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Item 1A. Risk Factors.

Below is a summary of the principal factors and uncertainties that make investing in our company risky. You should read this summary together with the more detailed description of each risk factor contained further below.

Risks Related to Our Operations

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If we do not manage our supply chain effectively, our operating results may be adversely affected, and any increases in material, labor, supplier, logistics and other operating costs, or supply chain delays and shortages, could lower our margins or result in lost sales.

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Variations in the amount of time it takes for us to sell our systems may cause fluctuations in our operating results, which could cause our stock price to decline.

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We are subject to order and shipment uncertainties. Our profitability will decline if we fail to accurately forecast customer demand when managing inventory.

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If we deliver systems with defects, our credibility will be harmed, and the sales and market acceptance of our systems will decrease.

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Our integrated metrology systems are integrated with systems sold independently by wafer fabrication equipment suppliers, and a decrease in sales by these suppliers, or the development of competing systems by these suppliers, could harm our business.

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We must attract and retain experienced senior executives and other key personnel with knowledge of semiconductor device manufacturing and inspection, metrology or lithography equipment and related software to help support our future growth, and competition for such personnel in our industry is high.

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Any prolonged disruption in the operations of our manufacturing facilities could have a material adverse effect on our revenue.

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We outsource select manufacturing activities to third-party service providers, which decreases our control over the performance of these functions, may result in lower quality and functionality of our products, and exposes us to additional supply chain risks.

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Our ability to fulfill our backlog may have an effect on our long-term ability to procure contracts and fulfill current contracts.

Risks Related to Our Customers

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Our largest customers account for a substantial portion of our revenue, and our revenue and cash flows could decline considerably if one or more of these customers were to purchase significantly fewer of our systems or delay or cancel a large order.

Risks Related to Product Development

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If we are not successful in developing new and enhanced products for the semiconductor device manufacturing industry, we will lose sales and market share to our competitors.

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If new products developed by us do not gain general market acceptance, we will be unable to generate revenue and recover our investments, which may result in a write down of inventory.

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Even if we are able to develop new products that gain market acceptance, sales of these new products could impair our ability to sell existing products.

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If our relationships with our large customers deteriorate, our product development activities could be adversely affected.

Risks Related to Intellectual Property and Data Security

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We may fail to adequately protect our intellectual property and, therefore, lose our competitive advantage.

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Protection of our intellectual property rights, or the efforts of third parties to enforce their own intellectual property rights against us, may result in costly and time-consuming litigation, substantial damages, lost product sales and/or the loss of important intellectual property rights.

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If our network security measures are breached and unauthorized access is obtained to a customer’s data, to our data, or to our information technology systems, we may incur significant legal and financial exposure and liabilities and may experience disruptions in our operations.

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Compliance with data protection laws may be costly and may impede development of new products, and any failure to comply with, or inquiries under, these laws could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Risks Related to Competition

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Some of our current and potential competitors have significantly greater resources than we do, and increased competition could impair sales of our products or cause us to reduce our prices.

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Because of the high cost of switching equipment vendors in our markets, it is sometimes difficult for us to win new customers from our competitors even if our systems are superior to theirs.

Risks Related to Our International Operations

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Tariffs, export regulations, and other market barriers have impacted and may continue to impact our ability to compete for the business of domestic customers in China and other jurisdictions, which has adversely affected and may continue to adversely affect our, business, financial condition and results of operations.

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We are subject to compliance with domestic and foreign laws and regulations, and the burden of complying with such laws and regulations, or any failure to comply, has adversely affected and may continue to adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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Political and economic instability may result in reduced demand for our products.

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Natural disasters, changes in climate, public health crises, and geo-political conflicts could materially adversely affect our worldwide operations (or those of our business partners).

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We may face difficulties in staffing and managing foreign branch operations due to political tensions or cultural differences.

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Currency fluctuations may impact our international sales or expose us to exchange rate risk.

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Our internal controls with respect to anti-corruption laws may not be effective, and any failure to comply with such laws may result in severe sanctions and liabilities, which may negatively affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

Risks Related to Laws, Legal Proceedings, Financial Markets and the Environment

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Changes in tax rates or tax liabilities could affect results.

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Turmoil or fluctuations in the credit markets and the financial services industry may negatively impact our business, results of operations, financial condition or liquidity, and our factoring arrangements may expose us to additional risks.

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We are subject to various environmental laws and regulations that could impose substantial costs upon us, and failure to comply with such laws and regulations may harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

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Legal proceedings, claims and investigations may expose us to increased costs and may negatively affect our business and results of operations.

Risks Related to Growth and Acquisitions

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We may choose to acquire new and complementary businesses, products or technologies instead of developing them ourselves, and we may be unable to complete these acquisitions or may not be able to successfully integrate an acquired business in a cost-effective and non-disruptive manner.

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If we cannot effectively manage growth, our business may suffer.

Risks Related to the Global Economy and the Semiconductor Industry

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Cyclicality in the semiconductor device industry has led to substantial decreases in demand for our systems in the past and may, from time to time, continue to do so.

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Our future rate of growth is highly dependent on the development and growth of the market for microelectronic device inspection, lithography and metrology equipment.

General Risk Factors

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Provisions of our charter documents and of Delaware law could discourage potential acquisition proposals and/or delay, deter or prevent a change in control of our company.

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Our stock price is volatile.

Risks Related to Our Operations

We need to continually evaluate our global supply chains and assess opportunities to reduce costs. We must also enhance quality, speed and flexibility to meet changing demand for our products and product mix and uncertain market conditions. Our success also depends in part on refining our cost structure and supply chains so that we have flexibility and can maintain and improve profitability. Deterioration in the tariff environment, political instability or changes in suppliers may cause our costs to increase and, if we are not able to offset the increased costs by charging higher sales prices, will cause a decline in our margins. To improve margins on our products, we would need to negotiate price reductions with our vendors. But we cannot be certain that we will be able to do so in a timely manner, or at all. Failure to achieve the desired level of cost reductions could adversely affect our financial results. Despite our efforts to control costs and increase efficiency in our facilities, changes in demand could still cause us to realize lower operating margins and profitability.

