Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Photronics First Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Richelle Burr, Chief Administrative Officer. Thank you, Rivka. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our review of Photronics Fiscal 2023 First Quarter Results. Joining me this morning are Frank Lee, our Chief Executive Officer, John Jordan, our Chief Financial Officer, Chris Progler, our Chief Technology Officer, and Eric Rivera, our Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller. The press release we issued on Monday, together with the presentation material that accompanies our remarks, are available on the investor relations section of our webpage. Comments made by any participant on today's call may include forward-looking statements that include such words as anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, forecast, or in our view. These forward-looking statements are based upon a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors that are difficult to predict. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking information. During the course of our discussion, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial metrics. These numbers are useful for analysts, investors, and management to evaluate ongoing performance. A reconciliation of these metrics to GAAP financial results is provided in our presentation materials. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Frank. Thank you, Richelle, good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report we achieved revenue of $211.1 million in Q1, which exceeds our expectations. This was against a backdrop of macro challenges and uncertain industry conditions, showing that Photronics was able to navigate a difficult environment very well. Indeed, the IC photomask market has been mixed, with strong demand in certain nodes and suffering demand in others. On the positive side, we received strong order flow from Asian foundries for mid-range nodes from 65- 45 nanometer, mainly for the smart card, LED driver, automotive, image sensor, IoT, and other specific applications. Our customer long-term purchase agreement that we enter over the last few years benefit us by preserving market share and providing a good mix of product demand, helping us maintain revenue. This agreement have helped us better plan for capital investment and handle period of slowing industry demand. On the FPD side, our Q1 fab utilization remained at a high level, with smartphone display showing particular strength for China panel makers. This provide a major contribution to our FPD business growth and was consistent with the strong demand for our mid-range IC display driver photomask highlighted above. Gross margin and operation margin was slightly softer than Q4 last year, still maintained a strong level through continuous cost control management and pricing strategy. John will discuss the financial metrics in more details later. Looking forward to Q2 outlook, based on current order trends and ongoing input from our customers, we anticipate demand to remain stable in Q2, resulting in guidance that is roughly in line with our first quarter operation results. While demand uncertainty beyond Q2 is higher than usual, we continue to work closely with our customers to understand their demand and ready to support their business. In many cases, photomask demand can remain steady even during a industry downturn as photomask demand is design-driven and not always on the same cycle as wafer starts or display production. Longer term, we believe photomasks are great place to be in the semiconductor and FPD supply chain, as design-heavy future and great outsourcing from captive mask shop point to growing photomask demand. Moreover, the global drive toward regionalization of IC supply will be a positive long-term driver of photomask as these new fabs require mask. We believe our global presence, broad technology portfolio, and the close customer relationship position us well to capitalize on this market trajectory over the long term. We have made a good start in 2023, which will be a challenging year. I have full confidence in Photronics' global team. We will continue to support our customers by navigating through dynamics as they evolve and by executing with world-class performance in capability, cost, and delivery. Before turning the call over to John, I would like to offer a few comments on a continued evolution of export control laws. Japan and Netherlands were recently agreed to tighten restriction on the export of chip manufacturing technology to China. This may create additional risk for us as we rely on some Japanese firms for material, tool, and surface necessary to manufacture photomask. We continually review our import and export practice to ensure compliance with the regulatory requirements and work closely with our partners, vendors, and suppliers to create plans that best serve our customers. The new restriction did not have a material impact on our first quarter results. We continue to review the restriction and what impact they may have on our future operations. I turn the call to John. Thank you, Frank. Good morning, everyone. Revenue increased slightly in the first quarter as both IC and FPD were up somewhat from the fourth quarter and successfully offset typical seasonal trends, particularly for high-end