we are developing products. First of all, is to increase our TAM. We've been increasing it gradually, and there are areas that we have identified that have good opportunities and we have the technologies to enter, and these are areas that we develop products and we'll introduce there. In parallel, we are working with our customers on their roadmaps, and this requires development on our side to meet those roadmaps. This is very important for us to maintain our market position and increase the business with our existing customers.

This would be the two types of developments that we will be introducing in 2023.

Gus Richard
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Northland Capital Markets

Okay. You know, sort of any color on the, you know, front-end, advanced packaging? Is it... You know, just any sort of...

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

It will be in the advanced packaging. It will be in the front end. It will be for silicon carbide. I would say even certain applications, even in the CMOS imaging. This is really across our entire portfolio and applications, we will be showing improvements and new capabilities in our products.

Gus Richard
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Northland Capital Markets

Okay. Thanks so much.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Thank you, Gus.

Operator

Thanks, Gus. Our next question will be from Brian Chin of Stifel. Brian, please go ahead. Yeah. Brian, can you hear us? Brian, I think you're muted.

Brian Chin
Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Stifel

All right, sorry about that. Yeah. Is that better?

Operator

Yeah, we can hear you.

Brian Chin
Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Stifel

Great. Yeah. Good afternoon. Sorry about that. Thanks for letting us ask a few questions. Yeah, appreciate the color on the lead times and that does still, you know, if you place an order now, maybe you get a delivery, May, June. You maybe have a little bit of visibility and backlog going into 2Q. Do you think based on that, you know, H1 revenue is generally stabilizing around Q1 levels? That's my first question.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Well, you know, Brian, you know, I, I talked about it before, you know, it's the current status, even when we look at our backlog and pipeline that they are solid. We are very hesitant in giving you more color on the Q2 because things are changing. As I said before, we did not have any major cancellations, so we feel we are positive about the business. Still, it's very hard at this stage to put a very clear number.

Brian Chin
Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Stifel

Okay. Yeah, fair enough, 'cause if you just run, you know, Q1 revenues flat across the year, you know, and you're obviously a little bit more optimistic about H2, but that would obviously get you know, maybe down 10 for the year or something a lot better than maybe what the kind of the benchmark might be in terms of industry spend this year.

Maybe a couple other questions. I know you know, with China, I know you don't aggregate China exposure as a whole, and so I'm not asking you to do that, but can you provide some sense of how you think holistically your revenue in China could trend this year relative to last year? Also generally, what makes you more optimistic maybe that the distribution of this revenue improves later in the year?

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

First of all, we did not go... As you said, we don't give any, you know, segmentation. All in all, you know, China is coming out of the coronavirus. It's going to open, and we'll see, you know, how things work there in a couple of months. When we look in China, we are, the business there is stable. The backlog is stable. The pipeline is stable. We don't see any major change. I think our customers there are continuing to order machines.

The industry is growing there. The new customers there. I don't see any change. However, there are some, I would say some things that we would need to wait and see how the whole thing in China is playing out. I think Rafi talked in here in his prepared remarks about how the US restrictions would work there. There are a lot of unknowns, but I think from our point of view, we do not see a major change there. Rafi, maybe you wanna comment further?

Rafi Amit
CFO, Camtek

I say that, you know, if, during the Q1, the proportion between, you know, China, Asia, and other territory are about the same as last year, and we have to take into consideration that China was under a very tough time and very heavy slowdown. As far as I know, the government now want to make a very quick recovery. Definitely it can make, you know, this action could definitely, you know, improve the business in China. As I said, it's too early to say. We have to wait. Maybe one, two months, and then we can feel more comfortable what is going on.

Brian Chin
Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Stifel

Okay. No, that's helpful. Very last question. Silicon carbide has come up, been mentioned a few times on the call. Within maybe that 20% of revenue, which Q4 and then maybe, you know, similar-ish for last year, but what's the significance exiting the year of your Silicon carbide or as power device revenue? Kind of with new products, existing products, and is that a business off its smaller size right now? It looks like it could even grow this year. Kinda geographically, where are you stronger and where are you targeting, if you think just, not by customer, but, you know, Europe, US, Japan, maybe China. Any color there would be helpful.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

First of all, the Silicon carbide, the compound semi in general, it's a global business, and it's in all territories. Obviously, you know, I'm hesitant, I don't want to disclose any names of customers, but we are serving, I would say, most of the major players in this area. I think we talked about the $18 million of order which we received a few weeks ago. That's definitely from a number, it's a significant number.

What I can talk about this, you know, this is just one customer with specific steps. We're doing additional steps at this customer, this specific customer, that there is even more potential in that specific opportunity. Like this customer, there are several other customers that can order machines. Silicon carbide is growing very fast. We have a good position in all, I would say, or most of the major Tier one customers that are out there. Definitely it's a business that I'm expecting to grow. We are going to grow, both as the business grows, but we are also finding more and more steps within the process that we are going to address.