Further, our gross margins and financial performance may be adversely affected by increases in our operating costs, such as material, labor, supplier costs, logistics and energy costs, all of which have been and may continue to be subject to inflationary pressures. Operating costs have increased and may continue to increase further as a result of supply chain disruptions in connection with the sourcing of components, materials, equipment, engineering support, and services, labor shortages, high inflation rates, and cost increases attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In addition, we source components for certain of our tools from a supplier in Israel. If the conflict in Israel and the surrounding area escalates, it could disrupt our supply chain, resulting in a material adverse impact on our business.

These risks may be heightened because we obtain some of the components and subassemblies included in our systems from a limited group of suppliers and do not have long-term contracts with many of our suppliers. Our dependence on limited-source suppliers of components and our lack of long-term contracts with certain of our suppliers expose us to several risks, including a potential inability to obtain an adequate supply of components, price increases, late deliveries and poor component quality. A significant number of our suppliers are the sole source or single source for certain components or subassemblies. If such a supplier is unable or unwilling to manufacture and deliver components to us on the time schedule and of the quality or quantity that we require, we may be forced to seek to engage an additional or replacement supplier or redesign our product to use alternative components, which could result in additional expenses and delays in product development or shipment of product to our customers. Disruption or termination of the supply of components has delayed and could in the future delay shipments of some of our systems. Such delays may damage our customer relationships and reduce our sales. The lead time required for shipments of some of our components can be greater than six months. In addition, the lead time required to qualify new suppliers for lasers and certain optics could be as long as a year, and the lead time required to qualify new suppliers of other components could be as long as nine months. In some cases, we may need to purchase components in advance of receiving customer orders for product. If we are unable to accurately predict our component needs, or if our component supply is disrupted, we may miss market opportunities by not being able to meet the demand for our systems. Further, a significant increase in the price of one or more of these components or subassemblies could seriously harm our results of operations and cash flows.

Our efforts to mitigate any cost increases, labor impacts and supply chain delays and shortages may not be successful, and we cannot predict the duration of these current trends or other future increases in operating costs. We may not be able to pass cost increases through to our customers fully (or at all), and if supply chain delays and shortages delay delivery of our products, our customers may seek to purchase from our competitors. Any such occurrence may have a material adverse impact on our gross margins and business, financial position, results of operations and cash flows.

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Variations in the amount of time it takes for us to sell our systems may cause fluctuations in our operating results, which could cause our stock price to decline.

Variations in the length of our sales cycles could cause our revenue and cash flows, and consequently, our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows to fluctuate widely from period to period. This variation could cause our stock price to decline. Our customers generally take a long time to evaluate our inspection and/or film metrology systems and many people are involved in the evaluation process. We expend significant resources educating and providing information to our prospective customers regarding the uses and benefits of our systems in the semiconductor fabrication process. The length of time it takes for us to make a sale depends upon many factors, including, but not limited to:

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the efforts of our sales force;

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the complexity of the customer’s fabrication processes;

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the internal technical capabilities and sophistication of the customer;

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the customer’s budgetary constraints; and

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the quality and sophistication of the customer’s current metrology, inspection or lithography equipment.

Because of the number of factors influencing the sales process, the period between our initial contact with a customer and the time when we recognize revenue from that customer and receive payment, if ever, varies widely in length. Our sales cycles, including the time it takes for us to build a product to customer specifications after receiving an order to the time we recognize revenue, typically range from three to twenty-four months. Sometimes our sales cycles can be much longer, particularly with customers in Asia. During these cycles, we commit substantial resources to our sales efforts in advance of receiving any revenue, and we may never receive any revenue from a customer despite our sales efforts. If we do make a sale, our customers often purchase only one of our systems, the performance of which they then evaluate for a lengthy period before purchasing any more of our systems. The number of additional products a customer purchases, if any, depends on many factors, including the customer’s capacity requirements. The period between a customer’s initial purchase and any subsequent purchases can vary from three months to a year or longer, and variations in the length of this period could cause further fluctuations in our operating results and, possibly, in our stock price.

We are subject to order and shipment uncertainties. Our profitability will decline if we fail to accurately forecast customer demand when managing inventory.

We typically plan production and inventory levels based on internal forecasts of customer demand, which can be highly unpredictable and can fluctuate substantially, which could lead to excess inventory write-downs and result in negative impacts on gross margin and net income. We have limited visibility into our customers’ inventories, future customer demand and the product mix that our customers will require, which could adversely affect our production forecasts and operating margins. Certain of our customers have publicly stated their intent to decrease their memory product inventory levels as lead time for components begins to decrease. This has and could continue to result in a temporary decrease in demand for our products as customers delay capacity expansions until inventory levels are sufficiently reduced. In addition, innovation in our industry could render significant portions of our inventory obsolete. If we overestimate our customers’ requirements, we may have excess inventory, which could lead to obsolete inventory and unexpected costs. Conversely, if we underestimate our customers’ requirements, or if we experience sustained disruptions to our supply chain or shipping delays, we may have inadequate inventory, which could lead to foregone revenue opportunities, loss of potential market share and damage to customer relationships as product deliveries may not be made on a timely basis, disrupting our customers’ production schedules. In response to anticipated long lead times to obtain inventory and materials from outside suppliers and foundries, we periodically order materials in advance of customer demand. This advance ordering has in the past and may in the future result in excess inventory levels or unanticipated inventory write-downs if expected orders fail to materialize, or other factors make our products less saleable. In addition, any significant future cancellation or deferral of product orders could adversely affect our revenue and margins, increase inventory write-downs due to obsolete inventory, and adversely affect our operating results and stock price.

Our earnings could be negatively affected, and our inventory levels could materially increase, if we are unable to predict our inventory needs in an accurate and timely manner and adjust our orders for parts and subcomponents in the event that our needs increase or decrease materially due to unexpected increases or decreases in demand for our products. Any material increase in our inventories could result in an adverse effect on our financial position, while any material decrease in our ability to procure needed inventories could result in an inability to supply customer demand for our products, thus adversely affecting our revenue.

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If we deliver systems with defects, our credibility will be harmed, and the sales and market acceptance of our systems will decrease.

