Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Besi's quarterly conference call and audio webcast to discuss the company's 2022 second quarter and first half-year results. You can log in to the audio webcast via Besi's website, www.besi.com. Joining us today are Mr. Richard Blickman, Chief Executive Officer, and Ms. Hetwig van Kerkhof, Senior Vice President, Finance. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded and cannot be reproduced in whole or in part, without written permission from the company. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Richard Blickman. Thank you. Thank you all for joining us today. We will begin by making a few comments in connection with the press release we issued earlier today and then take your questions. I would like to remind you that some of the comments made during this call and some of the answers in response to your questions by management, may contain forward-looking statements. Such statements may involve uncertainties and risks as described in the earnings release and other reports filed with the AFM. For today's call, we'd like to review the key highlights of our second quarter and six months ended June 30, and also update you on the market, our strategy, and the outlook. First, some overall thoughts on the second quarter. Besi reported solid first half year results with revenue and net income of EUR 416.4 million and EUR 143.2 million, increasing by 12.8% and 9.2% respectively versus the first half of 2021. Revenue development this first half year was influenced by a number of important market trends. On the positive side, it reflected ongoing strength for basis computing and automotive end-user markets, continuing favorable trends from the second half of 2021. Such strength was partially offset by reduced demand for high-end smartphones following a large capacity built in last year, 2021. It also reflected a 31.4% decrease in revenue from Chinese customers, primarily associated with the reduced shipments to subcontractors for mobile handsets and mainstream electronics applications due to overcapacity and COVID-related lockdowns. Net income growth in the first half 2022 benefited from higher revenue levels, stable gross margins of 60.5% and cost control efforts, which enabled us to keep operating expense margins relatively flat despite funding a 46.8% increase in R&D spending associated with new wafer-level product developments. For the quarter, Besi's revenue of EUR 214 million and a net income of EUR 75.6 million grew by 5.7% and 12%, respectively, versus the first quarter of this year. Sequential revenue and profit growth were primarily due to increased shipments for high-end smartphones, an increase of gross margins to 61% due to a more favorable product mix, a stronger dollar, and a 5% reduction in operating expenses. However, orders of EU R 153.1 million decreased by 25.2% versus the orders received in the first quarter. As industry conditions weakened, global GDP growth rates decelerated and customer caution increased. In particular, they reflected lower bookings for high-end mobile and high-performance computing applications, as well as lower orders by Asian subcontractors, partially offset by continued strength in demand for automotive end-user markets. In addition, Besi's backlog of EUR 275 million at June 30 remained at higher than typical levels, reflecting ongoing supply chain issues, selective pre-ordering by customers, and to a lesser extent, push outs by some Asian subcontractors given changing market conditions. Our liquidity position continued to improve at June 30, with net cash of EUR 284 million and total cash and deposits of EUR 601.6 million, increasing by 37.4% and 17.6% respectively versus June 30 of last year. Such increases occurred despite the distribution of EUR 305.7 million to shareholders in the first half of this year in the form of dividends and share repurchases. Given continued strong cash flow generation and current market conditions, we intend to complete the current EUR 185 million share repurchase program by July 31st of this year. Beginning August 1, 2022, we intend to initiate a new EUR 300 million program, representing approximately 7.5% of current shares outstanding, with an estimated completion date of October 2023. Repurchases under this program will help reduce dilution related to Besi's convertible notes outstanding and incentives under employee stock plans. Next, I'd like to speak a little bit about the current market environment and our strategy. As seen in this next chart, industry conditions weakened significantly in recent months following substantial capacity additions over the past eight quarters. Whether this softness is a temporary pause or more prolonged in duration, it is difficult to tell at present, given the many conflicting economic, geopolitical, and industry crosscurrents. Similarly, TechInsights recently reduced their 2022 and 2023 assembly equipment market forecast. They took down 2022 growth from 10.2%-8.2% and 2023 from roughly flat to down 5%. We are accelerating investments in Besi's future, particularly for our hybrid bonding and wafer-level assembly portfolio, as the long-term drivers of our business remain intact and sub-10 nm device innovation continues apace. We are developing greater resources to meet hybrid bonding goals, introducing new wafer-level assembly systems, adding development and support personnel, and taking occupancy of a new 125,000 sq ft leased facility in Malaysia in the