Amtech Systems Value Stock - Dividend - Research Selection

We are a leading, global manufacturer of capital equipment, including thermal processing and silicon wafer handling automation, and related consumables used in fabricating solar cells, light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, and semiconductor devices. We were incorporated in Arizona in October 1981, under the name Quartz Engineering & Materials, Inc. We changed to our present name in 1987.

Our operating segments are made up of the following six wholly-owned subsidiaries:

Solar:

• Tempress Systems, Inc., or Tempress, a Texas corporation based in Vaassen, the Netherlands, acquired in 1994 and subsequently reincorporated in the Netherlands;

• R2D Automation SAS, or R2D, a French corporation located near Montpellier, France, acquired in October 2007; and

• SoLayTec B.V., or SoLayTec, a Netherlands corporation based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, acquired 51% controlling interest in 2014 and acquired the remaining 49% ownership in 2017.

Semiconductor:

• Bruce Technologies, Inc., or Bruce Technologies, a Massachusetts corporation based in North Billerica, Massachusetts, acquired in July 2004; and

• BTU International, Inc., or BTU, a Delaware corporation based in North Billerica, Massachusetts, with operations in China, Singapore, Malaysia and the United Kingdom, acquired in January 2015.

Polishing:

• P.R. Hoffman Machine Products, Inc., or PR Hoffman, an Arizona corporation based in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, acquired in July 1997.

Additionally, we also own a 15% interest in Kingstone Technology Hong Kong Limited (“Kingstone Hong Kong”) which is the parent company of Shanghai Kingstone (collectively with Kingstone Hong Kong, “Kingstone”). The ownership in Kingstone Hong Kong effectively represents an 8% beneficial ownership interest in the operating entity, Shanghai Kingstone.

Our major emphasis in the solar industry is the development of thermal processes and deposition for solar cell manufacturing, which we believe, collectively, are key to driving higher cell efficiencies. The markets we serve are experiencing rapid technological advances and are, historically, cyclical. Therefore, future profitability and growth depend on our ability to develop or acquire and market new technology products and on our ability to adapt to cyclical trends.

Solar cells, semiconductor chips, LEDs and some microelectromechanical systems (“MEMS”) are semiconductors fabricated on silicon wafer substrates, sliced from ingots. Solar cells are assembled into solar panels and are responsible for converting sunlight into electricity. Semiconductor chips are part of the circuitry, or electronic components, of many products including solar cells, computers, telecommunications devices, automotive products, consumer goods, and industrial automation and control systems. LEDs manufactured using our equipment are used in industrial, commercial and residential lighting. Our wafer handling, thermal processing and consumable products currently address the diffusion, oxidation, and deposition steps, including atomic layer deposition used in the fabrication of solar cells, LEDs, semiconductors, MEMS and the polishing of newly sliced silicon wafers, as well as the packaging and assembly of the electronic components.

Our Polishing segment provides solutions to the lapping and polishing marketplace. Lapping is the process of abrading components with a high degree of precision for flatness, parallelism and surface finish. Common applications for this technology are silicon wafers for semiconductor products, sapphire substrates for LED lighting and mobile devices, silicon carbide wafers for LED and power device applications, various glass and silica components for 3D image transmission, quartz and ceramic components for telecommunications devices, medical device components and computer hard disks.

We believe our product portfolio, developed through a track record of technological innovation as well as the successful integration of key acquisitions, reduces the cost of solar cell manufacturing by increasing solar cell efficiency, increasing throughput and increasing yields. We have been providing manufacturing solutions to the semiconductor industry for over 30 years and have leveraged our semiconductor technology and industry presence to capitalize on growth opportunities in the solar industry. Our customers use our equipment to manufacture solar cells, semiconductor chips, silicon wafers and MEMS, which are used in end markets such as solar power, telecommunications, consumer electronics, computers, automotive and mobile hand-held devices. To complement our research and development efforts, we also sell our equipment to, and coordinate certain development efforts with, research institutes, universities and customers.

ACQUISITIONS AND DISPOSITIONS

In December 2014, we expanded our participation in the solar market by acquiring a 51% controlling interest in SoLayTec, which provides atomic layer deposition, or ALD, systems used in high efficiency solar cells. The acquisition of the controlling interest in SoLayTec supports our business model of growth through strategic acquisitions. In July 2017, we acquired the remaining 49% interest, resulting in us becoming the sole owner of SoLayTec.

In January 2015, we completed our acquisition of BTU, which allowed us to expand our thermal processing capability with the supply of solder reflow systems used for surface mount and semiconductor packaging applications in the electronics assembly market, and custom equipment for multiple industrial markets. The acquisition of BTU further positions Amtech as a leading, global supplier of solar and semiconductor production and automation systems.

