Hello, everybody. This is Oliver, Chief Executive Officer of INFICON. I think we have a tiny technical problem with our facilitator, Bernhard, and that is coming right back. Just give us one more minute to figure that out. I dialed in again. Does anyone hear me again? Okay, thank you, Nejc. I think I repeat the introductory remarks. Oliver, can you just start with your presentation? Yeah, I didn't start with my presentation yet. If you could quickly do the intro, and then I'll start right away. Okay, so I'll do the intro again. Sorry for this hiccup. I don't know what happened here. Right. Hello and welcome, everyone. My name is Bernhard Schweizer. As you probably know, investor relations Contact at INFICON. I have the pleasure to host this Microsoft Teams conference, and I do hope that you are hearing me now clearly. Thank you for joining the INFICON conference on its Q2 and H1 year 2023 results. With us today are Oliver Wyrsch, CEO of INFICON, who is calling in from California, and Matthias Tröndle, CFO of INFICON, joining from Liechtenstein. The management team will first present the results and then take questions. During the management's prepared remarks, online participants are kindly requested to turn their microphones and cameras off. You should have received by now a press release on the Q2 2023 results together with the links to the half-year report and the accompanying visuals for this conference. All these documents are available for download in the investor section of the INFICON website, inficon.com. As participants, you can post your questions either in writing using the chat functions in MS Teams. We will read out your questions and management answers them during the Q&A session, or you can add yourselves to the queue of people wishing to ask questions by clicking on the Raise My Hand icon. I would also like to inform you that we record this web conference to archive the audio file later on the INFICON website. The oral statements made by INFICON during this MS Teams session may contain forward-looking statements that do not relate solely to historical or current facts. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of our management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect our current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Having said all that, and my apologies again for the delay, I would like to hand over now to Oliver Wyrsch. Oliver, please. Thank you very much, Bernhard. Welcome, everybody. I'm very happy to host you today in this Q2 presentation. And yeah, best greetings from the West Coast. I'm currently traveling here, visiting some customers and our team. But nonetheless, we dive right into our Q2 presentations. Quickly on the agenda, as always, I will start out with the key messages, the figures for Q2, a review of the target markets, and our expectations for 2024. After me, our CFO, Matthias Tröndle, will give you more details on the financials. If you look at the overview of the Q2 2024 results, we can see an increased sales and profitability. Except for one market, the General Vacuum market, all markets have grown year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. And what is also important to note is that the book-to-bill is back above one. Specifically, if you looked at the sales, they grow to $167 million, +8% versus previous quarter, and nearly flat year-on-year. There's a new quarterly record in the semi and vacuum coating, +3% year-on-year, +almost 30% quarter-on-quarter. You see the dynamics there, which is certainly exciting when we look forward in the semi outlook also. And then the second market that also had a quarterly sales record is the security and energy, +14% year-on-year, +8% quarter-on-quarter. There's a slower momentum in General Vacuum. It's a pretty broad business. I will talk some more about it, -22% year-on-year in Q2. The main slowdown is coming from Asia. If you look at the order intake, it improved nicely as we were hoping for and expecting based on our guidance as well previously. So Q2, the book-to-bill is above 1, and this is the best one, the best order intake since Q3 2022. If you look at operating results, an improved operating income of $34 million or 20.2% compared with 19.5% in Q2 2023. So an increase of 0.7 points. Gross margin strengthened by 0.1 points. Lower broker cost helped improve supply chain quality and availability. Our operational excellence showed further progress. And our systematic cost management during this in-between time before the ramp also showed the expected effects. While, of course, we are preparing for the ramp and make sure we have the capacity available as soon as semi will truly start to pick up. Operating cash flow solid at $19 million. If you look at our organizational topics regarding R&D and CapEx, we continue to invest in R&D. It's currently at 8% of sales and into the production capacity with $60 million for the H1. As noted before, we expect the CapEx for the full year around $30 million. If you look at global sales, as you can see, we have the usual split of half of our revenue in the west and half in the east. When you look at the different markets, you can see in particular in Asia, very positive dynamic in this quarter. Also in the US, while Europe, and that's also the general economic situation a little bit, is less dynamic and basically flat in the comparison. If you now want to look at each of our target markets in a bit more detail, first of all, our biggest one, semiconductor vacuum coating. We continue to have a strong position that we further build out in the markets. Record sales in Q2, of course, small increase, but I think important and significant in the current market environment and cycle where we are. We expect growth to further pick up in the second half of this year. When exactly and how exactly the ramp for each of these submarkets will take place is hard to say, but we have definitely the indicators that the pickup has started. If you look also in comparison to the first quarter with a plus of nearly 30%, you can see the dynamic there, and we can see it also in the orders. If you look at market expectations for this year, unchanged. H1 of the year, we expected it to be soft, and the H2 of the year, we expected to strengthen. When we look at the different submarkets, memory was the slowest submarket last year with the biggest downturn that we could see. This shows