Camtek Ltd

NASDAQ:CAMT

Earnings Call Analysis

Camtek Reports Solid Financial Growth Driven by High-Performance Computing Demand

Camtek achieved record quarterly revenue of $102.6 million, marking a 40% year-over-year growth. This revenue surge was primarily due to high-performance computing (HPC) products, which constituted over 50% of sales. Gross margin improved to 51%, and operating margin reached 30%. The company received a significant $31 million order from a global Tier 1 customer. Camtek's revenue guidance for Q3 is set between $107 million and $110 million, indicating continuous growth. Looking ahead, the firm expects sustained demand for HPC systems into 2025, driven by the growing semiconductor market and advancements in generative AI.

Record Growth in Revenue Driven by High-Performance Computing

Camtek achieved a remarkable quarterly revenue of $102.6 million, reflecting a 40% increase compared to Q2 2023 and an impressive 3x growth since that same period. Over half of this revenue came from high-performance computing-related (HPC) products, followed by approximately 15% from OSATs (Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test). The firm emphasized this robust performance is indicative of its positioning as a valuable player in the semiconductor landscape, particularly as it moves towards addressing booming demands from generative AI applications.

Improving Profitability Metrics

The company reported a gross margin of 51%, an uptick from 50.6% in the previous quarter and a significant improvement over last year's gross margin of 48%. Operating profit also rose to $30.8 million compared to $18.3 million a year prior. This profitability enhancement is largely driven by favorable product mix and ongoing efforts in cost structure improvement, suggesting that Camtek is not just growing but doing so efficiently.

Guidance for Future Growth and Demand

For the upcoming third quarter, Camtek anticipates revenue in the range of $107 million to $110 million, equating to roughly 35% growth year-over-year. The strong order flow, particularly in the HPC segment, bodes well for sustained demand into the second half of 2024 and beyond. The company views the ongoing interest in HPC modules, driven primarily by generative AI, as a primary revenue growth engine.

Strategic Positioning Amidst Market Trends

The management highlighted that key growth facilitating factors include geopolitical shifts encouraging local semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure in powerful economies such as the U.S., Japan, and European nations. There’s a pronounced trend among these countries to treat advanced semiconductor components as strategic assets. This shift is expected to translate into increased business demands for Camtek as it strengthens its foothold within the OSAT sector.

Operational Readiness and Capacity Expansion Plans

Camtek has expressed confidence in its operational readiness and capacity to handle significant demand increases. With current capacity allowing over $600 million in manufacturing, and plans to amplify capacity in Europe amidst rising orders, the company appears well-prepared to scale operations as needed. The addition of facilities aligns with their growth strategy, targeting further production capabilities as markets diversify.

Experience with Advanced Packaging and Future Outlook

Management revealed that around 70% of revenue presently stems from advanced packaging applications. While this represents a slight decrease from prior quarters due to broader business diversification, Camtek retains a positive outlook. Improvements are expected within traditional markets including the compound semiconductor and CMOS image sensor segments, which should bolster revenues in 2025 as customer demand strengthens.

Long-Term Financial Projections

The company noted an expectation to achieve a gross margin approaching 52% once it exceeds the $500 million revenue mark. If prevailing trends in user adoption and technological advancement prevail, Camtek could potentially meet or exceed this revenue target sooner than anticipated, buoyed further by expected growth in both HPC and traditional markets.

Acquisition and Future Integration of FRT

Camtek's acquisition of FRT is progressing positively. Although initial contributions are modest, management is optimistic about potential synergies that could emerge as the integration deepens. They still anticipate achieving set targets for FRT, reflecting a strategic investment that could enhance overall market competitiveness.

Final Thoughts

With a promising trajectory grounded in growth, profitability improvements, and strategic positioning within high-demand segments, Camtek presents itself as an attractive investment opportunity for those looking to capitalize on the semiconductor industry's evolution amidst a backdrop of geopolitical events and technological demands.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q2

[Kenny Green]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I would like to welcome all of you to Camtek's results Zoom webinar. My name is Kenny green and I'm part of the investor relations team at Camtek. [Operator Instructions]

I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded and the recordings will be available on Camtek's website from tomorrow. You should all have by now received the company's press release if not you can view it on the company's website. With me on the call today we have Mr. Rafi Amit, Camtek's CEO; Mr. Moshe Eisenberg, Camtek's CFO; and Mr. Ramy Langer, Camtek's COO.