Our systems are complex and have occasionally contained errors, defects and bugs when introduced. Defects may be created during probing, bumping, dicing or general handling, and can have a major impact on device and process quality. When this occurs, our credibility and the market acceptance and sales of our systems could be harmed. Further, if our systems contain errors, defects or bugs, computer viruses or malicious code as a result of cyber-attacks to our computer networks, we may be required to expend significant capital and resources to alleviate these problems. Defects could also lead to product liability as a result of product liability lawsuits against us or against our customers. We have agreed to indemnify our customers under certain circumstances against liability arising from defects in our systems provided that we also include a cap on our liability in the related sales agreements. Our product liability insurance policy currently provides both aggregate coverage as well as an overall umbrella coverage. In the event of a successful product liability claim, we could be obligated to pay damages significantly in excess of our product liability insurance limits.

We believe that sales of integrated metrology systems will continue to be an important source of our net revenues. Sales of our integrated metrology systems depend upon the ability of a small number of wafer fabrication equipment suppliers to sell semiconductor manufacturing equipment products that are compatible with our metrology systems as components. If these suppliers are unable to sell such products, if they choose to focus their attention on products that do not integrate with our systems, or if they choose to develop competing systems, our business could suffer.

Our success depends, to a significant degree, upon the continued contributions of our key executive management, engineering, sales and marketing, customer support, finance and manufacturing personnel. The loss of any of these key personnel, each of whom would be extremely difficult to replace, through resignations, retirement or other circumstances, could harm our business and operating results. Despite our employment and noncompetition agreements with key members of our senior management team, these individuals or other key employees may still leave us, which could have a material adverse effect on our business. We do not have key person life insurance on any of our executives. In addition, to support our future growth, we will need to attract and retain additional qualified employees. Competition for such personnel in our industry is intense, and we may not be successful in attracting and retaining qualified employees.

The expansion of high technology companies worldwide and growth in the demand for semiconductors have increased demand and competition for qualified personnel. Competition for engineering and other technical personnel in some of the markets in which we operate is especially intense due to continued increases in the number of technology companies worldwide. In order to attract and retain executives and other key employees, we must provide a competitive compensation package, including cash and stock-based compensation. If the anticipated value of our stock-based incentive awards does not materialize so that they cease to be viewed as valuable, if our profits decrease, or if our total compensation package is not viewed as competitive, our ability to attract, retain and motivate executives and key employees could be weakened.

Any prolonged disruption in the operations of our manufacturing facilities could have a material adverse effect on our revenue.

We produce the majority of our systems in our manufacturing facilities located in Wilmington, Massachusetts, Milpitas, California and Bloomington, Minnesota. We also use contract manufacturers in China, Japan and the United States. Our manufacturing processes are highly complex and require sophisticated and costly equipment and a specially designed facility. As a result, any prolonged disruption in the operations of our manufacturing facilities could seriously harm our ability to satisfy our customer order deadlines. Restrictions on our access to or operation of manufacturing facilities or on our support operations or workforce, or similar limitations for our vendors and suppliers, may impact our ability to meet customer demand and could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. If we cannot timely deliver our systems, our results from operations and cash flows could be materially and adversely affected.

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We outsource select product manufacturing to third-party service providers. Outsourcing reduces our control over the performance of the outsourced functions. Dependence on outsourcing may also adversely affect our ability to bring new products to market. If we do not effectively manage our outsourcing strategy or if third-party service providers do not perform as anticipated, we may experience operational difficulties, increased costs, manufacturing interruptions or inefficiencies in the operation of our supply chain, any or all of which could delay our delivery of products to our customers, and materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our third-party service providers could also be, and certain of our service providers have been, subject to cybersecurity incidents or other events that negatively impact their operations and their ability to perform services for us in a timely manner or at all. Such disruptions could impact our ability to manufacture products in a timely manner or force us to work with another service provider at a higher cost. Any such event could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations. In addition, some of our third-party party services providers also have product designs, know-how, data files and other important confidential information regarding our products. If a third-party service provider experiences a cybersecurity event in which such confidential information is publicly exposed or shared with bad actors, it could materially and adversely impact our competitive position in the market.

Our ability to fulfill our backlog may have an effect on our long-term ability to procure contracts and fulfill current contracts.

Our ability to fulfill our backlog may be limited by our ability to devote sufficient financial and human capital resources and may be limited by available material supplies and our suppliers’ own supply chain issues. If we do not fulfill our backlog in a timely manner, we may experience delays in product delivery, which would postpone receipt of revenue from those delayed deliveries. Delayed fulfillment also increases the risk that a customer may change or cancel an order due to evolution of the customer’s technological, production or market needs, which would result in a loss of revenue. Additionally, if we are consistently unable to fulfill our backlog, this may be a disincentive to customers to award large contracts to us in the future until they are comfortable that we can effectively manage our backlog.

Risks Related to Our Customers

Sales to end user customers that individually represent at least ten percent of our revenue typically account for, in the aggregate, a considerable amount of our revenue. We operate in the highly concentrated, capital-intensive semiconductor device manufacturing industry. Historically, a substantial portion of our revenue in each quarter and year has been derived from sales to relatively few customers, and this trend is expected to continue. If any of our key customers were to purchase significantly fewer of our systems in the future, or if they delay or cancel a large order, our revenue and cash flows could meaningfully decline. We expect that we will continue to depend on a small number of large customers for a sizable portion of our revenue. In addition, as large semiconductor device manufacturers seek to establish closer relationships with their suppliers, we expect that our customer base will become even more concentrated.

Risks Related to Product Development

If we are not successful in developing new and enhanced products for the semiconductor device manufacturing industry, we will lose sales and market share to our competitors.