improvement. Inventory level have improved. DRAM and 3D NAND show improvement. Not exactly the same level, of course. Then logic, certainly leading logic, we can see good dynamic. We can see big and small OEMs showing good signs, while, of course, they have different dynamics. The biggest two, they had a massive growth last year and are flattish this year, and some of the other OEMs have a slightly different dynamic, but all in all, positive. I think noteworthy is that the mature edge, also business around industrial and automotive, is a bit slower, while they have been last year showing growth for us. That is something also connected with the EV market that is a bit slower this year, but more about this when I get to this specific market. We continue to make investments in leading-edge technology. We continue to work close together with our key accounts to develop the next generation of products. I'm excited about this pipeline. There's good stuff happening. Please note also whenever there is a bit of a slower year, that there is more time to do these R&D projects, and that's certainly also true in the current times. With that, I would go and move on to the next market, automotive, refrigeration, air conditioning. Also here, we continue to build out our number one position in the market. Good growth with 9% year-on-year. It's mainly in Asia and Americas. After a massive growth last year, as you might remember, around 30%. It is good to see this development. This market this year is slower. There's a consolidation, in particular in the EV battery market, ongoing. There's a temporary development, we believe, because the transition will be ongoing, but the adoption and several policies, and specifically the overcapacity in China, has given impulses to slow down this market temporarily this year. All in all, we remain very optimistic about this market. Not only battery, of course, but also other market in refrigeration with new regulations in that area, including also our after-sales service, handheld products grow nicely continuously. Also here, we believe we have a very strong setup of products and also an exciting pipeline of new products that are coming into the market step after step. Outlook for this year, again, that's flat with some growth. If you then go to General Vacuum, that is the market that is slower this year. So far, Q1 was actually quite strong. It shows again this diversification that INFICON has, where we balance this out a bit through the different submarkets. Asia is slower than last year in particular. This is also the general economic situation, whereas some of our other markets are very targeted on high-tech markets that have often very specific dynamics, government incentives, other strategic priorities that are pushed through investment programs. We remain in general market the most complete full-liner regarding vacuum instrumentation and number one position. I believe we have a strong setup through our multi-brand, multi-channel partnerships and channel strategy. So we look optimistic forward, but this year we expect it to stay slow. Again, much will depend on how the different region will develop in the general economic development. Now maybe the last market to finish off, security and energy. We could show in the recent quarters very good growth. As you might remember, still a year ago, we were constrained through the supply chain. These are a pretty complex market in comparison to the rest of our complex products, in comparison to the rest of our portfolio. Hence, the supply chain did give us some troubles at times. First, availability, but also some quality issues from our suppliers. This is not fully gone away, but largely. So we are now able to ship on a very strong backlog and also good order entry. So this is a strong position for us as well, unchanged number one position. I believe we are building this out with new applications and the new product launches we made. Most notable, the new HAPSITE generation, of course, but also others. For this market, we expect continued growth throughout 2024. I believe with this growth of Q2 of another 14% after a strong 2023 and a new quarterly record, we could show that this is performing well and we can now nicely execute after the supply chain has been very, very much improved. With this, I move on to our expectations for 2024. As stated before, we expected the H1 to be soft. One of the key factors there is certainly the semiconductor dynamics, as noted before. In the H2, we see positive signs. I think what we expected has been materializing so far. It is still a year that is with a lot of uncertainties. I think this comes from geopolitics, trade war, economic situation in different regions. So there is enough uncertainties and risks that there could be more growth or less growth. We will have to see how it further develops. In general, we remain mostly optimistic. And again, we see good signs that the expected semi upturn is materializing over time, while we don't know exactly its shape. So with this, we are able to update the guidance for 2024, unchanged midpoint, and the sales at $660 million-$690 million and an operating income approximately around 20%. And with this, I finish as always with a few highlights here. Do connect with us, join us online. You see a lot of updates and insights of what's going on at INFICON. I think one thing that is exciting specifically here is that the semiconductor superhighway was opened up and introduced by Senator and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in our facility in Syracuse. This is a long partnership with all the different organizations in New York, and New York comes back and becomes even bigger in terms of semiconductor importance and manufacturing and R&D. INFICON is right in the middle of it for more than 50 years. We're very excited about this topic, but there's a lot of other things also going on. Developing the market in China, R&D collaboration with different institutes from sustainability to space to robotics and so on. A lot of great stuff happening. Again, if you're interested, join us online. With this, I would like to conclude my prepared remarks, and I'd like to hand over to our CFO, Matthias Tröndle, for more details on the financials. Thank you, Oliver. Good afternoon. This time, not good morning. This time, good afternoon to everyone and welcome to our Q2 call. As usual, I will cover the Q2 