Rafi will begin by providing an overview of Camtek's results and discuss recent market trends. Moshe will then summarize the financial results of the quarter. Following that, Rafi, Moshe and Ramy will be available to take your questions.

Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that certain information provided on this conference call are internal company estimates unless otherwise specified. This call may also contain forward-looking statements. These statements are only predictions and may change as time passes. Statements on this call are made as of today and the company undertakes no obligation to update any of that information or any of those forward-looking statements contained, whether as a result of new information, future event changes and expectations, or otherwise.

Investors are reminded that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected, including as a result of the effects of general economic conditions, risks related to the concentration of a significant portion of Camtek's expected business in certain countries, particularly China from which Camtek expects to generate a significant portion of its revenues for the foreseeable future, but also Taiwan and Korea, including the risks of deviations from our expectations regarding timing and size of orders from customers in these countries, changing industry and market trends, reduced demand for services and products, the timing development of new services and products and their adoption by the market, increased competition in the industry and price reductions as well as due to other risks identified in the company's filings with the SEC. Please note that the safe harbor statements and today's press release also covers the contents of this conference call.

In addition, during this call, certain non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed. These are used by management to make strategic decisions, forecast future results and evaluate the company's current performance. Management believes that the presentation of non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors understanding an assessment of the company's ongoing core operations and prospects for the future.

A full reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures are included in today's earnings release. And now I would like to hand the call over to Rafi Amit, Camtek's CEO. Rafi, please go ahead.

[Rafi Amit, executive]

Okay. Thanks, Kenny. Good morning or good afternoon, everyone. Camtek ended this quarter with a record quarterly revenue of $102.6 million representing 40% growth compared with Q2 '23.

The distribution of revenue in this quarter is over 50% of our sales were for high-performance computing-related products for the second quarter in a row, approximately 15% for OSATs, mainly for advanced packaging and the rest were split between silicon carbide front-end CMOS image sensor and other applications.

This trend of product mix resulted in increased profitability and I'm very pleased with the improvement of achieving a gross margin of 51% and operating margin of about 30%.

The demand in the HPC segment is reflected in the PR we issued a few days ago with an announcement about receiving multiple systems order of over $25 million from a global Tier 1 customer to inspect HBM wafers. I am happy to share with you that since we issue the PR, this customer added $6 million, bringing the entire order to over $31 million. The industry trends regarding high-performance computing modules is also reflected in our view of our future revenue.

Based on our current order flow, backlog and pipeline, our revenue guidance for the third quarter is $107 million to $110 million, representing in the midpoint about 35% growth year-over-year. We expect continued growth in the fourth quarter as well. The main growth driver in the semiconductor market is HPC modules for generative AI for which we are a key equipment provider.

Our revenues in this quarter have grown 3x since Q2 2023. From order we have on hand, our pipeline and from discussion with customers, we expect demand for our system for HPC-related products to continue in the second half of 2024 and into 2025.

HPC modules include mainly chiplets, HBM and silicon substrates. The production technologies of HPC modules are developing rapidly, which require our continued development of advanced and cost-effective solutions. For example, one of our new key challenges is measuring and inspecting wafers with an extremely high number of micron-level interconnects at a very fine pitch.

The industry is moving from a pitch of 10th of a micron to a single-digit pitch. Moreover, customers use more inspection steps to maintain a high yield and they are evaluating our systems in process steps we have not participated in before. So we can see high potential for expanding our business with our current and new generation systems.

Our new generation systems that we completed developing are equipped with state-of-the-art sensors and optics to perform all types of inspection, 3D bumps measurement and metrology that we believe will address the current and the next-generation HPC-related products at high volume manufacturing throughput.

We also expect OSATs to implement packaging capabilities for HPC. This trend will allow fabless and IDM companies to start producing HPC model that will be suitable for AI and additional applications.

We expect that our strong position within the OSATs will benefit us with this industry shift as well. Clearly, a major growth in demand for capital semiconductor equipment is generated from the reality where countries with leading economics such as U.S., Japan, China and Europe consider advanced semiconductor components as strategic national assets and therefore, expand their design and production capabilities by establishing new manufacturing facilities in their respective countries.