We operate in an industry that is highly competitive and subject to evolving industry standards, rapid technological changes, rapid changes in consumer demands and the rapid introduction of new, higher performance systems with shorter product life cycles. To be competitive in our demanding market, we must continually design, develop and introduce in a timely manner new lithography, inspection and metrology process control systems that meet the performance and price demands of semiconductor device manufacturers. We must also continue to refine our current systems so that they remain competitive. We expect to continue to make significant investments in our research and development activities and at times may make inventory investments prior to commercialization. We may experience difficulties or delays in our development efforts with respect to new systems, and we may not ultimately be successful in our product enhancement efforts to improve and advance products or in responding effectively to technological change, as not all research and development activities result in viable commercial

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products. In addition, we cannot provide assurance that we will be able to develop new products for the most opportunistic new markets and applications. Any significant delay in releasing new systems could cause our products to become obsolete, adversely affect our reputation, give a competitor a first-to-market advantage or cause a competitor to achieve greater market share. Our competitors may also develop products, including through the use of artificial intelligence, that may have performance advantages over systems we currently offer or may offer in the future, which could similarly weaken our competitive position.

Further, customers that may otherwise desire to purchase our products from us and purchase other products from our competitors may nevertheless purchase competing products from our competitors rather than purchase our products due to a variety of reasons, including to gain favorable or volume pricing from our competitors.

If new products developed by us do not gain general market acceptance, we will be unable to generate revenue and recover our investments, which may result in a write down of inventory.

Inspection, lithography and metrology product development is inherently risky because it is difficult to foresee developments in semiconductor device manufacturing technology, coordinate technical personnel, and identify and eliminate system design flaws. Further, our products are leading edge and complex, and often the applications to our customers’ businesses are unique. Any new systems we introduce may not achieve or sustain a significant degree of market acceptance and sales.

We expect to spend a significant amount of time and resources developing new systems and refining our existing systems. In light of the long product development cycles inherent in our industry, these expenditures will be made well in advance of the prospect of deriving revenue from the sale of those systems. The long lead times for some components may also require us to place orders for components and accumulate inventory in advance of market acceptance of our products.

Our ability to commercially introduce and successfully market new systems is subject to a wide variety of challenges during the development cycle, including start-up bugs, design defects, and other matters that could delay introduction of these systems. Since our customers are not obligated by long-term contracts to purchase our systems, our anticipated product orders may not materialize, or orders that are placed may be canceled.

If we do not achieve market acceptance of new products, we may be unable to generate sufficient revenue and cash flow to recover our research and development costs and may experience a write down of our investments in inventory. As a result, our market share, revenue, operating results or stock price could be negatively impacted.

Even if we are able to develop new products that gain market acceptance, sales of these new products could impair our ability to sell existing products.

Competition from our new systems could have a negative effect on sales of our existing systems and the prices that we could charge for these systems. We may also divert sales and marketing resources from our current systems in order to successfully launch and promote our new or next generation systems. This diversion of resources could have a further negative effect on sales of our current systems and the value of inventory.

If our relationships with our large customers deteriorate, our product development activities could be adversely affected.

The success of our product development efforts depends on our ability to anticipate market trends and the price, performance and functionality requirements of semiconductor device manufacturers. In order to anticipate these trends and ensure that critical development projects proceed in a coordinated manner, we must continue to collaborate closely with our largest customers. Our relationships with these and other customers provide us with access to valuable information regarding trends in the semiconductor device industry, which enables us to better plan our product development activities. If our current relationships with our large customers are impaired, or if we are unable to develop similar collaborative relationships with important customers in the future, our product development activities could be adversely affected.

Risks Related to Intellectual Property and Data Security

We may fail to adequately protect our intellectual property and, therefore, lose our competitive advantage.

Our future success and competitive position depend in part upon our ability to obtain and maintain proprietary technology for our principal product families. If we fail to adequately protect our intellectual property, it will give our competitors a significant advantage. We own or have licensed a number of patents relating to our metrology, lithography, wafer and defect inspection systems, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, and software, including both embedded and application software, and have filed applications for additional patents. Any of our pending patent applications

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may be rejected, however, and we may be unable to develop additional proprietary technology that is patentable in the future. In addition, the patents that we do own or that have been issued or licensed to us may not provide us with competitive advantages and/or may be invalidated, enforceable and/or challenged by third parties. Third parties may also design around our patents or copy our patented inventions without our knowledge.

In addition to patent protection, we rely upon copyrights for protection of our proprietary software and documentation, trademarks for protection of our brand and source of goods, and trade secret law and confidentiality and non-compete agreements for protection of our confidential and proprietary information and technology. These measures do not guarantee protection of our intellectual property, however. We can give no assurance that our copyrights will be upheld or will successfully deter infringement by third parties. There can be no assurances that our confidentiality agreements with employees and other third parties will be sufficient to protect our trade secrets and proprietary information or that such information will not be disclosed, that others will not independently develop substantially equivalent proprietary information and techniques or otherwise gain access to our trade secrets, or that we can fully protect our trade secrets and proprietary information. Violations by others of our confidentiality agreements and the loss of employees who have specialized knowledge and expertise could harm our competitive position and cause our sales and operating results to decline as a result of increased competition. It is also possible that third parties will misappropriate our trade secrets or other confidential information. We may be subject to cybersecurity breaches in which a third party obtains our confidential information. Third parties may also reverse engineer our products to copy our technology. Failure to protect our trademarks can lead to other companies selling products using confusing similar names, thereby damaging our brand. In some countries, it can be difficult to register trademarks because of the strict examination process or blocking trademarks for other goods. Costly and time-consuming litigation might be necessary to enforce and determine the scope of our intellectual property rights, and failure to obtain or maintain trade secret protection might adversely affect our ability to continue our research or bring products to market. Any of these circumstances could result in harm to our competitive position in the market.

Monitoring and preventing unauthorized use are also difficult and the measures we take to protect our intellectual property rights may not be adequate. There is a risk that we may be unable to adequately protect our intellectual property rights in certain foreign countries. For example, our competitors may independently develop similar technology or duplicate our products.If this occurs, it could be easier for our competitors to develop and sell competing products in these countries. Accordingly, infringement of our intellectual property rights poses a serious risk to our ability to conduct business.