In September 2015, we sold a portion of our interest in Kingstone Hong Kong, which is the parent company of Shanghai Kingstone, a Shanghai-based technology company specializing in ion implant solutions for the solar and semiconductor industries (in which we acquired a 55% ownership in February 2011), to a China-based venture capital firm. Proceeds from the sale of shares were paid to Amtech and used to support our core strategic initiatives. We now own 15% of the holding company, Kingstone Hong Kong, following consummation of the transaction, which effectively represents an 8% beneficial ownership interest in the Shanghai operating entity, Shanghai Kingstone.

GROWTH STRATEGY

Capitalize on Growth Opportunities in the Solar Industry by Leveraging Our Diffusion Furnace Market Share, Top-Tier Customer Relationships, and Track Record of Technological Innovation. We believe that long-term growth in the solar industry will be driven by several macro-economic factors, such as volatile energy prices, limited non-renewable energy resources, government incentives for solar generated electricity, increasing environmental awareness, energy security concerns and the expected decrease in the cost of solar energy. As the solar market continues to develop, advances in process technology will be vital to remaining competitive. We intend to continue leveraging our market position, relationships with leading global solar cell customers and demonstrated track record of technical innovation to maximize sales of our current and next-generation technology solutions.

Develop Multi-Product Solutions to Expand Our Addressable Market. We are focused on acquiring, developing and licensing new products across our business in response to customer needs in the solar market. As we add to our product portfolio, we plan to continue expanding our offerings within the solar cell production process, thus capturing a greater percentage of capital spent on building global solar cell manufacturing capacity. Our successful development of Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition, or PECVD, equipment is a recent example of meeting our customers’ needs and expanding the size of our addressable market.

Another example is our turnkey offering for N-type bifacial cell production. Our turnkey offering includes third-party equipment to complete the entire cell factory setup, from incoming wafer inspection, wet chemical equipment steps through the final production steps of printing, firing, sorting and testing, with all technology documented and the expertise to start up the factory.

Pursue Strategic Acquisitions That Complement Our Strong Platform. Over the course of our history, we have developed an acquisition strategy consistent with our focus of maintaining market leadership and a technology roadmap leading to higher efficiency and lower cost solar cells. Based on our acquisition strategy, we continue to evaluate potential technology, product and business acquisitions or joint ventures that are intended to increase our existing market share in the solar, semiconductor and LED industries and expand our addressable market. In evaluating these opportunities, our objectives include: enhancing our earnings and cash flows, adding complementary product offerings, actively expanding our geographic footprint, improving our production efficiency and enhancing our customer base.

Contribute to the Solar Industry’s Mission of Reaching Grid Parity. We believe next-generation process technology for solar cell manufacturing is the driver to increasing efficiency and lowering manufacturing costs and is key to enabling grid parity, where the cost of solar generated electricity is on parity with traditional, non-renewable sources of energy such as coal and natural gas. Our next-generation solar cell process technology has a demonstrated track record of increasing our customers’ solar cell conversion efficiency. We will continue to develop next-generation solar cell manufacturing process technology that will enable our customers to displace non-renewable energy.

SOLAR OPERATIONS

We provide process equipment and related cell manufacturing equipment to many of the world’s leading solar cell manufacturers.

Our primary process equipment focus is our existing solar diffusion furnace and the development of next-generation diffusion furnaces, including our proprietary N-type systems and our PECVD systems. Our N-type technology has been developed through a three-party research collaboration agreement with the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, or ECN, a leading solar research center in Europe and Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited, or Yingli, one of the world’s leading vertically integrated photovolataic (“PV”) product manufacturers. In 2012, we launched our PECVD system, which can be used for N-type or P-type systems. Additionally, through SoLayTec, we produce, develop, deliver and service ultrafast ALD machines used in high efficiency solar cells.

We also offer furnace automation and wafer handling systems used within the diffusion and deposition processing steps of solar cell manufacturing. Our automation equipment includes mass wafer transfer systems, sorters, long-boat transfer systems, load station elevators, buffers and conveyers, which we sell both in connection with our diffusion furnaces and on a standalone basis.

Although the solar market has experienced tremendous growth over the past five years, it is characterized by periods of rapid capacity expansion followed by periods of rapid contraction in our customers’ capital spending. When actual and expected end-user demand outstrips available capacity, this triggers the beginning of the next period of expansion.

SEMICONDUCTOR AND POLISHING OPERATIONS

We provide diffusion equipment as well as handling, storage and automation equipment and related services to leading semiconductor manufacturers. Our products include horizontal and vertical diffusion furnaces used to produce semiconductors, silicon wafers and MEMS, as well as lapping equipment, polishing templates and wafer insert carriers, mass wafer transfer systems, loaders and sorters.

As demand for increasingly sophisticated electronic devices continues, new technologies such as electric and autonomous automobiles, advances in consumer electronics, mobile devices and Internet-of-Things (IoT) will help to drive future growth. Electronic equipment continues to become more complex, yet end users are still demanding smaller, lighter and less expensive devices. This, in turn, requires increased performance and reduced cost, size, weight and power requirements of electronic assemblies, printed circuit boards and semiconductors. In response to these developments, manufacturers are increasingly employing more sophisticated production and assembly techniques requiring more advanced manufacturing equipment, such as that supplied by BTU.