third quarter of this year, which should lessen capacity constraints for advanced systems. We received three orders for Besi's new Embedded Bridge Die Attach in the first half of 2022, reflecting progress in the build-out of our wafer-level assembly portfolio. Now a few words about the third quarter of this year guidance. For the third quarter, we estimate that revenue will decrease by 20%-30% versus the second quarter, reflecting current market conditions and seasonal trends. However, Besi's gross margin is expected to remain in the 60%-62% range due to the flexibility of our production model and timely operational actions taken. In this regard, we reduced temporary production headcount approximately by 16% in the latter half of the quarter to better align production with order trends. Further operating expenses are anticipated to decrease by 10%-15% versus the second quarter of this year, principally related to lower revenue levels. That ends my prepared remarks. I would now like to open the call for some questions. Operator. Thank you so much, Richard. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. You'll then be advised when you can ask your question. Again, it is star one on your telephone keypad to ask a question on today's call. The first question is coming from the line of François-Xavier Bouvignies from UBS. François, you're unmuted, and you may go ahead. Hi, can you hear me? Hi, I can hear you. Yes. Yeah, great. Thank you very much for taking the question. So my first question is maybe on the HPC and smartphone you already mentioned some weakness last quarter, and I was wondering, the HPC, which seems a bit more new, which products and application are you referring to in terms of a weakness there? That would be very helpful. And then, Richard, you mentioned that if it's gonna be temporary or a bit more. Your line is dropping. Can you repeat that again, please? François, we seem to have lost your audio. Do you mind continuing speaking so we can hear you? Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, can you hear me now? Yeah, I can hear you. Sorry. Please come again. Repeat your question. Sorry about that. The question is on the orders. You said you don't know if it's gonna be temporary or for a longer time period, and it's difficult to say. Do you see any data points already of some recovery of anything that you could flag from the weak two orders, last two quarters of orders? Do you see anything that makes you more confident or bit more bearish? Just given your experience, I thought it would be interesting to have your insight on that front. Well, let me share some thoughts about how we look at the current market situation, and certainly for high-end smartphones in particular. If you look at the Chinese market, there is widely recognized and publicized weakness already for some time. On leading high-end smartphones, it's a question, what new features will be included in next year's models? The question is, face recognition is one of them, modules for further adapting the next generation for 5G. Sorry, there was an interruption here, but let me continue. There are some articles expecting that may well be included in next year's generation, so that's a positive one. Same, like data center, data processing remains a very solid application area. Also to note, which is positive, is the front end continued CapEx. Simply imagine all devices need to be assembled in at some point. Those are underlying positive trends. What is negative is, as we also in the press release have commented, is after two very strong growth years, 20%+ up in 2020, 70%+ up in 2021, and still some lockdown effects in China. You have seen some slowdown in particular in China. The question is there an overcapacity to an extent which would point to a longer absorption of that capacity. There are underlying positive trends. There are some hesitations. You could also say as a hesitation, the overall global economy situation with China slowing down, with other questions about inflation, et cetera, which could have a negative impact on our business. The underlying demand for semiconductors, and again, confirmed by continued CapEx in the front end, is a positive one. New, let's say, components, solutions, camera modules, I wanted to say, are particular ones which could be included in next year's high-end generations. It is all to be seen. We can ramp up very rapidly. Many of you know that. We can also adjust the cost downward rapidly. Besi is ready for any scenario. Does that help? Yes, very much, Richard. On HPC, I mean, where do you see the weakness product and application? Because it seems new versus that quarter. Can you give more details around the weakness there? How do you mean? I complete- High-Performance Computing. Yeah. The comment I would simply share here is that it's, let's say, not every quarter is strong, but the underlying growth is very strong. Don't forget, if you look at Intel, for instance, they have major CapEx plans for the next eight years, which is all widely publicized. This is a, you could say, a seasonal effect, but not a structural effect. Okay. HPC, just a one-off, basically this quarter for the other weakness. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. If you look in retrospect, in our let's say world, typically the first half year is very strong. The third and fourth quarter are typically somewhat less. This is not unusual. Of course, a reduction by double-digit quarter-on-quarter is something which is significant. On the positive side, the underlying trends, also, if you look at our margins, our overall net margins, the product position of Besi is very strong. Great. Thank you very much, Richard. Thank you so much for your question, François. The next question is coming from the line of Charles Shi from Needham & Company. Charles, your line is unmuted, and you may go ahead. Good afternoon, Richard. Thank you for taking my question. I wanna ask you a little bit more about your backlog, EUR 275 million by exiting the June quarter. My question really is about what you are seeing in terms of your customers' commitment level as of today. I heard you talk about some push-outs. Are you seeing any outright cancellation right now? Or, how do you feel about that at this point? Thank you. The first one is easy to answer. There are no cancellations, otherwise we would have mentioned them. There is some push-out. Some is related to simply our guess is less demand or immediate demand. Some is related also to logistics infrastructure and COVID in China in particular. But again, that is in comparison to the total backlog minimal. You could ask the question, how much could our quarter have been more if we didn't have push-outs? I would have expected that question. But there's an easy answer. It's between EUR 15 million and EUR 20 million more revenue. Anyway, that is a picture which we translate into softer market conditions. Got it. I want to ask a little bit more longer-term question here. Hybrid bonding, TSMC, Intel commitment is very clear at this point. It's well-publicized. I want to ask you on the memory side. I know you have given some indication in the past, but can you remind us who, with the level of customer engagement right now, how committed they are in terms of going into hybrid bonding and potentially, I mean, adopting your tools? Any color would be great. Thank you. Well, if you look at the progress we've made in the past year, it is significant. A year ago, June, it first moved from a development center into production for a first application in a chiplet architecture, well-publicized in September last year. That resulted in establishing a mainstream capacity, and we are shipping every quarter systems to complete that initial phase. That went also successfully in the second quarter, and that will continue in the fourth quarter and also in the third quarter and partly in the fourth quarter. We also mentioned not just one customer, there are also other customers, and it's all related today to CPUs and memory is under development applications. At this moment, you could say the adoption rate is continuing at the level which it was, let's say, three months ago. One could expect still the timelines. The roadmaps for CPU and then memory, 2022, as we mentioned in previous calls, initial startup. 2023, real production and at multiple, at two customers, and then from 2024, 2025 onwards, also in the memory space. We are engaged in development of certain devices in initial phase in the Center of Excellence in Singapore, in particular, ongoing development programs also at customers. You could say a roadmap which continues according to plan. Our machines are getting day by day more production capable in many ways, meeting yield targets, meeting also higher throughput targets, and that is all according to plan. Thank you, Richard. My last question. Want to ask you about what you think about your competitor's recent announcement on their version of die-to-wafer hybrid bonding. It does look like it's actually a different approach from your direct die-to-wafer hybrid bonding. Have any comments on that? What do you think about your competitive positioning relative to their offering there? Thank you. Well, in several ways, the industry is developing certain technologies to accomplish the interconnect. A TCB process, whether it is using a reflow or not, or a flux, I should say, clearly, a flux or not, is a reflow process. A hybrid interconnect is a copper to copper. Clearly, with ever smaller design geometries, the conclusion is more and more clearly that one needs a hybrid bonding process. There are many devices which are still connected either with flip chip or a TCB, thermal compression bonding process, so using a reflow process. There will continue to be, you could say various, technologies used of those three in the advanced structures. We are recognizing continued, as I explained to your earlier question, adoption of this hybrid bonding. At the same time, we are successful with our next generation TCB platform, with features also addressing the combination of these two processes on a similar platform, which has great advantages to those customers. As a final comment, it's clear that in this future growth market with expectations of significant higher growth rates than the previous CoWoS technology generation, published recently by a major Taiwanese customer in an investor day, that bodes very well for future growth rates for hybrid bonding technology. Oh, hey, Richard. So sorry. I thank you for the color on your thoughts on TCB. My question is actually, will you think about EVG and ASMPT's announcement on their die-to-wafer hybrid bonding tools? It's quite a different approach, but I wanna get your thoughts relative to your direct die-to-wafer approach. What do you think about how you differentiate from their offering? Thank you. Well, as you already said, that's a different approach. So far we anticipate that the direction we follow is today