From time to time, we may be required to initiate litigation in order to enforce our intellectual property rights or to determine the noninfringement, scope or validity of a third party’s intellectual property rights. Any litigation, regardless of outcome, could be expensive and time consuming and could subject us to significant liabilities or require us to re-engineer our products or obtain expensive licenses from third parties. There can be no assurance that any patents, copyrights or other intellectual property rights issued to or licensed by us will not be challenged, invalidated or circumvented, or that the rights granted thereunder will provide us with a competitive advantage. Furthermore, there is no assurance that any litigation we are involved in will yield the result that we seek as (i) the lawsuit may be dismissed or there could be an adverse finding, (ii) we may not be able to pursue the lawsuit due to the laws of the applicable country or (iii) there may be a subsequent unfavorable change in law that limits our ability to pursue the lawsuit. For example, litigation discovery practice in China, Japan, South Korea, continental Europe and Taiwan is not as robust as in the United States, so it can be more difficult to determine if a company is infringing on our patents and more challenging to bring a lawsuit.

In addition, our commercial success depends in part on our ability to avoid infringing or misappropriating patents or other intellectual property rights owned by third parties. From time to time, we receive communications from third parties asserting that our products or systems infringe, or may infringe, on the intellectual property rights of these third parties. These claims of infringement may lead to protracted and costly litigation, which could require us to pay substantial damages or have the sale of our products or systems stopped by an injunction. Infringement claims could also cause product or system delays or require us to redesign our products or systems, and these delays could result in the loss of substantial revenue. We may also be required to obtain a license from the third party or cease activities utilizing the third party’s intellectual property rights. We may not be able to enter into such a license or such a license may not be available on commercially reasonable terms. Accordingly, the loss of an intellectual property dispute could hinder our ability to sell our products or systems or make the sale of our products or systems more expensive, which could lead to reduced revenue or lower margins, respectively.

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As part of our business, we store our data and certain data about our customers, vendors and employees in our information technology system. We also rely on our information technology system for business operations. If there is a breach as a result of third-party action, including through the use of artificial intelligence, employee error, malfeasance, break-ins or otherwise, of our security measures designed to protect this information and prevent data loss and other security breaches, and someone obtains unauthorized access to our customers’, vendors’ or employees’ data or disrupts our access to our own data and systems, we could face loss of business, regulatory investigations or court orders or damage to our reputation, and we could be required to expend significant capital and other resources to alleviate the problem, as well as incur significant costs and liabilities, including due to litigation, indemnity obligations, damages for contract breach, penalties for violation of applicable laws or regulations, and costs for remediation and other incentives offered to customers.

Cyber-attacks and other malicious internet-based activities continue to increase. The Russia–Ukraine conflict and related sanctions imposed by the U.S. government may expose government entities and public and private U.S. companies to attempted or actual cybersecurity attacks launched in retaliation, and these attacks could materially disrupt our supply chain or our systems and operations or those of our customers and suppliers.

As the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not identified until they are launched against a target, our ability to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures is reduced. In addition, third parties have made attempts to fraudulently induce employees or users to disclose information to gain access to our data or our customers’ data. As a result of any of these events, our or our customers’ and vendors’ information could be accessed or disclosed improperly. In addition, cybersecurity incidents affecting our customers could result in substantial delays in our ability to ship to those customers or install our products, which could result in delays in revenue recognition or the cancellation of orders. As discussed herein under the heading “We outsource select manufacturing activities to third-party service providers, which decreases our control over the performance of these functions and may result in lower quality and functionality of our products,” cybersecurity incidents affecting our service providers could negatively impact our ability to timely and cost-effectively produce products and/or negatively impact our competitive position in the market. Likewise, cybersecurity events impacting our suppliers could result in substantial delays in our ability to obtain necessary components for our products from those suppliers, which could hamper our ability to ship our products to our customers, harming our results of operations and our customer relationships. Any or all of the above issues could negatively affect our ability to attract new customers, cause existing customers to choose to purchase from our competitors, result in reputational damage or subject us to third-party lawsuits, regulatory fines or other action or liability, which could adversely affect our operating results.

Compliance with data protection laws may be costly and may impede development of new products, and any failure to comply with, or inquiries under, these laws may could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) is a regulation in European Union (“EU”) law on data protection and privacy for the individuals within the EU and the European Economic Area (“EEA”). It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas. The United Kingdom has adopted legislation that substantially implements the GDPR and provides for a similar penalty structure. We are also subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”), an amendment and expansion of the CCPA. We may also be subject to other data privacy laws in the United States and the other countries in which we operate. In many cases, these laws apply not only to third-party transactions, but also to transfers of information between us and our subsidiaries, and among the subsidiaries and other parties with which we have commercial relations. The introduction of new products or expansion of our activities in certain jurisdictions may subject us to additional laws and regulations. These U.S. federal and state and foreign laws and regulations, including GDPR which can be enforced by private parties or government entities, are constantly evolving and can be subject to significant change. In addition, the application and interpretation of these laws and regulations, including GDPR, are often uncertain, particularly in our evolving industry, and may be interpreted and applied differently from country to country. Appropriate technical and organizational measures are necessary to implement these data protection principles. These laws and regulations can be costly to comply with and may delay or impede the development of new products, result in negative publicity, increase our operating costs, require significant management time and attention, or subject us to inquiries or investigations, claims or other remedies, including fines, which may be significant, or demands that we modify or cease existing business practices. A failure by us, our suppliers, or other parties with whom we do business to comply with posted privacy policies or with other federal, state, or international privacy-related or data protection laws and regulations, including GDPR, CCPA, CPRA and other new or changing privacy laws and regulations, could result in proceedings against

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us by governmental entities or others, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Risks Related to Competition

Some of our current and potential competitors have significantly greater resources than we do, and increased competition could impair sales of our products or cause us to reduce our prices.

The market for semiconductor capital equipment is highly competitive. We face substantial competition from established companies in each of the markets we serve. We principally compete with KLA, Nova, Camtek, Ushio, Canon, and PDF Solutions. Each of our products also competes with products that use different metrology, inspection or lithography techniques. Some of our competitors have greater financial, engineering, manufacturing and marketing resources, broader product offerings and service capabilities and larger installed customer bases than we do. As a result, these competitors may be able to respond more quickly to new or emerging technologies or market developments by devoting greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of products, which, in turn, could impair sales of our products. Further, there may be significant merger and acquisition activity among our competitors and potential competitors, which, in turn, may provide them with a competitive advantage over us by enabling them to rapidly expand their product offerings and service capabilities to meet a broader range of customer needs.