Concern regarding geopolitical changes only accelerate the decision of those countries to have local infrastructure for the manufacturing of semiconductor components. The strong order flow, some for delivery in 2025 and the high demand for HPC gives us a relatively clear long-term vision, which allows us to organize our operations efficiently to meet the expected demand.

To sum it up, the demand for HPC, together with industry analysts' forecast for a growing demand for end products such as mobile phone and PC and the establishment of new facilities in key countries make us believe that we will continue growing in 2025. And now Moshe will review the financial results. Moshe?

[Moshe Eisenberg, executive]

Thanks, Rafi. In my financial summary ahead, I will provide the results on a non-GAAP basis. The reconciliation between GAAP results and the non-GAAP results appears in the table at the end of the press release issued earlier today. Revenue for the first quarter came in at a record $102.6 million, an increase of 39% compared with the second quarter of 2023, an increase of 6% from the first quarter of 2024.

The geographic revenue split for the quarter was as follows: Asia 92%, U.S. and Europe accounted for 8%. The higher than normal contribution from Asia relates mainly to the big demand for HBM, which is currently manufactured in Korea and Taiwan.

Gross profit for the quarter was $52.4 million, the gross margin for the quarter improved to 51%, up from 50.6% in the first quarter of 2024 and 48% in the second quarter of last year. This is mainly due to a more favorable product mix in the quarter and our ongoing efforts to improve the cost structure of our products. We anticipate that gross margin will remain at a similar level in the coming quarters.

Operating expenses in the quarter were $21.6 million compared to $17.1 million in the second quarter of last year and $20.1 million in the previous quarter. The increase is mostly due to planned expansion to support growth of operations.

Operating profit in the quarter was $30.8 million compared to $18.3 million reported in the second quarter of last year and $29 million in the previous quarter. The increase is mostly due to the increase in the revenue and the improvement in the gross profit. Operating margin was 30% compared to 24.8% and 29.9% respectively.

Financial income for the quarter was $5 million, slightly lower than the $5.8 million reported in the second quarter of last year and $5.6 million in the previous quarter. The decrease is mostly due to the lower cash balance following the $60 million dividend paid in April, slightly offset by the cash generated throughout the quarter.

Net income for the second quarter of 2024 was $32.6 million or $0.66 per diluted share. This is compared to a net income of $21.9 million or $0.45 per share in the second quarter of last year. Total diluted number of shares as of the end of the second quarter was 49.3 million.

Turning to some high-level balance sheet and cash flow metrics, cash and cash equivalents including short- and long-term deposits and marketable securities as of June 30, 2024, was $454 million. This compared with $466 million at the end of the first quarter. We generated $49 million in cash from operations in the quarter on the back of increased revenue and a very strong collection. Inventory level increased by $7 million to $109 million. The increase over the previous quarter is to support the anticipated sales growth in the coming quarters.

Despite the increase in revenue, accounts receivables decreased from $86 million to $68.2 million in the quarter, as a result of strong collection in the quarter. Our day's sales outstanding improved significantly from 81 to 61 days.

Finally, we expect revenue of between $107 million to $110 million in the third quarter with continued sequential growth in Q4. And with that, Rafi, Ramy and I will be open to take your questions.

[Kenny Green]

Thank you, Moshe. So at this time, we will start the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, you can raise your hand via the Zoom platform. I will introduce you and ask you to un-mute after which you will be able to ask your question. We do have quite a lot of people on the call, so we will take a few moments now to call for questions. Our first question will be from Charles Shi of Needham. Charles, please go ahead.

[Yu Shi, analyst]

The first question. I want to ask what's the thought, what's the current estimate from management on the overall contribution of HPC module for the full year?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

Charles, I think as we discussed in previous meetings, we expect the overall contribution from HPC or in both HBM and chiplet modules to account to anywhere between 50% to 60% for the entire year.

[Yu Shi, analyst]

Okay. So let's say, relative to like 90 days ago, is the percentage moving up? Or do you think it's still in a similar ballpark?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

I think it's in a similar ballpark.