the expected dominant technology direction. As I tried to say, in this whole environment of interconnect, there are different solutions being developed. One of the problems with die-to-wafer and different processes is that you have to understand more clearly which device types. Because for some or certain device you need different processes, and the one you are referring to is a different device type, not comparable to the CPUs which we are currently connecting. In any case, it is not a one-to-one comparison. Thank you very much. That's all my questions. Thank you, Charles. Thank you so much for your questions, Charles. The next question is coming from the line of Didier Scemama from Bank of America. Your line is unmuted, and you may go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon, Richard. I have a few questions on hybrid bonding, if I may. Number one, if you could give us a sense of your order intake for hybrid bonding machines in Q2 or what your backlog looks like. Second of all, I think you alluded to that in your previous comments. TSMC said they're going to increase capacity for hybrid bonding by 20x by 2026. I wondered whether you could tell us whether your 12-15 unit hybrid bonding capacity plan is enough to cover that 20x incr ease in capacity. And I've got a follow-up. Thank you. Well, first of all, as I mentioned already in answer to an earlier question, the rollout so far is on track, if you take the roadmaps which we shared in the Investor Day Capital Markets Day. Of course, there is always an anticipation of maybe an acceleration earlier, but it takes time for the adoption and also especially the yields which are required for these very high-end devices. What we conclude today is that it is on the right track and following expectations at customers. Again, take the timeline 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026. A lot of, let's say, the adoption and rollout in larger volumes is expected to start from late 2023, but 2024, 2025, 2026. To meet those very strong targets expressed recently, and it's not just that one customer, but also the others, there's an enormous pressure, and that's why you see our R&D investment going up. Also the infrastructure we are building is taking more and more shape, anticipating on a major adoption of this technology resulting in higher volume machines than what we anticipate today. Our capacity in place is between 15-18 machines per month, but we're ready to expand that if that is needed. It may well be that when once we have 2023 more clearly, and know more about 2024, 2025, that we should review that. The 20x certainly means more machines than that. There's still time to go in July 2022. Yes, we are on top of that. We are with the right customers, the leaders. We have the right solutions. There's still a lot which has to happen. Thanks for the color. Maybe another question on hybrid bonding for me would be that to what degree the fact that your current machine is supporting 7 nm and to a lesser degree 5 nm design is a problem. What I mean by that is one would have expected, you know, the new designs by the major fabless customers or even IDMs to focus on the 3 nm node. To some degree, does that limit the near-term appetite for hybrid bonding at the 7 nm and 5 nm, or am I off base here? No. You have a very important question. As we announced also earlier, we have now a system which can accomplish 150 nm, but in actual, let's say, use, it is around 200 nm, which is sufficient in current generation. Early next year, we have to install the machine which can reach the 100 nm, which then is tied to 5 nm and for some 3 nm applications already. Two years further down the road, 2025, we have to be ready for 50 nm. It's not just a number of devices produced in the current machine, but there is a technology roadmap. Most simple way to understand is that the machines have to be capable to go also in tighter accuracies following this design geometry of the semiconductors. Whether that will limit the, let's say, current, is not to be expected because there's a very broad range of applications already feasible today. Also think about the chiplet architectures, and there are many devices connected which do not even need the 150 nm generation, which can be done with, maybe even 500 nm. So it's not only the highest accuracy which is required. I would recommend look at our Capital Markets Day presentation on the hybrid bonding roadmaps, and there you see more details. Brilliant. Maybe just one last question. Since the China lockdowns were lifted, have you seen any pickup in activity or anything that would make you a little bit more optimistic? Doesn't sound like it, but just wondered if you could share anything with us. Well, as we mentioned, not at this very moment. We had some push-outs in June. Yeah, the key question is how this will develop. Will it be a soft landing? Some people. I repeat what I said earlier, the ongoing CapEx in front end is simply addressing an ongoing demand to be expected in the next years. For that you need also your assembly equipment. If front end starts to slow down, then you have a more clear picture of what is happening. It is hard for us to be conclusive, and we rather stay on a more cautious stance than that we sort of try to portray a picture which is on the opposite, on the more positive side. Again, with all what's happening in the world, we are more cautious than that we are very optimistic. You are cautious, but you are buying back your stock more aggressively. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well understood. Thank you for your questions. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, it is star one on your telephone keypad to do so. The next question is coming from the line of Marc Hesselink from ING. Your line is unmuted and you may go ahead. Yes. Thank you. Can you talk about what you're seeing now in the supply chain? A few quarters ago you were constrained by the supply chain. Is that now completely away because of now a bit slower pace? Also related to that supply chain, if you look at the risk of significant overcapacity, the fact that not only you, but the entire industry was not able to supply the demand that the clients had, is that going to have a significant impact on how much digestion then needs to be done? That's again an excellent question. First of all, in the supply chain there are certain components which are still short in supply. What are those components are typically devices which are used in controllers. That's number one. That is the ongoing, let's say, battle to either get from different sources or redesign. That is the most difficult at this moment. Many other, let's say, short supply components have relaxed. The world definitely has improved from the number of issues, but there are some still critical in receiving those. That's not just for basic equipment, that's also for other equipment. That's also one of the reasons why certain deliveries have been delayed, push outs. You could argue at some point, there are certainly safety stocks being built. We also, in our backlog, have orders with longer delivery times, simply customers anticipating ongoing supply chain, let's say, critical issues. Compared to pre-COVID, our lead times are not shorter, some are longer, and customers simply order earlier. That's why not the whole backlog is shipped in the third quarter. Overall then, the picture has improved, but there are some components which are still very critical. Redesigns take time. We have succeeded in several redesigns. There are some components where still suppliers offer you a lead time of over 20 weeks, which can be critical if you don't have an alternative. That picture, again, is in the total supply chain. Customers are helping us. The major customers also have a big impact on certain suppliers. All of us do receive support from major customers, but that has not been resolved in total. Okay, thanks. The impact of that earlier, you could not deliver the machine because the supply chain, does it impact the amount of digestion that needs to be done, or you don't look at it that way? Well, you could imagine that the whole world, due to all the logistics issues, as said, are building safety stocks, which could in the end have an, yeah, let's say, an overall major overcapacity situation, but that's not clear today. I would say today it's more a natural pattern. We had eight quarters of very strong demand overall, and usually that's the length of an upcycle, and then you have a digestion phase. What's different this time is, number one, continued strong front-end CapEx, and what is also different is automotive remains very strong. Those are tied to economic situations in the world, if we look in retrospect. There's still some positive underlying trends, and there are some which are simply overcapacity. That's why we always say these are crossroads. Anyway, it is what it is. That's clear. Maybe a final shorter question. On the new applications for mobile, in the past, you also talked about the MicroLED option. Is that something that could also come in the more near term, and how do you see that opportunity for Besi? Not that we recognize that. We always said 2024, 2025, that there's still ongoing development, definitely. Mainstream application, not yet. Okay. Clear. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you for your question. The next question is coming from the line of Robert Sanders from Deutsche Bank. Robert, your line is on mute, and you may go ahead. Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. I had a question relating to one of your competitors, ASMPT. The way they are talking about hybrid bonding, chip-to-wafer hybrid bonding, is more in terms of it being relatively immature and that the customers in the nearer term are choosing to go with chip-to-wafer TCB. In fact, they signed a $100 million order in H1. I guess my understanding is that these were more complementary approaches, but is there a scenario where customers feel that the whole hybrid bonding adoption is just not quite there with the ecosystem and all the different front-end tools and yield, et cetera, and that they end up alternately going to chip-to-wafer, what they call ultra-fine pitch? Or is that not the way to characterize it? Well, two comments. Number one, it is down to one customer who has, let's say, a two-track strategy. But it's more and more clear that for the, let's say, below 7 nm or 10 nm, these are jointly, but then for certain devices, of course, there's no way to have the interconnect accomplished without a hybrid bonding process. This two-way approach will continue. In the end, these 5 nm and 3 nm, they have to be connected. As I responded to an earlier question, we don't see any slowdown or change in roadmaps so far, and there's also not, let's say, reasons which have to do with yield, improvements which are not achieved then, that you would have a delay in the adoption. The delay in or l et's say