Many of our existing and potential customers in the semiconductor device manufacturing industry are large companies that require global support and service for their semiconductor capital equipment. Some of our competitors have more extensive support and service infrastructures than we do, which could place us at a disadvantage when competing for the business of global semiconductor device manufacturers. Many of our competitors are investing heavily in the development of new systems that will compete directly with our systems. We have, from time to time, selectively reduced prices on our systems in order to protect our market share, and competitive pressures may necessitate further price reductions. We expect our competitors in each product area to continue to improve the design and performance of their products and to introduce new products with competitive prices and performance characteristics. These product introductions would likely require us to decrease the prices of our systems and increase the level of discounts that we grant our customers. Price reductions or lost sales as a result of these competitive pressures would reduce our total revenue and could adversely impact our financial results.

Because of the high cost of switching equipment vendors in our markets, it is sometimes difficult for us to win new customers from our competitors even if our systems are superior to theirs.

We believe that once a semiconductor device manufacturer has selected one vendor’s capital equipment for a production-line application, the manufacturer generally relies upon that capital equipment and, to the extent possible, subsequent generations of the same vendor’s equipment for the life of the application. Once a vendor’s equipment has been installed in a production line application, a semiconductor device manufacturer must often make substantial technical modifications and may experience production-line downtime in order to switch to another vendor’s equipment. Accordingly, unless our systems offer performance or cost advantages that outweigh a customer’s expense of switching to our systems, it will be difficult for us to achieve significant sales to that manufacturer once it has selected another vendor’s capital equipment for an application.

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Risks Related to Our International Operations

The semiconductor device industry is a high-visibility industry in many of the European and Asian countries in which we sell our products. Because the governments of these countries have provided extensive financial support to our semiconductor device manufacturing customers in these countries, we believe that our customers could be disproportionately affected by any trade embargoes, excise taxes, tariffs, or other restrictions imposed by their governments on trade with U.S. companies such as ourselves, particularly with respect to the ongoing tensions between the United States and China.

Over the last several years, the U.S. government has significantly expanded export controls on certain technologies and commodities to certain markets, particularly with respect to semiconductor and other high technology exports to China. For example, the U.S. Department of Commerce (“DoC”) has imposed export controls on the transfer of certain U.S. products and technologies to “military end users” in China, as well as restrictions on the transfer of U.S. products to certain companies, including Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and its affiliates. Most recently, in 2022, the DoC imposed new export controls related to the Chinese semiconductor manufacturing, advanced computing, and supercomputer industries. In 2022, the DoC also added a number of companies in China to the Unverified List and Entity List of the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”), including Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd (YMTC). In October 2023, the DoC revised and expanded the 2022 export controls.

The effect of these changes, among others, is that Onto Innovation is required to conduct additional end-use diligence and in some instances obtain export licenses before providing products to certain customers. There can be no assurance that export licenses applied for by us or our customers will be granted in a timely manner or at all. We have experienced and may continue to experience a temporary loss of revenues while we are obtaining licenses with certain customers affected by export controls. Failure to obtain any required license could result in a reduction of anticipated revenues until we are able to replace unlicensed orders with other customer orders for which a license has been obtained or is not required, and there can be no assurance that replacement orders will be obtained on favorable terms, in a timely manner, or at all. In addition, any licenses that are granted to us or to our customers may have a short duration or require us to satisfy various conditions. Any of these occurrences could have a material adverse effect on our revenues, business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, we hold inventory of products that may be affected by these recent U.S. government actions, including potential order cancellations. If the sale of these products is delayed or we are unable to return or dispose of our inventory on favorable economic terms, we may incur additional carrying costs for the inventory or otherwise record charges associated with this inventory.

The administrative processing, attendant delays and risk of ultimately not obtaining required export approvals also put us at a disadvantage relative to our non-U.S. competitors who may not be required to comply with U.S. export controls. This difficulty and uncertainty has adversely affected our ability to compete for and win business from domestic customers in China.

It is possible that the U.S. government will impose additional export controls on our products or systems, which could lead to further revenue losses. Such changes could result in additional restrictions on our ability to sell products to customers in China and other jurisdictions. Foreign customers affected by current or future U.S. government sanctions, controls or threats of sanctions or controls may respond by developing their own solutions to replace our products or by utilizing our foreign competitors’ products (who are not subject to the same export controls and can fulfill the orders). In addition, these export controls may also reduce overall global demand for our customers’ products or for other products produced or manufactured in the U.S. or based on U.S. technology, in turn reducing demand for our products, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Increased restrictions on China exports may also lead to regulatory retaliation by the Chinese government, which may adversely impact our business. International trade disputes could result in increases in tariffs and other trade restrictions and protectionist measures that could adversely impact our operations and reduce the competitiveness of our products relative to local and global competitors.

Our business is subject to risks inherent in doing business internationally, including compliance with, inconsistencies among, and unexpected changes in, a wide variety of foreign laws and regulatory environments, including, among other issues, with respect to employees, protection of our intellectual property, and a wide variety of operational regulations and trade and export controls under domestic, foreign, and international law.

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We are faced with various risks that may be associated with our compliance with existing, new, different, inconsistent or conflicting laws, regulations and rules enacted by governments and/or their regulatory agencies in the countries in which we operate as well as rules and policies implemented at our customer sites. These laws, regulations, rules and policies could relate to any of an array of issues including, but not limited to, environmental, tax, intellectual property, trade secrets, product liability, contracts, antitrust, employment, securities, import/export and unfair competition. The cost of maintaining compliance under multiple and changing regulatory regimes may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations, and, in the case of export controls, has adversely affected and may continue to adversely affect our results of operations. As discussed herein under the heading “Tariffs, export regulations, and other market barriers have impacted and may continue to impact both our ability to compete for the business of domestic customers in China and our results of operations,” the U.S. government issued new export control rules in 2022 and 2023 aimed at restricting China’s access to semiconductor equipment and advanced computing technology, among other things. To comply with the new rules, Onto Innovation has had to expend time and resources that might otherwise have been used for revenue generating activities. Further regulatory changes could require additional diversion of resources to compliance efforts. In addition, in the event that we fail to comply with or violate U.S. or foreign laws or regulations or customer policies, we could be subject to civil or criminal claims or proceedings that may result in monetary fines, penalties or other costs against us or our employees, which may adversely affect our operating results, financial condition, customer relations and ability to conduct our business.