financial performance, comment on the guidance, and also comment a little bit on the half-year results. Let me first start with the highlights for Q2. The order situation improved compared to the previous year, but as well also compared to the previous quarter, and the book-to-bill was above one. Our sales showed a slight decline versus Q1, but did grow by 8.3% versus the Q1 of this year. The gross margin improved and reached 47.1%, and we achieved an operating income margin of 20.2%. From a balance sheet point of view, the CapEx reached $4.8 million after record $11.7 in Q1. Cash flow ended with a solid $19 million, and net cash ended at $14 million after the $55 million dividend payment we had in Q2. Our equity ratio increased to 64%. Now let me go a little bit more into the details. As you have seen, we achieved sales of $167 million. This compares to $171 million in Q2 last year and represents a slight decrease of 2.3%. Taking into account a negative currency impact and a small contribution from acquisitions, we posted an organic decrease of 1.2%. Oliver did already comment on the end market developments. I think we can report that sales have increased in all markets except General Vacuum. We had new quarterly records in two markets. In the security and energy market, we had a plus of 14%, and in the semi and vacuum coating market, we expanded by 2.5% compared to Q2 last year and strong 29% compared to Q1. Refrigeration, air conditioning, and automotive sales did grow by 8.5%, and in the GV market, general vacuum market, sales dropped by 22.5%, mainly coming from weaker sales in Asia and North America. Compared to the previous quarter, Q1 sales did increase by 8.3%, mainly coming from semi and refrigeration, air conditioning, and automotive. Looking at the regional sales distribution, Asia surged by nearly 18%, and the other regions were roughly flat compared to Q1. Let's go to the next slide. The gross profit margin reached 47.1% in Q2 and increased by 2.1 percentage points compared to last year Q2. Lower broker costs and improved supply chain, lower freight costs, and a more favorable mix have been the main drivers for that improvement. So what happened to our operational costs? Both R&D and SG&A costs did increase only slightly, respectively moderate. We spent $13.1 million on R&D in Q2, an increase of 2.8%. In SG&A, the cost level did increase to $32 million or 3.3%. Here, costs for additional headcounts and several other initiatives we have started and which are ongoing have been partially compensated by some lower performance-related expense. The operating profit for the Q2 reached $33.7 million or 20.2% of sales after $33.3 or 19.5% in Q2 last year. An increase of 0.7 percentage points and above the 20% mark for the third time in a row. Next slide, please. The tax expense for the second quarter was at $6.2 million, which represents a tax rate of 18.8% and is slightly lower than Q2 last year. The net profit, therefore, did grow by 7.1% and reached $26.5 million or 15.9% in Q2. This compares to $24.8 million or 14.5% in Q2 prior year. Now let's move on to the balance sheet. Our net cash, as already mentioned, reached $14.1 million, which is about $30 million lower than end of last year and about $29 million better than Q2 last year. So there was some improvement, mainly coming through good cash flow. And also, it was some reduction compared to the end of the year because we had this dividend payment in April of about $55 million. The terms for inventory are stable at 2.4, and the DSO, Days Sales Outstanding, had with 50.2 days better level compared to Q4 last year. Our working capital, which consists of accounts receivables, inventory, minus accounts payable, closed at $219 million or 32.8% of sales, and with that ended about $6 million lower than end of last year. The decline is due to good collections, lower DSO as a consequence, and with a decrease in accounts receivable and also lower inventories. Our operating cash flow reached solid level of $19 million, but could not reach the relatively high level of last year in Q2 with $26.5 million. The balance sheet, as already mentioned, improved, and we had a solid structure with a 64% equity ratio. So there have been the comments for balance sheet in Q2. Now here's the guidance and outlook picture. Oliver has already commented the assessment for the end markets and the guidance. Based on our order pattern, the improved supply chain situation, and the expected semi upturn, we have updated and narrowed our guidance and expect now revenues between $660-$690 million for the full year with an unchanged midpoint sales target of $675 million and an operating income margin of around 20%. Finally, let's go to the next slide. I want to quickly give some comments regarding our half-year results for 2024. Here you see some latest information, some high-level information, also with some history. Net sales for the first six months in the current year reached $321.2 million compared to $329.2 million in the same period of last year. This represents a 2.4% decrease or adjusted for currency and acquisition effects a minus of 1.4% organically. In the first half of 2024, the sales development in the end market was mixed. Security and energy surged by 29%. Refrigeration and air conditioning and auto increased by 8%. In the largest target market, semi and vacuum coating, the sales decreased by approximately $9.5 million or 6% and mainly driven by the low first quarter of sales in Asia. Sales in the broadly based general vacuum market decreased by 9.6% to $81 million, heavily influenced by lower shipments to Asian and American customers. The gross profit percentage margin for the first six months increased to 47.4%, and we gained 2 percentage points compared to H1 last year, mainly due to the mixed less broker costs and improved supply chain situation. With a moderate operational cost expense increase, this did result in an operating income of $65 million or 20.2% after $63.3 million or 19.2% in the last year. The operating cash flow developed nearly stable compared to the H1 of 2023 and reached $41 million, and the balance sheet again shows 64% of equity. As mentioned in our press release and mentioned earlier from Bernard, the complete half-year report 2024 with more details and comments is available in our investor section of the INFICON website. With that, I would like to close the presentation. The