[Yu Shi, analyst]

Okay. Maybe the second question, do you see the HBM versus chiplet, the mix going into second half, any changes to that? Because you did disclose for Q1, roughly HBM versus chiplet 2:1 ratio, but you didn't provide a number for Q2, if you can provide that number that would be great. But more importantly, what will be the ratio for second half?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So the ratios will change, will vary from one quarter to the other. In general, I think it will be more accurate to talk about the entire number, which will be anywhere between 50% to 60%, but overall, both markets are pretty stable.

[Yu Shi, analyst]

Maybe one other question for Moshe on gross margin. Definitely gross margin has been improving every quarter. Well, actually since, I would say first quarter 2023. What's the expectation for the next 2 quarters? 51% in June, which is great, but do you see sequential improvement from here for the next 2 quarters?

[Moshe Eisenberg, executive]

Indeed, gross margin has improved in the last several quarters. This was a result of an ongoing efforts to improve the cost structure and obviously, the product mix. We think that anywhere between 50% to 51.5% is a good range. It's really depending on product mix from quarter-to-quarter. So I don't want to commit now for the next couple of quarters, but it will be within this range that I've mentioned.

[Kenny Green]

Our next question is going to be from Brian Chin of Stifel.

[Brian Chin, analyst]

Thanks for taking a few questions. Maybe just a question on sort of your other more traditional and legacy businesses in like wafer-level packaging, specialty, et cetera, the implication this year is that that 50%-ish of your revenue is maybe even down this year year-on-year. But are you starting to see improvement even sequentially on some of that revenue or kind of building some visibility towards growth in that business? Any kind of color you can provide would be helpful.

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So Brian, we spoke about it and I can say that definitely we see improvement on our other businesses. Even this quarter, in a sense, it's already -- I think there is some improvement. And as you can see, our overall, what we saw for advanced packaging, it's close to 70% compared to 80% it was last quarter.

In this quarter, we are starting to see some pickup on the OSAT business. Definitely, we're getting good indication about business from the CMOS image sensors. And overall, I think next year we will see an improvement what we are reading, what we understand from customers that what we call our traditional businesses will definitely be better than this year.

[Brian Chin, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. And back to sort of like the AI packaging, inspection metrology business for you. Other companies, not necessarily even competitors of yours who break out some of their customers or their business that they're seeing, they've seen even this earnings season, maybe a lot of that business being dominated by a large Korean customer.

And then even seeing a bit of a period of digestion as that customer kind of takes a breather from buying and they've seen sort of maybe a pause in the business. In terms of your business, are you seeing more diversification across maybe the main HBM players? There's a few people on the chiplet side. Are you seeing those kinds of trends? Or is it kind of more diversified in terms of your business?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So first of all, we -- there was a discussion and we heard some comments about the pause or digestions. We do not see it. And this is really more related to the relevant customers on the HPC segment, the steps that you are doing, it's a little bit more complex. But at least from the business that we are doing with all the players on the HPC market, we do not see a pause. The business is stable. And I think as Rafi said, in his remarks in the prepared remarks, we definitely see this business continuing into 2025. So from that point of view, we do not see it.

[Brian Chin, analyst]

Okay. And maybe just one last thing. When you have the press release that talked about the $25 million of HBM orders for second half of this year and into next year. And when that customer comes back and adds another $6 million on top of that, is that their misjudgment of the type of coverage that they need relative to maybe the challenges that they have in their business? Or is there some other circumstance behind that?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So first of all, I'm not aware for the real reason. But these customers are big customers, it's not going to be they continue to buy machines and they will continue to buy machines. In this instance, there was some adjustments to the number as they felt that they wanted to deliver a few more machines. I think what you're seeing and I think the sense is that our customers are predicting that this business is going to grow and they are ready to invest because they are very confident about their future business in the foreseeable future.

[Kenny Green]

Our next question is going to be from Craig Ellis from B. Riley. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand on the platform. And Craig, you may go ahead and ask.

[Craig Ellis, analyst]

I wanted to start off just by asking a follow-up to Rafi, given comments regarding expectations for OSATs to add HPC and chiplet-related capacity to be a bigger part of the supply chain there. The question is this, Rafi, where are we now in OSATs actually building out the degree of capacity that they'll need? And how do you expect that to play out for Camtek both in the second half of this year and in 2025 for your business?