Political and economic instability may result in reduced demand for our products.

We are subject to various global risks related to political and economic instabilities in countries in which we derive sales. If terrorist activities, armed conflict, civil or military unrest or political instability occurs outside of the United States, these events may result in reduced demand for our products or adversely affect our supply chain. For example, the Ukraine–Russia geographic region is a major source of critical raw materials used for semiconductor manufacturing (such as neon and palladium), and any supply chain disruptions or shortages of such materials due to the ongoing conflict in that region could impact our customers in a manner that reduces demand for our products. Similarly, if the conflict in Israel and the surrounding area escalates further, it could result in disruptions to our supply chain and/or the operations of our customers in a manner that reduces demand for our products.

In addition, due to the complex relationships among China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States, there is risk that political, diplomatic, and national security influences might lead to trade, technology, or capital disputes, or disruptions affecting the semiconductor industry. In particular, the escalation of geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan may cause disruptions in the markets in which we operate and lead to a decreased demand for our products, which could adversely affect our business in Asia or have a negative impact on the regional or global economy.

Furthermore, an outbreak of hostilities or other political upheaval in China, Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea, or an economic downturn in Asia or globally, would likely harm the operations of our customers in these countries. The effect of these types of events on our revenue and cash flows could be material because we derive substantial revenue from sales to semiconductor device foundries in Taiwan such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd., from memory chip manufacturers in South Korea such as Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and from semiconductor device manufacturers in Japan such as Toshiba Corporation.

Natural disasters, changes in climate, public health crises, and geo-political conflicts could materially adversely affect our worldwide operations (or those of our business partners).

The occurrence of one or more natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tropical storms, fires, cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, typhoons, volcanic eruptions and weather conditions such as major or extended winter storms, droughts and tornadoes, whether as a result of climate change or otherwise, may disrupt manufacturing or other operations. For example, our Milpitas operations are located near major earthquake fault lines in California. We cannot provide any assurance that alternate means of conducting our operations (whether through alternate production capacity or service providers or otherwise) would be available if a major disruption were to occur or that, if such alternate means were available, they could be obtained on favorable terms.

Our business may also be affected by public health issues (for example, an outbreak of a contagious disease such as COVID-19, avian influenza, measles or Ebola). The effects of the public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic impact have affected, and may continue to affect, our operations and those of our suppliers, third-party service providers, and customers. The extent to which the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic could continue to impact our business, results of operations, and financial conditions is difficult to predict and depends on numerous evolving factors including any future resurgences of the pandemic and the intensity and duration of any resulting adverse macroeconomic conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed our business, results of operations, and financial condition to the following adverse impacts: disruptions to our supply chain in connection with the sourcing of materials, support, and services; disruption

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of operations due to unavailability of employees as a result of illness, travel restrictions and other factors; and a decrease in demand for our products; Additional sustained or prolonged outbreaks of COVID-19, or any ongoing, worsening or recurring supply chain disruptions or macroeconomic effects of the pandemic could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, legal exposure, or financial condition and may also heighten many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section.

There may also be conflict or uncertainty in the countries in which we operate, including safety issues, , disruptions of service from utilities, nuclear power plant accidents or general economic or political unrest, including war, civil unrest or terrorist attacks. We have no material operations in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, or Israel. Consequently, to date, our operations have not been materially adversely affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or the Israel-Hamas conflict. However, if the Russia-Ukraine or Israel-Hamas conflicts escalate further and/or the U.S. or other jurisdictions impose additional sanctions on the governments or entities involved, this could result in disruptions to the global economy and/or supply chains that could adversely affect our business.

We may face difficulties in staffing and managing foreign branch operations due to political tensions or cultural differences.

During periods of tension between the governments of the United States and certain other countries, it is often difficult for U.S. companies such as ours to staff and manage operations in such countries. Language and other cultural differences may also inhibit our sales and marketing efforts and create internal communication problems among our U.S. and foreign research and development teams, increasing the difficulty of managing multiple remote locations performing various development, quality assurance, and yield ramp analysis projects.

Currency fluctuations may impact our international sales or expose us to exchange rate risk.

A substantial portion of our international sales are denominated in U.S. dollars. As a result, if the dollar rises in value in relation to foreign currencies, our systems will become more expensive to customers outside the United States and may be less competitive with systems produced by competitors outside the United States. These conditions could negatively impact our international sales. Foreign sales also expose us to collection risk in the event it becomes more expensive for our foreign customers to convert their local currencies into U.S. dollars. Additionally, in the event a larger portion of our revenue becomes denominated in foreign currencies, we would be subject to a potentially significant exchange rate risk, and any failure to sufficiently hedge or otherwise manage these risks could materially and adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and liquidity.

We are subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended (the “FCPA”), and other laws that prohibit improper payments or offers of payments to foreign governments and their officials and political parties by U.S. persons and issuers as defined by the statute, for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. Also, similar worldwide anti-bribery laws, such as the U.K. Bribery Act and Chinese anti-corruption laws, generally prohibit companies and their intermediaries from making improper payments to non-U.S. officials for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. Some of our distribution partners are located in parts of the world that have experienced governmental corruption to some degree and, in certain circumstances, strict compliance with anti-bribery laws may conflict with local customs and practices. The policies and procedures we have implemented to discourage these practices by our employees, our existing safeguards and any future improvements may prove to be ineffective, and our employees, consultants, sales agents or distributors may engage in conduct for which we might be held responsible. Violations of the FCPA or international anti-corruption laws may result in severe criminal or civil sanctions, and we may be subject to other liabilities, which could negatively affect our business, operating results and financial condition. In addition, the U.S. government may seek to hold us liable for successor liability FCPA violations committed by companies in which we invest or that we acquire. We cannot assure you that our internal control policies and procedures will protect us from reckless or negligent acts committed by our employees, distributors, partners, consultants or agents.

Risks Related to Laws, Legal Proceedings, Financial Markets and the Environment

Changes in tax rates or tax liabilities could affect results.