Brian Chin
Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Stifel

Okay, great. Very helpful.

Rafi Amit
CFO, Camtek

I would like to add that, you know, Silicon carbide actually is mainly for the electric cars. You know, everyone know what's going on. This is one of the segment that is, the CAGR is over, I think, 20%. Definitely this drive the Silicon carbide very aggressively, and this is why we feel very comfortable with it.

Brian Chin
Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Stifel

Okay. Thank you, Rafi. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you, Brian. Our next question will be from Craig Ellis from B. Riley. Craig, you may go ahead. Please unmute yourself.

Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research, B. Riley Securities

Yep. Can you hear me guys?

Operator

Yeah, we can.

Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research, B. Riley Securities

Yeah, wonderful. Congratulations on the fifth year of growth. Really a great track record. I wanted to follow up on the industry outperformance issue, and I totally understand that the nature of things makes it hard to really provide concrete color around the business's dynamics beyond the current quarter. I'll try it this way. If you look at the potential to outperform industry. Can you give us some range of potential outperformance that you think is possible? If you can't quantify that, could you rank the factors that you think are most significant in leading to an outperformance margin?

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Let me try. You know, we talked about the segmentation. I think that the advanced packaging segment will be, I would say, solid this year. This is a segment that is 60% of our business, in the Q4 was 67%. This is a segment that will maintain, I would say, a good performance. When I talk about this segment, I'm including the DRAM move to High Bandwidth Memory. Potentially, there is the DDR5. Definitely 60% of our business, I think, is, I can say, in good shape. There are the rest. I think silicon carbide is an area that should also perform well.

As Rafi said, this is going to electric cars. This is a segment that's going to continue to grow because there is a transition from to electric cars we see everywhere. There comes, I would say, the risk. I think where we are, where there is an uncertainty is in the capacity. Some of our customers that are very hesitant about expanding their capacity. That's the area where it's very hard to give a number, to quantify.

We feel comfortable about that we outperform the performance of the market, but to give you an exact number, it is difficult. One thing that definitely I think is a plus is our exposure and strength in China, definitely. As Rafi said, they are coming, there are some loans, but definitely this is an area that's going to continue and expand the industry. There is no choice. We see that the number of new customers, application. Definitely, I'm expecting that this will be a plus for us in 23. Rafi, you want to add something?

Rafi Amit
CFO, Camtek

No, it's fine. That's exactly, you know, the situation.

Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research, B. Riley Securities

Ramy, that was really helpful. Thank you. Moshe, I'll flip one over to you. It sounds like within operating expense, there's some different dynamics going on. onsemi the R&D line, the company's committed to all the things that are gonna generate those new products that you've talked about. It sounds like spending there is at least stable, but potentially up. On other parts of operating expense, you're looking for efficiency. How does that net out in the Q1 and through the year? Does it net to fairly flat OpEx? Would they go down in absolute dollars through the year? Help us with the contour of that line.

Moshe Eisenberg
COO, Camtek

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You know, we continue to invest in R&D, and as a matter of fact, we will see some increase in R&D over the year. That means that, you know, other areas will have to compensate for that, and these are sales and marketing and G&A. Here we are going to tackle sales channels, improvements. We're going to look into travel. Basically we'll be doing, you know, like any company that is looking to improve profitability, we will be much more cautious with respect to all kinds of expenses.

We will monitor it more carefully. Not that we have not done it in the past, but obviously when you are in a more challenging business situation, with which, even more so. Net-net, you know, we will see some reduction in operating expenses from the Q4 numbers. Not by much, but we will see some reduction. If we ended Q4 with $17.4, we will see some reduction in Q1 in the level of operating expenses.

Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research, B. Riley Securities

That's really helpful. Then, Rafi, I'll ask you a question. The company's done a fantastic job growing its customer base and the 225% or excuse me, the 50.25% addition last year is pretty remarkable. As you look at 2023, how much further room is there to expand the customer base? And how significant can that be relative to what was a really big year in 2022?

Rafi Amit
CFO, Camtek

First of all, you know, regarding customer base, you know, even so from time to time, you know, we are surprised, you know, discover a new customer. Many of them, by the way, in China, is a new customer that you don't know about them. Nobody know, and all of a sudden you get more and more customers. Definitely China is one of the major territory that we can see, new customers. When we talk about new customers, sometime, you know, it is the same customer, but different segment in this specific customer.

For example, if we penetrated to a Tier one customer to a specific application, and then we found that we can give him better solution in other application in other department, all of a sudden you have more than one customer, like sub-customers. We see that we there are enough room for us to develop our ability to many other segments, and especially we talk about OQC front-end application.