technologies. Design activity continued reasonably robust. Our commercial teams have done a great job working with customers to understand their technology roadmap and win orders, and our global team executed well and delivered. IC revenue was $156.6 million, up 0.2% sequentially. An increase in high-end demand, particularly in Asia, offset limited softness in mainstream. The supply-demand imbalance continues to support a favorable pricing environment, and for the most part, we're able to maintain ASP pricing exclusive of premiums established over the last two years. FPD revenue improved 1% sequentially to $54.5 million. Again, growth in high-end revenue more than offset lower mainstream demand. High-end growth came from improved G10.5+ demand and continued strength in mobile displays. Many times, the production capacity dedicated to strong demand for high-end masks can lead to reduced production of mainstream masks. Gross and operating margins were about 2 percentage points less than fourth quarter margins due to less favorable mix and somewhat lower expediting premiums that customers pay to accelerate deliveries. The revenue increase was in high end, both IC and FPD, not all high-end business is created equal. Difference in mix, including nature of the product pricing and margins, and location of manufacturer, especially related to memory, all affect operating margin outcome. Operating expenses were slightly increased sequentially on higher people costs. First quarter SG&A costs are typically higher than fourth quarter due to higher employer taxes and healthcare costs. SG&A increased from first quarter last year due to overall higher salaries and wages, driven by labor market conditions and healthcare costs. Nonetheless, operating expenses remained well below the 10% of sales implied in our target model. Maintaining a tight grip on expenses is part of our DNA, so to speak. Non-operating loss in the quarter of $14.4 million resulted primarily from the unrealized loss from month-end remeasurement of US dollar-denominated balance sheet items into the local functional currencies in our foreign operations. The remeasurement exercise produces an unrealized non-cash accounting for variations in currency relationships, which can result in either a gain or loss each quarter. These non-operating items have been generally favorable over the last two years. Due to the degree of variation in the fourth quarter and first quarter amounts, we provided a non-GAAP presentation to demonstrate that operating results excluding the FX loss were in line with expectations. The income tax provision of $12.6 million and non-controlling interest expense of $15 million resulted in net income of $14 million and diluted EPS of $0.23 on a GAAP basis. On an adjusted basis, net income was $24.4 million, and diluted EPS was $0.40. Last quarter, non-GAAP net income and EPS were $31.2 million and $0.51, respectively. The analogous net income and EPS last year were $14.2 million and $0.32. Cash flow generated from operations was $28 million in the first quarter. We invested $31 million in capital expenditures and received $1 million in government incentives. For full year 2023, our CapEx forecast remains at approximately $130 million, primarily for increased high-end and mainstream IC capacity. Our cash balance, including short-term investments, was $374 million at the end of the quarter, or $340 million net cash after $34 million in debt. We believe we have ample liquidity for our investments in growth and for resilience against uncertainties we may face in 2023. Before I provide guidance, I'll remind you that our visibility is always limited as our backlog is typically only one to three weeks, and demand for some of our products is inherently uneven and difficult to predict. The ASPs for high-end mask sets are high, and as this segment of the business grows, a relatively low number of high-end orders can have a significant impact on our quarterly revenue and earnings. Given those caveats, we expect second quarter revenue to be in the range of $205 million-$215 million. We anticipate that the current revenue level will be sustained in second quarter, and the ability to maintain revenues at this level ratifies our belief that the industry's cyclical phase is not necessarily reflected in demand for photomasks. Based on those revenue expectations in our current operating model, we estimate earnings per share for the current quarter, the second quarter, to be in the range of $0.38-$0.48 per diluted share. We have made a great start to 2023. Photomask demand has been stable, and our commercial and operating teams are performing well. Despite near-term uncertainty, we remain optimistic with a positive long-term view of increasing photomask demand. We believe we are the market leader, and we plan to continue to grow and carefully manage margins to keep moving toward attainment of our long-term financial targets. I'll now turn the call over to the operator for your questions. Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Thomas Diffely of D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open. Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my call, my questions. John, I'm curious, when you look at the second quarter guidance, you know, you talked about it being stable quarter-over-quarter. Why do you think you're not seeing the typical post-Chinese New Year ramp in demand? Is it just being offset by some other moving parts? I think I'll defer that one to Frank, who's much more of an authority on Chinese New Year and the other rates. Typically, a lot of tape-out happens before Christmas or Chinese New Year. This year, it's slightly different because the overall industry environment. We do see some mainstream tape-out start to increase. On the high-end side, we haven't seen the recover, a strong recovery yet. According to the input from our customer and from our sales, we believe the tape-out may start to happen later in the quarter. We need to continue monitor the situation. Okay. Thank you. Then in your prepared comments, you talked about growing nationalism. What regions in particular are you looking at there? When do you think the capacity will be in place to benefit PLAB and, you know, kind of your ongoing business? Hi, Tom. This is Chris. you know, all the regions have programs to expand their domestic supply chains for semiconductors. Every major producing region has that. We're looking at all of them. you know, U.S. and Europe in particular, seem to be wanting to install significant amounts of new capacity. We're tracking that. We're meeting with customers. We're looking at also opportunities to apply for incentives ourselves to expand our networks there. As far as when that might materialize, you know, I think you have to look at probably a three year, two to three year horizon at minimum, probably four to five years to really achieve the full entitlement of those kind of government-initiated programs. We're seeing a little bit of it, frankly, already, where some companies are trying to get ahead of the curve by expanding capacity. I think you should think about probably a three-year horizon before really takes hold. Okay. Thanks, Chris. Maybe, Chris, follow-up on this question. You know, maybe a little bit more on the Japanese technology restrictions. Is it too early to tell? You know, what nodes does that include? What is your percentage of business at those potentially advanced nodes? I think for the most advanced nodes, you know, the EUV in particular, don't see that having a large impact on us. Our EUV business is actually growing year-over-year. We expect it to happen again this year. It's mostly to support OEMs, equipment manufacturers, R&D programs, piloting, that sort of thing. We don't have a big exposure to production impacts from EUV, although it is growing for us. On the mid-range nodes, of course, today, I think as you know, the scanner companies are still selling mid-range scanners. This is really DUV 248 and dry ARF and immersion into all regions around the world. If that was severely curtailed, you know, that has a major impact on future capacity at those nodes because a lot of our key mid-range products fit into those nodes. That we do have to watch pretty closely. Does not seem to be happening right now, but it could in the future. We keep an eye on it for sure. I guess one of the ideas is that, you know, the world will still need those chips, and if those tools don't go to one region, they're gonna go to a different region, and it gets back to this regionalization opportunity we see. That would be the, you know, response if you ask how will you make up for it. The idea is those fabs, those chips are gonna be built someplace, and we certainly are plugged in on all regions of the world, and we'll try to take advantage of that. There may be another comment or two from Richelle on this particular topic. She's working on it very diligently every day. No. I think that's right, Chris. I think everything you said is accurate, and we're still waiting to see the, you know, what actually Netherlands and Japan finally agree to. Okay. Thank you both. I appreciate that extra color. Final question, John. You know, you talked about CapEx of $130 million this year. I was surprised you talked about the mainstream expansion. I thought we were still at a point where the pricing in the mainstream market did not support the acquisition of new tools for that space. And that's, you know, good memory, Tom. You're absolutely right. As we mentioned, I think at the beginning of last year, you know, there are still point tools that we can supplement our existing lines with and to the extent that those are available. There are other used tools on the market that we may be able to pick up at, you know, much less than new price. Those, for the most part, aren't even produced anymore. To the extent we can scavenge tools like that, we also supplement the existing lines. It's really just on a point tool kind of exception basis. Okay. Well, thank you all for your time this morning. Tom, thanks for getting up so early to call in. Just another day on the West Coast here. Yeah. Again, as a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Frank Lee for closing comments. All right. Thank you. Thank you for joining us this morning. We have made a good start in 2023, and we are working hard to serve our customer and control our operations so we can maintain our revenue and margins. We remain optimistic on the long-term demand outlook for photomask and believe we can maintain our position as the market leader. Thank you again for your interest, and have a great day. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your line.