next events you see here. This year we have our Q3 conference call in October, and then we have our technology day in November scheduled. That's it for now. We are now ready to answer your questions. Thank you, gentlemen. I do hope you still hear me. We have first questions from Joern Iffert, please. Thanks. Hi, Olli. Hi, Matthias. Thanks for taking my questions. I will take them one by one, two to three questions, please. The first one is in semi. I'm pretty surprised to see absolute record semi sales for you now in the quarter while your analog customers, which are also reflecting a high portion, had pretty weak results in Q2, SG Micro, for example. At the same time, Logic and Foundry CapEx is down this year somewhat. So is it only explained by pre-ordering from China? Is it a special SKU, only the higher end, where the Chinese have concerns not to get the products in 12 months because the end list is enriched? Or how do you think abou t this momentum in this record sales? Yeah, I'll take that one. Thanks, Joern, for your question. Yeah, semi. I mean, first of all, I have to say it's a 2% growth year-on-year record. So I think it's significant because we're all waiting for the ramp. And otherwise, I would say it is just a solid setup or a solid step. It is broader, but it is not across all of our product lines. So interesting enough, as you know, we have products that go into the fab early and then later and at different times of the projects down to maintenance products at the very end of the building cycle or selling cycle for a fab. So we only see really a partial dynamic already. And in the other segments, we see some, no indications yet of a ramp. And on some, we see a bit of an improved order behavior. This is now product lines. If you look at the geography, Asia is the most dynamic, and it's not only China, clearly not. I mean, if you look at the foundries, the top two foundries, Taiwan and Korea, they have improved for us. There is an improved CapEx spending, while maybe in Taiwan, not as pronounced. It wasn't also such a ramp down last year, but it's an improvement. Also, when we look at the Q2, you see some of it in the numbers, an increased CapEx spend for this year. But in particular, also in Korea, I think we see good dynamics. Some of it is driven by HBM, my memory. Some of it is leading Logic. You mentioned ST Micro. Yes, this is for us the mature node segment. This was strong last year. I think a lot of it is also auto that drove it and some new energy topics. We saw this also in other product lines. This is clearly slower this year. They are a bit in a mixed situation. I think there's positive signals. I think sequentially, they're improving, as you see this year making every quarter a bit of a step, but they're certainly down in general versus last year, while not maybe dramatically in comparison. If you look at the OEMs, I mentioned quickly the biggest two, they had massive growth last year, and this year are more on a lateral move or development. But then there's some others that are recovering from a downturn last year. And then there's also in China, OEMs, I think continued strong dynamic. What is maybe interesting is that there is still some inventory in some places that we're just about to eat up. I think Q2 was about when we finished up with it, the last remnants of this of inventory for our products at the customer. I hope this helps a little bit to illustrate the different sub-dynamics in the sub-markets. Yeah, thanks, Oliver. Just to follow up here, please, did I understand this correctly? So the growth, I mean, quarter-on-quarter, and yeah, year-over-year, it was more mildly, but it's quarter-on-quarter, it's broad-based. It's not only China. Yeah. Or is it okay? Okay. And then on the SKU, the product line, you say that I sense it's the OEM products we're recovering now at the moment. It's not the end user yet. No, actually, interesting enough, it's more the end user products. That is, but also a little bit a problem of the buffer effect of some inventories, right? We had still a lot of inventory build-up last year when we then started to really reduce the backlog after the supply chain improved. And in some areas, the planning was a little bit off the mark of our customers. I mean, that can happen, right? The delivery times came down dramatically. And then you had this whiplash effect. So we're still eating through some of the OEMs' inventories in some places. And actually, the end user products, they are the ones that show most dynamic development most recently. You also need to know that there is a good amount of product innovations. When I talk about a strong pipeline, there is also a strong pipeline about new sensors, more complex sensors, sensors for new applications. So when you are going to develop your next technology node, you're going to work on this. And as soon as this comes slowly online, if you look, for instance, at the foundry in Taiwan, then this starts to ship in higher volume. So we see good dynamics, but it's also, of course, in China, pretty broad-based. I believe they are committed on this semiconductor industry development. It's solid. Of course, it state- sponsored also, but we also see good dynamic there. Thank you. If you allow me a second question, General Vacuum, of course, a negative surprise in the quarter. When you look on the SKUs here again, is it broad-based weakness you see? I know you highlighted more Asia and America, but is it on the SKUs a broad-based weakness, or is it a special range of SKUs? What is really your best guess which end markets are weakening here suddenly incrementally versus Q1? Because we had macro weakness now since one or two quarters, so it's difficult to explain this with general macro weakness, I assume. Yeah, it's important to note that solar is also part of General Vacuum. Of course, solar had a very high dynamic the last years and goes through a consolidation this year. That's also what we see, specifically why we would say in Asia it's slow and specifically also in China is slow. I don't think this is a long-term effect, but the consolidation is a fact, and we see it. Then I think there is some sluggishness in the general economic development and that we also see in China, except for these high-tech markets that seem to plow on no matter what, right? So there's a bit of a mixed picture. As always, I have to say for this market, about