[Moshe Eisenberg, executive]

Rafi, do you want to answer or do you want me to take this answer? Rafi?

[Rafi Amit, executive]

Look, as we said, our visibility usually is -- in general, it's about 2 quarters ahead. And over that, we can read analyst forecasts and discussions with customers, they're preparing their budget for next year in the coming few months. So based on all the information, as Ramy mentioned, as I mentioned, we definitely can see that the HPC business continue growing.

We mentioned, I think, a few quarters, that the analysts talk about over 20% growth in some product, even over 30% growth year-over-year. And I must tell you that what we see today, this is the growth rate that we can see from our customers from discussion, but we don't see any change right now. Now -- and even the customers that just Ramy mentioned, he didn't say this is for 2025, this is just what you need today and he definitely predicted to place more orders in the next few months. So we are very optimistic in that type of product and we are organized for delivery.

[Moshe Eisenberg, executive]

Let me add, Craig. You spoke of [indiscernible]. So definitely, we know today more than we knew a few weeks ago. Definitely some of this capacity of what is called the [ cover ] slide capacity is starting to move to OSATs and we are getting some discussions from OSATs that are talking to us about business in 2025, this is when it will happen. And it's in the process, it will come in '25 and obviously the OSAT it's an area that we are very strong. So we believe that this is a positive move on our -- from our point of view.

[Craig Ellis, analyst]

Okay. So it sounds like, Ramy, if I'm hearing you and Rafi correctly that the engagement with the broader ecosystem as well as with OSATs is in the realm of what we would call discussions for the pipeline and the pipeline is starting to look good. And as the calendar clicks forward, we would expect that to convert into firm orders as we've seen in the last month of July, where you had $45 million and now one upside by $6 million. Is that right?

[Rafi Amit, executive]

In general, you are right. I don't want to get into numbers, but definitely, our pipeline looks good and this will start to convert into EPOs.

[Craig Ellis, analyst]

That's helpful. And then the second question is for Moshe. So Moshe, I think we've heard Rafi identify that business activity overall is lending the kind of visibility that results in more efficient operations. And I would expect that to be a tailwind for gross margin, but I know the company has also been working hard on things like input costs and other manufacturing optimizations. As we look at the business now and as we look at the improvement in gross margin over the last year, how much of that is just volume versus some of the company controllables? And as we look ahead, what are the levers to drive gross margin incrementally higher from where we are today?

[Rafi Amit, executive]

So really, gross -- on the gross margin level, volume has certain contributions, but not as much as on the operating level since most of the expenses are direct expenses. Absolutely, the fact that we can organize ourselves ahead of time is a big contribution to the overall efficiency. How much is that exactly translates into improvement in gross margin, it's a little bit early to say. But it should help smooth out the operation and with hiring people with processes. But again, it's a bit early to say how much of that will contribute to the gross margin.

[Kenny Green]

Thanks. As a reminder, if you have a question, please raise your hand on the platform. Our next question is going to be from Vivek Arya from BofA.

[Michael Mani, analyst]

This is Michael Mani on for Vivek Arya. So I think a couple of your HBM customers have provided very strong guidance for volume and sales into 2025. And so does your confidence in hitting that eventual $500 million sales target increase? In other words, do you feel you have more confidence that you'd be able to hit it maybe earlier than expected given the increased intensity of orders? And in addition, how much of that -- of attaining that target is contingent on a recovery in your more traditional business?

[Rafi Amit, executive]

Let me start and you can complete it. Okay. I would say the growth rate depends on 2 major issues. Number one is the market. And some customers maybe have great demand, but they don't have enough facility. It takes time to build facilities. So even if they want, they cannot build everything they want. So it's not everything depends on us. We can provide a system, but sometimes the facility is not ready for installation and running production. So there are too many elements that affect the overall requirement.

So from our side, we feel very comfortable with our ability to build a machine, to deliver a machine and to keep our competitiveness because customers ask for more features, for more special requirements and we feel very comfortable definitely after we complete a lot of R&D effort to meet the future demand.