Although the semiconductor market has experienced significant growth over the past fifteen years, it remains cyclical by nature. The market is characterized by short-term periods of under or over utilization of capacity for most semiconductors, including microprocessors, memory, power management chips and other logic devices. When capacity utilization decreases due to the addition of excess capacity, semiconductor manufacturers typically slow their purchasing of capital equipment. Conversely, when capacity utilization increases, so does capital spending.

SOLAR AND SEMICONDUCTOR PRODUCTS

Our furnace and automation equipment is manufactured in our facilities in the Netherlands, France, Massachusetts, and China. The following paragraphs describe the products that comprise our solar and semiconductor businesses:

Horizontal Diffusion Furnaces. Through Tempress and Bruce Technologies, we produce and sell horizontal diffusion furnaces. Our horizontal furnaces currently address several steps in the solar and semiconductor manufacturing processes, including diffusion, phosphorus tetrachloride doping, or POCl3, boron tribromide, or BBR3, low-pressure chemical vapor deposition, or LPCVD, oxidation, and annealing.

Our horizontal furnaces generally consist of three large modules: the load station, where the loading of the wafers occurs; the furnace section, which is comprised of one to five thermal reactor chambers; and the gas distribution cabinet, where the flow of gases into the reactor chambers is controlled, and often customized to meet the requirements of our customers’ particular processes. The horizontal furnaces utilize a combination of existing industry and proprietary technologies and are sold primarily to solar customers and semiconductor customers who do not require the advanced automation of, or cannot justify the higher expense of, vertical furnaces for some or all of their diffusion processes. Our models are capable of processing all currently existing wafer sizes.

Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD). We have two applications in the solar device technology. Our solar PECVD product applies an anti-reflective coating to solar wafers; a coating critical to the efficiency of solar cells. PECVD layers are also used for passivation of the front and/or back side of the solar cell. We also offer the combination of tunnel oxide with a LPCVD of poly-layer, this is a new application in our solar technology roadmap towards cell efficiencies above 21%. These products add two solar cell processing steps to Amtech’s offerings. We are exploring next-generation high-efficiency technology and dedicating our efforts to process development.

Atomic Layer Deposition. We produce, develop, deliver and service worldwide machines for ultrafast, spatial (ALD) equipment, a promising technology for ultrathin Al2O3 passivation layers on solar cells. The ALD machines from SoLayTec are intended for industrial production in the solar market. The unique features of the SoLayTec machines are the breakthrough speed that enables industrial application and the precise control over the deposition thickness.

Automation Products - Solar & Semiconductor. Our automation products are used in several diffusion steps and in the anneal processing step of solar cell manufacturing. Our R2D automation equipment includes mass wafer transfer systems, sorters, long-boat transfer systems, load station elevators, buffers and conveyers. We use vacuum technology in our Standalone and our Full Automation solar wafer transfer systems designed to ensure high throughput, reduced breakage and thereby increased yield.

Use of our automation products reduces human handling and, therefore, reduces exposure of wafers to particle sources during the loading and unloading of the process tubes and protects operators from heat and chemical fumes. The top reactor chamber of a horizontal furnace can be as much as eight feet from the floor on which the operator stands when manually loading wafer boats. Typical boats of 150mm to 300mm wafers weigh three to six pounds. Given these two factors, automating the wafer loading and unloading of a diffusion furnace improves employee safety and ergonomics in silicon wafer, solar cell and semiconductor manufacturing facilities.

S-300. Our patented S-300 model provides an efficient method of automatically transporting a full batch of up to 300 wafers to the designated tube level and automatically placing them directly onto the cantilever loader of a diffusion furnace. This product is suitable for the production of nearly all semiconductors manufactured using a horizontal furnace. The S-300 can be used in conjunction with all current wafer sizes and is particularly well suited for manufacturers of 300mm wafers.

Comet. Our Comet and Gemini series of wafer transfer systems include a wide range of throughputs and footprints to meet the needs of our customers who serve the semiconductor industry. Comet Sorter with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used in sorting, randomizing, compacting or tracking. The Comet Sorter is cassette to cassette with OCR front and back scribe functions, notch alignment and SECSII Gem communication. Comet ID Readers check tag carriers, then read each wafer scribe. The Comet ID Reader sends the information to the host with SECSII Gem commands.

Small Batch Vertical Furnace. Our small batch, two-tube vertical furnace was developed internally with the active support from a large semiconductor manufacturer and long-term customer. The specifications for this furnace include a two-tube vertical furnace for wafer sizes of up to 200mm, with each tube having a small flat zone capable of processing 25-50 wafers per run. We are targeting niche semiconductor applications, including research and development, while we continue to develop additional processes, since the competition in the large batch vertical furnace market is intense and our competitors are much larger and have substantially greater financial resources, processing knowledge and advanced technology.