There are more and more play that from time to time, we see that we have the tool, we have the ability, and to in order to go there. This is why we feel very comfortable that, you know, the 250 customer definitely are helping us in reducing our risk when there are some slowdown effect. We definitely continue doing all our efforts to continue expanding the customer, the install base of customers.

Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research, B. Riley Securities

Plenty of room for share and share of wallet expansion as you look ahead. That's helpful. Thanks, Rafi. Moshe, I'll flip it back to you as my final question. Very significant increase in interest income in the quarter. Would you expect that kind of increase again in the Q1 ? And how much duration should we expect with these increases in average interest rates across your different cash and investment instruments as we look at 2023?

Moshe Eisenberg
COO, Camtek

As you can, as we all know, interest rates are pretty high these days, and we are trying to take full advantage of the high interest rates. We have reported $3.8 million of financial income in the Q4. Yes, we expect this number to continue to grow to $5-ish million on a quarterly basis in 2023. Again, this is all assuming that the interest rates remain at the current level.

Craig Ellis
Senior Managing Director and Director of Research, B. Riley Securities

That's really helpful. Thanks for the insights, team.

Moshe Eisenberg
COO, Camtek

Thank you.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Thank you, Craig. If there are any additional questions, please raise your hands on the platform, and we'll give a moment to poll.

Operator

Our next question will be from Alon Last from Meitav. Alon, please go ahead. Alon, you need to unmute yourself.

Alon Last
Equity Research Analyst, Meitav

Yes. Hi. Can you hear me?

Operator

Yeah.

Alon Last
Equity Research Analyst, Meitav

Hi. I'm from Meitav, not from Meitav, by the way.

Operator

Oh, sorry. From Meitav.

Alon Last
Equity Research Analyst, Meitav

It's okay. Yeah. My question is about the memory. It was a bit slowish in the last couple of years, and you speak about it as a potential for 2023. Could you elaborate a bit about what's the prospect there?

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

This is an example where the technology of the DRAM is changing. Today, there are more and more applications, and this is tied up to the high performance computing and the heterogeneous integration. You see the High Bandwidth Memory. These are memories that are in stacks. They're very fast, they're very efficient from a power consumption, from bandwidth, from every aspect. All the manufacturers are starting to produce them.

They have been producing them, but they're ramping up the quantities, the capacity is growing. Obviously our machines are here used to inspect the bumps on the wafers. That's an application that we're very dominant throughout in all the major players in this segment. That's an area, it's not huge, but it is big enough to mention it. I'm expecting 2023 and also 2024, we expect to enjoy from this application.

Alon Last
Equity Research Analyst, Meitav

Thank you.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

You're welcome.

Operator

Thank you, Alon. Our next question will be from Shahar Cohen. Shahar, please go ahead.

Shahar Cohen
Equity Research Analyst, Meitav Dash Brokerage.

Yeah. Hi, guys. What about silicon carbide? What's your market share over there? Are you like the dominant player in the silicon carbide inspection? Do you have also play on gallium nitride on top of silicon carbide? What we see, we see major expansion from across all customers from On to Wolfspeed to Infineon. Why you are saying the customers are lacking to add capacity what we see the, you know, multiple growth of capacity in that area. If you can speak more about that would be it.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Shahar, I cannot speak about customers' names. I think as we said before, this is definitely a market, the end market is growing, and the use of Silicon carbide is also growing. More and more people are adopting Silicon carbide in their electric cars. Definitely that's an area that we will see growth over the next few years.

I think Rafi mentioned the CAGR is about 20%+. Yes, we are a dominant player in certain applications, not in all of the application. It's an area that we are gradually developing capability and expanding our presence to other applications, other steps, process steps within the Silicon carbide. That's definitely a very promising market for us. It has been growing over the last few years. I think from a single-digit number to a double-digit numbers this year. We definitely expecting to see more growth in this segment over the next few years.

Shahar Cohen
Equity Research Analyst, Meitav Dash Brokerage.

Okay. Gallium nitride. Is there a gallium nitride business or it's like?

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

Yeah. Gallium nitride is also has some advantages in other applications. I think the market there still at this stage is smaller, but definitely it's a market that we play in, Gallium nitride, Gallium arsenide. There are many flavors here, and each of the flavor has different aspects and means in capacity. I think it's a little bit more complex, you know, to try and answer all of this in a few minutes. you know, you can give me a call and we can speak about it more.

Shahar Cohen
Equity Research Analyst, Meitav Dash Brokerage.

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you, Shahar. I believe that is the end of the question and answer session. Before I hand over back to Rafi, I'd like to let you all know that in the coming hours, we will upload the recording of this conference call to the investor relations section of Camtek's website at camtek.com. I'd like to thank everybody for joining this call, and, I'd like to hand back to Rafi for a closing statement. Rafi, please go ahead.

Ramy Langer
CEO, Camtek

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 your long-term support. I look forward to talking with you again next quarter. Thank you and goodbye.

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