So everything depends on us, we believe we did everything to maintain our market and potential growth. Now we have to go to the market. We have to be sure that customers have enough capacity. And their infrastructure, they can expand it and have enough room to put the production line and to meet the market demand. So the market demand is there. We are ready. The next question is -- if all our direct customers can do it, can really make their facility ready for the demands.

[Michael Mani, analyst]

Understood. And maybe one on your next -- your upcoming platform. So nice to hear this additional color on this next-generation system. Do you have any updates on when we expect this to be released to the market? Is this more geared towards hybrid bonding as an application? And what kind of uplift from ASP do you expect?

[Rafi Amit, executive]

Ramy, do you want to give some information?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

Let me start. So first of all, I think that at this stage, it's too early to provide more information. It's definitely we will provide, I would say, we will start to provide more information to the public in the next few months. It's not something that we'll take tomorrow. And we're not at this stage really ready to say more information. What I can say definitely that there will be an ASP improvement on these new products.

[Rafi Amit, executive]

Now as we said, for example, just to be clear about it, that we could see some of that, for example, as I mentioned in my script, that customers moves from about, let's say, 100 million bumps per wafer to 500 million bumps per wafer. It's a lot. It's totally 5x more and we have to -- we need to develop a solution.

Now it's not enough to inspect it in the fine pitch. Also, customer looks on the efficiency, on the economics, he wants to be sure that he can meet his costs. So altogether, it's a lot of parameters that allow customers to maintain his cost structure and to make -- to get a good result. So some of that is still in the beginning, not all of them are already in high volume.

This is after they finish the R&D, they start moving from R&D to production. And we will see it, I believe, in the next year. We can see more and more very tough -- I would say the application moving to high volume.

[Kenny Green]

Our next question will be from [indiscernible] from Evercore.

[Unknown Analyst]

So the first one I wanted to understand was the remaining pieces of your business, you talked about strength in the traditional markets like the compound semi, CIS, front end. Could you give us a sense of how the revenues play out between the 3 and the specific area where you're seeing more strength versus 90 days ago?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So I think in general, we're seeing improvements. I would say, mainly in the front end and the compound semi, definitely this, we see some improvements as we speak. On the CMOS image sensors, we're getting indications for improvement, I would say, late this year, beginning of next year.

And the overall business of what we call -- the non-HPC business, definitely where the OSAT business is already stronger this quarter than it was in previous ones and we're expecting these businesses to start to grow in the coming quarters. So definitely, that's a very important part of the business. And I'm confident at this stage now from the numbers that I am seeing that we will continue to see these improvements in the next few quarters.

[Unknown Analyst]

And would you provide a split of how the revenue split between the 3? Is that something you can provide?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

I can say that -- what I can tell you that this quarter, for example, the compound and the front, they were about 15%. It's a little lower, I mean I would have expected in a better quarter to be closer to 20%, maybe even higher.

The CMOS image sensor is really very low at this stage, it's 1%s and 2%s. Definitely, this is something that could be in the range of about 5% when we think about the overall business. So these are the numbers and we'll see. I think they will improve as we move along.

[Unknown Analyst]

That's very helpful. And then the next question I had was on your next-generation systems that you talked about. Is this -- I understand that this is to address applications like the number of bumps increasing. But are you also kind of penetrating into the inspection steps? And another question I had here was, how does the qualification process work? Like you have the products kind of shipping in like, I think, a little bit into your customers, but how much time does it take to really qualify this into the fab lines?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So that's a good question, [ Advaitia ]. So first of all, we've already started with the process of qualification, as we said in our prepared remarks. And this speak first, I mean, in a lot of our customers that know us and look at the qualifications and the I would say testing that we have done here at Camtek and would accept it as part of the evaluation process. They may ask us to run some wafers and we would do it for them and they would buy the equipment.

The other customers, it will take very few months of running the machines. But overall, it depends on the application, but in a lot of the cases, the -- I would say that the evaluation, it's maximum in weeks or very few months to cases, they will accept our equipment based on the results and the testing that we've done internally.

[Unknown Analyst]

Got it. And is this addressing the newer generations, are they addressing more inspections step now versus your Eagle platform? Like what do you say is the biggest differentiator?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So first of all, a lot of it is inspection, but a lot of our business today is in inspection. Even when we talk about advanced packaging, HBM, the chiplets, a lot of this is doing also inspection stages. This is metrology and inspection.