half the revenue goes through channel partners, private label, distributors. We do not have the full transparency there, right? It might be even a two-step process. These channel partners sell into OEMs. So it's not as transparent to us what's going on. I think we should expect for this year a roughly flat development in general of where we are right now for the H2. There could be upside potential if you think that the dynamics increase more broadly. We see it also outside of semi that we have positive momentum, but it would be hard for me to go and give evidence that we should expect this to be really dynamic upwards. What we need to note also, we come from a high level. I think in general that's important to note for all INFICON sales. We did not have a downturn last year, and we're basically stabilizing on a high level while some are slowly recovering, or let's say we are actually growing even in three markets or four while we have grown last year. So if you look at GenVac, a big effect was China opening, and the second one was the supply chain allowing us to ship. So we burned through the backlog last year. We grew nearly 30%. Now this has kind of rebalanced a little bit. I don't think this is necessarily the level that we should expect also for future, but it is a bit of a rebalancing based on a big growth step last year, right? So maybe that's a bit more context around this. I would not see any kind of larger risks or worries that we lose our position. None of this. This is really what we see when we work together with our channel partners there. That's the general dynamic in the market, as you know. Also is, of course, the general industrial picture is pretty mixed, right? There's some positive dynamics, there's some negative dynamics. That's what we're hearing there too. Thank you very much. I'll go back into view. Thanks. Thank you for the questions, Joern. The next questions come from Nejc Lavrič. Hi, thank you for taking my question. And maybe as a follow-up on the General Vacuum. So you do have quite some private label business there and probably one of the customers also Leybold for vacuum simply because of the historical development. So my question is, how much is there also the issue of inventory at your private label customers? Maybe that kicked in now, but in Q1, you still had backlog that you were converting. Yeah, I think maybe also Matthias needs to add here. But I think in general, there's not so much inventory topics there left. We certainly had it last year, backlog, then shortening of delivery times, and then inventories to go through and the rebalancing of the planning and the ordering patterns. I think in this area, this is largely done. Maybe there's a little bit left in China where it was more extreme, right? You need to remember that it was much more pronounced through the COVID lockdown and then the sudden opening and then the warming up. It was more of a volatility in that sense. But I wouldn't say there's too much left for these channel partners. I think if you look at some of those that you can guess who they are, then you see that their General Vacuum technology business is a bit slower this year. Just always calibrate with the backlog reduction last year. That's important to know, right? And you mentioned before the overcapacity. I think you were referring to the automotive refrigeration air conditioning, but not for General Vacuum, right? Just to clarify. No, yeah, good that you asked. No, actually, I do refer to that too. So I would say one big effect of overcapacity that you would see in China that is calibrated this year is in solar. And solar we report as part of General Vacuum. That's certainly quite significant versus we had continued growth, in particular last year. And then the other one is around battery manufacturing and EV manufacturing. And you also see that most pronounced in China, but also outside of China, right? Automotive dynamics, I think we hear it out of the market. It's a bit of a mixed picture currently. I don't think long-term or mid-term even, but it is about an adoption rate. It's about geopolitics, trade war. It's about rearranging your supply chain. There's government incentives that sometimes are not helpful. So there's a mixed topic there. And of course, the overcapacity that plays into this. I think refrigeration, the part that is not connected with auto, you need to know that a lot of refrigeration or air conditioning, of course, air conditioning is connected with the automotive business directly. You need a lot of air conditioning for specifically EV around the battery also. So that is slower, but the general market around refrigeration and air conditioning is actually pretty good, I would say, right? It's not as dynamic as, of course, last year, but in general, that is rather a positive outlook, moderately, right? Hope that helps. Yep. Thank you very much. And maybe then as a second question on your margins, I mean, we had a very strong Q1. Q2 is also above the 20% you guide for approximately 20%. Can you maybe give a few words on that? I mean, you say that supply chain now normalized, the broker chip costs are largely gone. So is this the gross margins we should be looking at going forward, or is there still some potential considering you're also investing for the ramp-up? Thank you. And that's, I mean, you almost answered your own question. Absolutely right, Nejc. So why are we cautious there? I mean, of course, there's uncertainties in the second half. There's risks. We really don't know. Specifically, Q3 could be, again, a little bit of a zigzag development. To explain the zigzag development, right? We had a big Q4, a smaller Q1, a bigger Q2. Q3 could again go a little bit down, and Q4 again be big. So where exactly we'll land on this, even though we know the general industry dynamics are positive, the timing of it is difficult to say exactly, right? So that is the general picture. But yes, we are in this balancing act of managing costs, making the strategic investments in general in R&D and so on, but also preparing for the ramp. So you take on headcounts, and we would expand our production. And some of it is short-term on the midterm. So in this mixed bag, it's a bit hard to say there's only upside. Of course, if you say we plow through, this is the ramp is coming, there is upside, I would say absolutely. But there is, for all these reasons I just mentioned, also