Camtek Guides 2027 Revenue Above $800 Million and Sets $1.2 Billion Target as AI Packaging Visibility Stretches to a Year
Investor Day at SEMICON West, San Francisco, October 14, 2026
Camtek used its investor breakfast to pre-announce third-quarter revenue of $160 million to $161 million, issue fourth-quarter guidance of $180 million, and give a 2027 revenue outlook of more than $800 million. That is the first time the company has offered a full-year view this far in advance. CEO Rafi Amit said the company had never before had this kind of visibility because "our customers' visibility and forecast typically extended only a few months ahead," but that AI-driven demand for computing power "is giving us something we have never had before." The numbers imply about $595 million of revenue this year, growth of roughly 20%, and 35% growth next year. Management also replaced its $750 million target model with a goal of $1.2 billion in about three years, a 26% CAGR, which it says is substantially organic.
Order Book Is the Foundation for the Outlook
CFO Moshe Eisenberg tied the confidence to orders. A couple of months ago the company disclosed $600 million of orders received since the start of the year. It has since added more than $200 million, taking year-to-date orders above $800 million with a quarter still to go. About 80% of orders are for advanced packaging, almost all of it high-end packaging for AI, and a little over 50% came from OSATs. Photonics accounts for about 5% of orders on hand.
President and COO Ramy Langer said customers are already asking for delivery slots across all of 2027, typically because they know when their cleanrooms will be ready. He also said the company has been conservative with forecasts and "I don't think we ever missed one of our forecasts in the last few years." Management characterized $800 million as an outlook rather than guidance and indicated upside is possible. Langer said sizing it would take "another 1 or 2 quarters." Amit added that contract manufacturers have already expanded capacity and that supply would not constrain a stronger year.
Where the Extra $600 Million Comes From
Eisenberg split the incremental revenue into three buckets. Core inspection and bump metrology, led by the Eagle G5 and Hawk platforms, contributes about $380 million. The metrology business that came with the FRT acquisition adds about $120 million. Software and service add about $110 million. That last bucket is the most notable change to the model. Service and software revenue is about $28 million today, or 6% of sales, and management targets more than $140 million, or 12% of the mix. The company has about 4,000 installed systems and, in Eisenberg's words, "never really monetized" the support infrastructure. Service revenue grew 40% in 2025, faster than product sales. An AI software offering built on the Visual Layer acquisition, completed about six months ago, is planned for launch in 2027. Executive Chairman Lior Aviram said Visual Layer's integration is complete and that "it feels like our AI development power is on steroids."
Margin Targets Are Higher but Modest
At the $1.2 billion level, the company targets gross margin of 55% to 56%, up from 51% to 52% now, and operating margin of 34% to 36%, up from 27% to 28% in the first half of 2026 and 30% in 2025. The model credits about 3.4 points of gross margin to richer product mix and software and services, and about 2.4 points to SG&A leverage. R&D rises from just under 8% of revenue in 2024 to just under 10% this year and is assumed to stay near 10%, which takes back a little over 1 point. Eisenberg acknowledged downside scenarios, including a period of WFE capex digestion, and said the model could also accelerate if edge and physical AI are adopted faster than expected.
Competition in 2D Inspection Is the Main Debate
The analyst questions focused on the competitive position. Camtek is best known for 3D bump-height metrology, but Langer said 85% of tools sold this year went to inspection applications and only about 15% to dedicated bump-height metrology. That means the growth plan depends on gaining share in 2D inspection, where larger US peers are strengthening their products. Morgan Stanley's analyst pressed on this point, and Needham's analyst noted that a competitor had announced about $200 million of OSAT orders for CoWoS offload.
Langer did not play down the threat. He said new entrants in 2D inspection are "not a surprise" and that the larger player "is no doubt competition" that Camtek will "work very hard to meet." He said Camtek received a "very significant order, not much smaller" from the same customer, expects its share to be larger in 2028, and believes it holds at least 50% of OSAT orders in Taiwan. He rejected reports of customer hesitation on dedicated 3D bump metrology, saying part of the $800 million of orders is for exactly that. He did concede that module-level memory density is being reduced even as total HBM capacity grows.
China is about 45% of the business. Management expects to hold that share and said 2027 China revenue should be at least as strong as this year. Amit acknowledged that local competitors, including "a couple of good companies," are gaining ground in both inspection and metrology, but argued that Chinese OSATs want equipment with the process experience gained in Korea and Taiwan.
Technology Roadmap: Smaller Bumps, Hybrid Bonding Slower Than Expected
Marketing director Eyal Segev said bump heights in the most advanced HBM are now as small as 6 microns and heading toward 5 and possibly 3 microns, "numbers that nobody had thought about 2, 3 years ago." Camtek's ninth-generation sensor cannot measure below 5 microns, so a tenth-generation sensor is due next year. He also said HBM5 is no longer expected to use hybrid bonding and will stay bump-based. Hybrid bonding is ramping "slower than we expected" and should reach only about 10% of advanced packaging interconnect by 2030, so management expects photonics to contribute more revenue before hybrid bonding reaches full volume, which Segev said would be after the end of the decade.
Segev gave four examples of how complexity increases tool demand. High-density fan-out raises RDL layers from 3 to 9. Die-level warp metrology requires specifications near 100 micrometers, versus 1 millimeter for wafer warp, which needs a different sensor. Pre-bond inspection requires detecting particles below 150 nanometers. Sub-5-micron bumps need the new sensor. Langer said the company is evaluating several technologies for post-bond void detection at production throughput. This is an open development item rather than a finished product.
Photonics Is a 2028 Story
Photonics is the newest growth leg. Camtek sees demand from DFB lasers made in compound semiconductors, from photonic integrated circuits, and from photonic engines integrated on 2.5D interposers. Langer called the opportunity "very small today" and said the ramp will be steep, with the main step-up in 2028. The company's long-term serviceable market estimate is about $6 billion in 2030, up from about $2.2 billion today, consisting of about $1.5 billion in advanced packaging inspection, $0.5 billion in macro inspection in wafer fabrication, and $200 million in metrology. A Stifel analyst noted that the targets imply a share in the low 20% range, below today's high-20% range. Eisenberg replied that the SAM is a 2030 figure, one year past the model horizon, and that share should rise through 2029.
M&A Is Active but Subordinate to Organic Growth
The $1.2 billion target excludes any large acquisition, though Camtek has more than $800 million of cash and says it is "dedicating significant resources" to M&A. Aviram said the company has reviewed more than 100 opportunities in the past 1.5 years. Small deals aim to fill technology or team gaps. Larger deals would be in adjacent businesses, with management strength, growth and profitability near Camtek's own, and clear synergies as the criteria. The company is also pursuing strategic partnerships, which Aviram said can give access to larger industry players that cannot be acquired. Amit said management does not want to divert attention from what it calls a once-in-a-generation organic opportunity.
Management's own history supports the case. Revenue has grown about sixfold since 2017, about 2.5 times the pace of WFE, and shares are up more than 650% since the end of 2022. The 26% CAGR target is only about 2 points above the 24% growth Edward Yang of Oppenheimer cited for high-end advanced packaging wafers, and Camtek said it expects to outgrow WFE. Investors will be looking for evidence in 2027 order trends that 2D inspection share gains can actually happen, since that is where the plan is least proven.