I would say, in general, our inspection business is much larger than our metrology business. And I think one of the advantages that we bring on our machine, that it will do metrology and inspection. No doubt our inspection today is state-of-the-art, we expect to continue and increase.

This is a large market, there is a lot of market share that we can run after. And we definitely expect it with the newer machines, we increase our market share in the inspections even further.

[Unknown Analyst]

Got it. That's helpful. And I'll just squeeze in one last one. So can you talk about how -- what you're seeing in the China markets and how that has done in the first half of '24? I know you don't break it out on a quarterly basis, but any color there would be helpful given the trade concerns that have been coming on?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So I would say that things have not really drastically changed in China. The government there is backing this industry. This is a strategic move for China and we definitely see more and more investments there, all around in the trailing edge farms and this is where we are playing in the front end. And we're seeing a lot of OSAT business expansion, including advanced packaging. So we do not see a weakness in China, we see stability and continued of investment and we expect to see this business continuing to grow.

[Unknown Analyst]

I see. Could you give a sense of how that China splits out advanced packaging versus like trailing-edge fabs? If you could provide any color, is one bigger than the other, that would be helpful.

[Ramy Langer, executive]

I think for us, in general, we've been in the -- our business primarily has been in the trailing edge and it's mixed signal automotive applications. And this has been our main market, our target market. In general, we've not been running after, I would say the leading-edge nodes in China. This has not been our target market.

[Kenny Green]

Our next question is from Tom O'Malley of Barclays.

[William Levy, analyst]

This is Will Levy on for Tom O'Malley. Just had a question on the FRT acquisition, how is it trending since you acquired it? And are the upsides you guys are seeing in advanced packaging, any of this attributed to FRT at all?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

All in all, I can say -- and Rafi, I will start and maybe you can...

[Rafi Amit, executive]

Okay. Okay. Fine.

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So all in all, we are very happy with the acquisition and obviously there is an effort to integrate FRT into Camtek and this is underway. From the business side, we're definitely seeing opportunities. The upside is not coming from FRT, FRT is staying, as we said, it's a relatively small business this year.

We said we gave a target of roughly $30 million, we will meet this target. So definitely, it's not yet in the big numbers. We see opportunities. We are talking with customers. I think that in general, customers are very excited about the fact that we acquired FRT, they're very happy. I believe that we will get a significant number -- a significant business as we move forward and they continue to integrate FRT, will get a lot of opportunities there, opportunities that we enlarge the FRT business and also create new opportunities for us.

So to summarize, definitely, we are on track with the FRT acquisition and our thought process that it will complement our business and we will be able to sell these products through our sales force are indeed correct.

[Kenny Green]

Our next question is from Gus Richard from Northland.

[Auguste Richard, analyst]

In terms of HBM going from HBM3 to HBM4, does your inspection intensity increase? And do you have a sense of by how much?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

Gus, I think it's a little bit too early at this stage to really pinpoint the steps that we will do on the HBM4. It's also based on the final, I would say, configuration or the technologies and processes that our customers will use. But definitely, a lot of our business in general in HBM are coming from inspection and yes, that's an area that would probably intensify as these technologies move to hybrid bonding.

[Auguste Richard, analyst]

Okay, got it. And then in terms of hybrid bonding, clearly your intensity goes up both for chiplets and CPUs and SRAM.

[Ramy Langer, executive]

Definitely.

[Auguste Richard, analyst]

Got it. And then of your advanced packaging, how much of these days is fan-out?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

Well, it's hard -- in general, if we talked about close to 70%, about 20% is 15% to 20% is our traditional, what we call OSAT is about 15% and the rest if other customers doing what we call wafer-level packaging, fan-out is a big number out of it. So I don't have the number exactly in front of me, but definitely fan-out is a market that is growing. There are many opportunities there. And we have developed some new steps to address some of the challenges there and it's going to be a number in the range of 10-plus percent in our [indiscernible] business.

[Auguste Richard, analyst]

Got it. And this is a difficult question, heaven forbid things -- tensions escalate in the Middle East. But I'm just wondering how you guys are thinking about contingency plans? Is it impacting your business? And if it does get significantly worse, how do you manage through it?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So first of all, the team here in Israel is prepared for several scenarios. And we expect to be able to meet our commitments and this means including deliveries, customer support and development. I think we went through it and this is the situation.