downside. Matthias, I don't know if you would like to give some more color also from your perspective. Yeah, I think what was said makes absolute sense. There were risks and opportunities. Of course, we also would like to deliver a little bit more, but it's really around balancing investments, people, some of the initiatives versus what is the, I would say, the kind of seasonality of income, of orders, of delivery, can we deliver in an efficient way. And we'll have no obstacles in front of us. Then maybe there's some room in the margin, but again, it's around balancing and maybe also managing the seasonality in sales and orders and getting the material. Yeah, that's tricky. And as Oliver said, in some areas, we do investments, and we don't yet have the sales and the income from that. So that's our job, basically, to find the right mixture between get ready and being able to deliver and basically work on the orders we get. Yeah, that's. And yeah, I mean, maybe one more additional remark here just to remind everyone. I think you probably all know is that the mix at INFICON has a higher impact than in other businesses potentially in comparison as we have product lines with 40% gross margin and others with 80% and everything in between. We always look at the operating income, which where we have a target for. They're just different businesses, right? If you think at an OEM relationship versus maybe a sensor relationship with a chipmaker where there's a lot of application engineering in there and there's a whole different P&L. We don't know exactly how these product lines will pick up, right? Some are a bit buffered through this inventory effect. Some of our end customers have a little bit of delay or more delay than others in this ramp. And so through this, this mix confuses it a little bit as well if you look at the gross margin only. Yeah. Okay, thank you for the very detailed answer. Thank you. Sure, you're welcome. Thank you for your questions, Nejc. The next questions come from Michael Inauen. Yes, hi everyone. I hope you can see me here on the camera. Hi, Michael. Good to see you all. I have a pretty, or not maybe pretty, but a detailed question on the semi business. I mean, I was just looking at the latest mid-year wafer fab equipment forecast of the semi industry body that you probably also have looked at. And I know Oliver, you're talking about a pickup in demand, and the wafer fab equipment forecast also goes for clearly above $100 billion in the next year. When I look at the mix, at least what semi says, like 55% jump in NAND wafer fabrication equipment and logic and DRAM, probably around 10 or a little more, and mainly also in leading edge. I'm just trying to understand how would such a scenario, I mean, it's still a scenario, yes, but how would such a scenario translate actually in your revenues, in your semi and vacuum business? Because for me personally, it's a bit difficult to actually translate these numbers into your revenues. So I'm just trying to understand if I read this outlook, what would that actually mean for your semiconductor business? Because NAND is probably not your biggest exposure because you didn't have this drop last year. So maybe you can just shed a little bit more light on that, at least for me. Yeah, I'll be honest with you, it's also hard for me to translate it a bit, right? With all these buffers and translations that go in between of what we then in the end see as orders. And then you have the regional dynamic, and then you have the geopolitics, and then you have the state-sponsored dynamic. So a bit hard to see. I mean, I can describe what we see currently, what we believe is going to happen. Maybe this will help. So also a little bit to our surprise is that the end user business with the chipmaker picked up much faster and much sooner. Sometimes you would say it should pick up the other way around, OEMs first, right? What are you going to order when you build a fab? You're going to order your big equipment first, and that's when we see the orders through the OEMs. Yeah, there's multiple complications in this. This time, there's an inventory. There are some growth patterns that are different, right? Again, the big two OEMs, they grew last year 30%, and this year they're flatish. They just moved in their time in terms of their cycle. They are somewhere in the same cycle, but through delivery times and also inventory, they're shifted. And then I believe you have a good market penetration built out through further products that we developed where there's also new applications in there, especially for the leading edge nodes where there was an early pickup. And then there's also in China a good dynamic on a broader basis. They buy sophisticated sensors also for a little bit more mature nodes. I would not even call them fully mature nodes, right? They just don't go to the absolute leading edge. But the investment is solid, and the building up of the industry has momentum and has a broad foundation. But again, I want to stress, it's not only China. It is very much also Asia. It's the two big foundries. It is also memory, and it's also other things, actually, display. As you might remember, we are the leader in display sensors as well with our thin-film portfolio with the RGAs. There is a new dynamic in OLED. There is Periscope. There's a couple of dynamics that are coming. Periscope is a little bit further on the horizon. But there is a broader dynamic there at a number of sub-markets. If you talk about memory, yes, historically, maybe the memory exposure was not as high. But as I mentioned before, the last five years, we really increased it quite a bit. It's just because it's almost a bit of a barrier. It looks to us. Maybe it's almost a similar barrier, not that we want to compare ourselves with this technology, like with EUV, that they move slowly into EUV. On the technologies, they also need more sophisticated sensors and a lot more sensors to stabilize their process and manage their processes. So yes, we didn't have a downturn last year, but we did have a pronounced downturn on our memory business. It's just we are not that focused, right? It's much broader. Software also goes into places where the business models are a little bit different. If you look at STM and so on, the second tier, NXP, TI, they have a different kind of model, and we sell software that has not so much direct connection