the adoption rate is more in the end customer designs, what we hear. That's the status today. We do not read in those comments what's happening. We are very much pressured to make things work more rapidly and so there's enormous positive pressure on us to make it work better and better. Got it. In your view, the long pole in the tent, if there is one, is nothing to do with your bond. There are no roadblocks as we know of today, which are going into a direction in an opposite direction. Let's put it very, very directly. No, we see continued adoption. We see continued major expansion in the memory market, in the development, which is according to earlier roadmaps. For us, it's more and more homework. Got it. Just last question would just be comparing this sort of down cycle to other down cycles. I think in the past, you know, down cycles have been six, maybe eight quarters, depending on, I mean, back to 2018 and 2019, your orders corrected significantly in Q2 2018, and then it sort of picked up maybe eight quarters later. I guess, you know, I know it's very difficult to predict, but is it fair to say that your revenue is likely to bottom out at a much higher level than the last cycle just because of a baseline of revenue, whether it's replacement, install base driven, whatever it is, versus the last cycle? Well, the question is could be more precisely why would it be at a higher level? Because in 2019 you did not have a major technology change. That is different this time. What's also different is our overall market position. If you simply analyze where's our revenue coming from in orders, we have a broader market position. You could also argue you can see that in the margin structure and the cost structure. But that's another question. The world was in better shape in 2019 than it is today. There's an overhanging dark cloud which could spoil that model in a way which we have not seen in 2019. Let's focus first on where is Besi. I think it's fair to say what I just tried to summarize. Got it. Thank you, Richard. Thanks, Rob. Thank you so much for your question. The final question for today is coming from the line of Nigel van Putten from Kempen & Co. Nigel, your line is unmuted, and you may go ahead. Thanks. Hi, good afternoon. I have a question on the new facility in Malaysia. Basically, if I read the press release correctly, to improve capacity constraint for advanced systems. Could you elaborate a little bit on that? 'Cause I think if I understand correctly, the hybrid bonding capacity is in place. Should this facility be more for TCB and Embedded Bridge Die Attach, and I assume high-end flip chip as well, or is that not correct? No, let me explain. We have currently three facilities in Malaysia. Three. We have the original facility, our, let's say where we started back in 1994, and we have two additional facilities. The 1994 facility is our major facility, where we also have installed the clean room in that same building. We were struck by this flooding December 2017. What we have decided to do, and we also, I should mention, the EUR 1 billion+ model. There are two ways, which let's say the expansion was already in our plan for the next round, but then on top of that, we have to protect that in case the next flooding comes that we have less risk. The new facility will enable us to integrate two of the three facilities into that new facility. Ample space, at the same time, we have the possibility when we move out other products out of the first facility to expand the clean room in the existing facility. We're going to protect the existing facility that's already on the way. With a complete high wall around the building with a lock simply in case water comes, we can close that completely. That's fully protected. The new facility will give us in the next six to 12 months, we will move, for instance, the stock, also packaging equipment, also many other die attach machines into the new facility with ample room to expand in the next upcycle to meet our EUR 1 billion+ model. Does that answer your question? Yes, that's clear. Thanks. A follow-up on these initial orders for the Embedded Bridge Die Attach. Well, I sort of assume those are initial orders. Could you elaborate a bit on that? Also, TCB wasn't explicitly mentioned in the press release. We talked about it briefly in Austria. Is that still on track to be released by the end of the year? Thanks. Yeah, yeah. TCB is definitely on track. There's an enormous customer pressure on that because of many unique features which should put that at the first position for the next generation. That's well on track. Yeah, there's certainly on the bridge attach, this is just the start, but that looks very promising. That can be a vital element in further development of the chiplet architecture, and that completes our total offering. If you take those bridges, you take, of course, the hybrid bonder and then the TCB platform, chip-to-wafer platform, that's gonna address the complete scope. Okay. That's very clear. Thank you very much. Thanks, Nigel. Okay. Thank you everyone for your questions. There are no further questions in the queue, so I will hand back over to your host to conclude today's conference. Well, thank you all for attending and the good questions. I wish you a good summer and especially healthy. Stay safe. Any further questions, don't hesitate to contact us. Bye-bye. Thank you everyone for joining us on today's call. You may now disconnect your handsets. Hosts, please stay connected.