Obviously, longer term, we are also thinking about production out of Israel. We are planning to add manufacturing capacity in Europe at our new FRT facility in Cologne in Germany. So we have a plan in the short term to overcome anything that may happen in the short term. Longer term, we also have a plan.

[Moshe Eisenberg, executive]

And obviously, we can't really be prepared to all possible scenarios, but we definitely made some efforts to be prepared to -- whatever we could prepare.

[Auguste Richard, analyst]

Got it. I apologize for having to ask that question. And then in terms of your planning for capacity for next year and the year out, how close are you getting to be filled out as the expansion in Germany, part of the ability to deliver more product and is there a significant investment required?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

So no, so from the overall investment, first of all, you know our manufacturing, the basic manufacturing is done by 2 very big subcontractors, which are international companies, Jabil and Flex. So from that point of view, we have enough capacity. Here in the facility in Israel, we have enough capacity for over $600 million of manufacturing and as I said, we will add additional capacity in Europe.

So I think from the overall capacity for any scenarios of upside, we have enough capacity and this includes also from a material point of view, we can ramp up a clean room space, people. So we think we're very well-covered from this point of view.

[Kenny Green]

Our next question is from [ Ezra Wiener ] of Jefferies.

[Unknown Analyst]

I guess 2 here. The first is just in terms of new orders, obviously you talked about second half into next year. Can you give a little more detail on the split? And I guess, relative to your plan if any of that was incremental? And then the second would be you've talked about your long-term model and gross margins going to about 52% about at $500 million. It looks like you're getting pretty close to passing that next year. Can you just talk about what leverage would look like from there?

[Moshe Eisenberg, executive]

Yes. So with respect to your first question, what portion of these additional business is above our previous expectations? Well, when we prepare our expectation, we take into account our current backlog on hand plus some potential upside from business that we are going after. So I think we are very close to what we have expected originally. Hard to say what part of it is an upside.

But we are going to end the year very nicely with a nice Q3 and plus additional continued growth coming into the fourth quarter as well. Your other question relates to the gross margin. So I think we said in the next few quarters, we will operate at the level of 50.5%, 50% to 51.5%.

We definitely have plans to reach 52% with the contribution of our new products that we are going to launch in the coming weeks or coming months. They will definitely have a positive contribution to the gross margin. So overall we didn't -- we are not going to change our expectation that when we reach the $500-plus million revenue level, we should be able to operate on a higher gross margin close to the -- or around the 52% that we mentioned.

[Unknown Analyst]

And then one quick follow-up, you discussed advanced packaging at 70%, just wanted to clarify that 70s, not 70. Just trying to put all the pieces together. And at 70, you would be down quarter-over-quarter there if it is 70%, not 70s, can you kind of give a little bit more detail on what that is?

[Ramy Langer, executive]

It's around 70%, 7-0 percent. And the overall, yes, indeed, it's a little bit lower and this is the result of the other businesses that are growing. And we were -- as we say, the HPC was over 50%. Definitely, these numbers also vary from quarter-to-quarter. It's related to shipments and when customers are planning their clean rooms.

So I wouldn't pay too much attention here to the changes between quarter-to-quarter. I think the business, in general, as we say, the HPC is indeed stable and we expect to finish the year anywhere between 50% to 60%. The other businesses, the wafer level packaging, the front-end compounds, CMOS image sensors and a lot of other applications that we're doing will continue to grow in the third and fourth quarter and definitely in '25. So this mix is something changes, but the big numbers will not change.

[Kenny Green]

So that will end our question-and-answer session. Before I hand back over to Rafi, I would like to let everyone know that in the coming hours, we will upload the recording of the conference call to the Investor Relations section of Camtek's website at camtek.com. I would like to thank all of you for joining this call. And Rafi, please make your closing statement.

[Rafi Amit, executive]

I would like to thank you all for your continued interest in our business. I want to especially thank the employees and my management team for their tremendous performance. To our investors, I thank you for your long-term support. I look forward to looking with you again next quarter. Thank you and goodbye.