with maybe how much wafer that you ship or trying to build out your factory with. So for us, there's, again, a number of complication factors. I cannot fully answer your question. If I could, that would also make me happy. Maybe we can continue the discussion and figure it out together. I just try to give you the picture as I see it. Maybe looking into the future, I would expect the dynamic on the chipmakers to continue, actually further gradually improve. There's going to be some kind of a hockey stick uptick probably at one point of time. We would expect that when we step into the bigger CapEx steps. On the other end, OEMs, I would think the dynamic will increase. Again, there's a little bit of a lateral movement for not an insignificant part of the markets because they grew a lot last year. So that will be probably later in the year when we see these orders improve on that end. So, interesting enough, this time OEM is a little bit behind the direct chipmaker revenue. That's interesting. Yeah, thank you very much. Really good to understand. Just a second one, it's hopefully a short one. Just trying to understand a bit the operating leverage from Matthias maybe because what we have seen in the last year is obviously you have invested a lot, you have built up capacity. Even with very high revenues, the EBIT margin stands around 20%. There's a bit of a ceiling. So assuming that the next, let's say, 1-2 years would offer you good growth, particularly also in the semi business without putting out any number, obviously, I mean, it's my job to put something in a model, but is there a chance that you more or less finish your big investments, that revenues go up, and then you're basically harvest on the margin as well? I mean, that we will see something that goes closer to maybe something on a 25% range or at least above 20. So I didn't say nothing about the number. Maybe I can start, and then Matthias can give you some more sophisticated financial insights just on the general picture. I mean, first of all, I would say we have improved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're working on it. As we stated several times, we will always go and invest in R&D more, right? You see there's headcount increase in that. There's headcount increase also in accessing new markets. There's application centers we offer to speed up innovation and customer collaboration, which is both of it combined. If you look at our Guangzhou thing or Taiwan application center or innovation center, and then there's more of this plant. So yes, there is upside potential. What you need to see right now, we are in a spot where we have to invest for the future. Yes, we are also a little bit cost management, but we are not cutting into the structures to a degree to damage anything, right? We're just being smart about how we currently manage our cost. But of course, as soon as the ramp truly starts, this will pick us up again, right? This is not the moment maybe that you should compare with another moment when we have been an absolute steep ramp. So the profitability goes through the cycle as well is what I want to try to explain as a bigger picture. Yeah, so the general trend is upwards, but please note, we will always go after new growth opportunities before we deliver profitability. I think we all have talked about that a few times, and I think we all agree that that's a good idea. So anyway, we'll go over to Matthias to maybe give a little bit more fleshed out answer on the. Yeah, yeah, I think it's absolutely correct what you said, and there were some important influence factors, of course. Yep. And yeah, first of all, we are happy that now it's the third time in a row that we are above 20%. So we made this step, which is good. We had a long time to reach the 20. Of course, we try to improve a little bit further. Volume might help, and will help for sure. Also getting some more efficient processes into operations will also help in doing this. But as Oliver said, I think this is also an important aspect that these investments which are going on and maybe future initiatives which we have in mind will, of course, have some slight impact on that one. So yeah, we want to grow on top line. We also want to grow on the bottom line and take the leverage from higher volume. But we really carefully need to manage all this spending, investments, getting ready for the future. I think that's the key for us. And we have a few projects on our list and a few ideas what we want to do and also a few requirements what we need to do, right? Because we came from, you know it, we came from $400 million ± for many years. Now we are more $650-$670 million. We need to do some investments in people, infrastructure, and so on. And yes, we did do a lot of investments in capacity building in 2021 and 2022. But still, we have every week, Oliver and I have discussions about initiatives and requirements, CapEx requirements, right? Where now maybe some facilities are aged. They have maybe done the last investment 10 years ago, 15 years ago. We want to grow in certain areas. So we need to continue to spend some CapEx for sure, right? It's not over. We spent CHF 60 million, and now we go back to CHF 10 million, right? This doesn't work. So we really need, I think we need to expect also for the next 2 to 3 years quite a reasonable, I would say, a reasonable CapEx volume, which then also will generate, of course, some depreciation expense. That makes sense. Thank you very much. I will go back to the queue. See you soon. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Thank you for that discussion, gentlemen. We have next questions from Michael Foeth. Yes, hi. I hope you can see me. Hey, Michael. Hi, hi everyone. Just two questions. One very quick one tying into Michael's previous question on the semiconductor industry. Maybe you can help us to understand what portion, very roughly, of the end user business is from software solutions, from fab optimization software versus sensor solutions, if that's possible, and how you see that develop into the next cycle. And the second question is on a separate topic on security and energy. Did I understand correctly that you got new orders from the U.S. Department of Defense? And what sort of size is that? How will they phase into the next quarters? And are there other significant orders worthwhile mentioning on the back of increasing security concerns maybe that you're seeing? Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Michael. So I'll go one by one. The first on the software. Yeah. A good thing is for us is software has a bit of a different cycle as well. It has also a very long sales cycle in general. If you compare this with some of our products, specifically the lower-priced sensors. So the software had a very good dynamic the last couple of years. And last year was a bit of a transitional year where they had half of the business growing and the other one a little bit slowing. This was depending on different customer investment projects. The thing is why I mentioned is the sales cycle is there. It's sometimes 2, 3 years until you actually decide to move a fab. And often it's not only 1 fab. It's a couple of fabs in stages. And then you go module by module. A little bit is like an ERP implementation on a small scale maybe, right? Because of a very focused software products only on the smart manufacturing part. They have now in this year, again, an inverted dynamic where some of the product lines pick up again and some others slow down. That is because the second-tier fabs that we mentioned earlier, NXP, TI, and the STM and such, they have a bit of a slower year now than when they grew last year. When we look at the tier-one fabs, often software is also bundled with sensors. So what you see in this dynamic, when I talk about end users, there is often software packaging going with the sophisticated sensors. It's a bit a different type, right? I explained to you a bit the portfolio that there are two big families. One is the digital twin of running a fab, the scheduler, the planning, all the reporting, optimizing maintenance and labor and metrology and all that. And then the other one is really analyzing what happens inside of a tool, what's the health of a wafer, what's the health of a tool, everything around our FDC and our Smart FDC. And these two product families, they have a little bit of a different dynamic. So again, when we zoom out, for us, software, no question, is strategic. It's growing. We see big opportunities. But it's also in these two years that have been showing such a mixed picture, a bit of a mixed dynamic, right? I think the percentage overall stays the same between 5% and 10% of software only, right? We need to always stress every sensor, specifically the big one, have a lot of software. The very big ones that we ship to the Netherlands have a big software part in it, for instance. We also ship these big sensors to other places. But for instance, so there's always software on the sensor, which we do not show and we do not track. This is for us part of the product. But there is, I think, a third of the software developers are actually working on sensor itself. And they have the respective dynamic of what I described further before on sensors. Again, with the smart manufacturing software, it's strategic for us, and we see it very positive. You also, maybe if you remember, we did an acquisition of FabTime this year. One of the reasons why I'm also now on the West Coast is meeting the new team, and we're working on further growth topics and how we can go and translate the different products for us together with our current products into future growth. So working on this strategy continuously to build it up. So that's number one. The other question, security and energy and orders. Yeah, I think sometimes the confusion is a little bit, and that's maybe because we communicated like this. We announced the one big order, I believe it was in, not entirely sure, 2022. The first big orders when we launched in HAPSITE CDT of, I believe it was $25 million, and then there was another $7-$8 million right after and so on. Actually, we're getting orders continuously. So while this was maybe the biggest ever order and so on, that's sometimes more of a timing on the bundling thing, right? So these orders are coming in continuously. The backlog is strong. That's why we can ship like we do. That's why we grew like we did. It is a bit of an upcycle, I do believe, right? It's a tech refresh program that is part of this dynamic, a tech refresh in the U.S. Department of Defense. And this is ongoing, but this will also slow down again. And then there's another wave of another tech refresh or another part of the Department of Defense that will have another cycle of a refresh. If you ask in general, yes, I mean, it's a horrible security situation in general. If you look at where we came to in the last couple of years in Europe in particular, but also in other areas. And of course, there's more spending. Sorry, Sorry, there's more spending now in military budgets. And we do see this in the orders for specifically the HAPSITE. Security and energy, though, has also the other products, right? The energy products, I think the Fusion, for instance, or the IRwin, they are all also part of this dynamic and investments into new energy. Biomethane is one topic. There is hydrogen is the topic. It's a bit of a mixed bag. It's not entirely clear what will in the end be the general solution or most likely will be a mixed picture. But actually, there's a good general dynamic there too. That's not high growth. That's not high volatility. It's a bit slow and steady, that part of security and energy. And we are optimistic for that part too. I think we have very strong products, very high sensitivity, a lot of strong features, fast clean out, mobility, all of that, a lot of accessories, a lot of application development. It's a bit of a different dynamic of the other markets, clearly. But I think we're making good steps forward in also these submarkets there. Hope that helps, Michael. Yep. Thank you very much. Thank you. Are there any further questions from the audience? Then just add yourselves to the queue. If not, as there are no further questions, may I ask Oliver to share his final remarks with us? Yes, of course. Thanks, everybody, for joining today. Interesting discussion, as always. It was good to meet you all. And as you know, there's two dates on our calendar that you should pencil into your calendars. One is the Q3, and then the technology day that we do every few years in November. I'm very much looking forward to meet you all again in this or in any other event. So greetings from the West Coast in the US. It was great to have you all. I wish you a wonderful afternoon and see you soon.