As a global company, we are subject to taxation in the United States and various other countries. Significant judgment is required to determine and estimate worldwide tax liabilities. Our future annual and quarterly tax rates could be affected by

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numerous factors, including changes in the (1) applicable tax laws; (2) composition of earnings in countries with differing tax rates; or (3) recoverability of our deferred tax assets and liabilities. Beginning in 2022, the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (“TCJA”) eliminated the existing option to deduct research and development expenditures and requires taxpayers to amortize them over five years pursuant to IRC Section 174. Although Congress is considering legislation that would defer the amortization requirement to later years, we have no assurance that the provision will be repealed or otherwise modified. The requirement reduced our cash flows for 2022 and 2023, and may continue to reduce our cash flows unless repealed. In addition, recent proposals to increase the U.S. corporate income tax rate, increase U.S. taxation of international business operations and impose a global minimum tax could have a negative impact on our tax position depending upon the terms of the final enacted legislation. Based on the nature of the uncertainties around specific legislation to be enacted, we have not quantified the impact of this risk. Many countries and organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are also actively considering changes to existing tax laws or have proposed or enacted new laws that could increase our tax obligations in countries where we do business or cause us to change the way we operate our business. Any of these developments or changes in federal, state, or international tax laws or tax rulings could adversely affect our effective tax rate and our results of operations.

In addition, we are subject to regular examination of our income tax returns by the Internal Revenue Service and other tax authorities. We regularly assess the likelihood of favorable or unfavorable outcomes resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for income taxes. Although we believe our tax estimates are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any final determination will not be materially different from the treatment reflected in our historical income tax provisions and accruals, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations.

In December 2021, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”), released guidance covering various topics, including country-by-country reporting, definitional changes to permanent establishment and Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (“BEPS”), an initiative that aims to standardize and modernize global tax policy. The proposed guidance also established a global minimum tax of 15%. Depending on the final form of guidance adopted by OECD members and legislation ultimately enacted, if any, there may be significant consequences for us due to our international business activities, including, but not limited to, an increase in our tax uncertainty and adverse effects on our provision for income taxes.

In the past, global credit markets and the financial services industry have experienced periods of turmoil and upheaval characterized by the tightening of the credit markets, the weakening of the global economy and an unprecedented level of intervention from the United States and other governments. Adverse economic conditions, such as sustained periods of economic uncertainty or a crisis in the financial markets may have a material adverse effect on our liquidity and financial condition if our ability to obtain credit from the capital financial markets, or from trade creditors was impaired. If banks and financial institutions with whom we have banking relationships enter receivership or become insolvent in the future, we may be unable to access, and we may lose, some or all of our existing cash, cash equivalents and investments to the extent those funds are not insured or otherwise protected by the FDIC. In addition, a worsening economy or an economic crisis could also adversely impact our customers’ ability to finance the purchase of systems from us or our suppliers’ ability to provide us with product, either of which may negatively impact our business and results of operations.

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Some of our operations use substances regulated under various federal, state, local, and international laws governing the environment, including those relating to the storage, use, discharge, disposal, labeling, and human exposure to hazardous and toxic materials. We could incur costs, fines and civil or criminal sanctions, third-party property damage or personal injury claims, or could be required to incur substantial investigation or remediation costs, if we were to violate or become liable under environmental laws. Liability under environmental laws can be joint and several and without regard to comparative fault. Compliance with current or future environmental laws and regulations could restrict our ability to expand our facilities or require us to acquire additional expensive equipment, modify our manufacturing processes, or incur other significant expenses. For example, we are or expect to become subject to various new or proposed climate-related and other sustainability laws and regulations, including, for example, the state of California’s new climate change disclosure requirements, the EU’s new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and proposed climate-change disclosure requirements from the SEC. Compliance with such laws and regulations, as well as the overall increased focus and scrutiny from the SEC and other regulators, investors, customers, vendors, employees, and other stakeholders concerning environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) and climate matters, could impose additional costs on us. We may unintentionally violate environmental laws or regulations in the future as a result of human error, equipment failure or other causes. In addition to the potential adverse effects on our business operations of such an event, we are committed to maintaining safe working conditions for our employees and sourcing, manufacturing, and distributing our products in a responsible and environmentally friendly manner, and any failure on our part to do so may cause reputational harm for the Company.

Legal proceedings, claims and investigations may expose us to increased costs and may negatively affect our business and results of operations.

We have been from time to time, and in the future may be, involved in legal proceedings or claims regarding any number of matters, including intellectual property infringement, contract disputes, trade compliance, antitrust, environmental regulations, privacy and data protection, securities, product performance, product liability, employment and workplace safety, and other matters. In addition, we may receive, and have received, inquiries, warrants, subpoenas, and other requests for information in connection with government investigations of potential or suspected violations of law by our company and/or other companies that we work with. We have also received, and may receive in the future, claims from customers who believe we owe them product warranty protection, indemnification or other obligations.

Legal proceedings, claims, and government investigations, whether with or without merit, may be time-consuming and expensive to respond to and defend. They may also divert management’s attention and our other resources from day-to-day operational matters; constrain our ability to sell products and services; result in adverse judgments for damages, injunctive relief, penalties and fines; and negatively affect our business and results of operations. We cannot predict the outcome of current or future legal proceedings, claims or investigations.

Risks Related to Growth and Acquisitions

Our success depends on our ability to continually enhance and broaden our product offerings in response to customer-anticipated process changes, strategic opportunities for growth, and industry technology trends. To this end, we have, from time to time, engaged in the process of identifying, analyzing and negotiating possible acquisition transactions, and, from time to time, acquiring one or more businesses, and we expect to continue to do so in the future. We may choose to acquire new and complementary businesses, products, technologies and/or services instead of developing them ourselves. We may, however, face competition for acquisition targets from larger and more established companies with greater financial resources, making it more difficult for us to complete acquisitions. We cannot provide any assurance that we will be successful in consummating future acquisitions on favorable terms or that we will realize the benefits that we anticipate from one or more acquisitions that we consummate. Integrating any business, product, technology or service into our current operations could be expensive and time-consuming and/or disrupt our ongoing business. Further, there are numerous risks associated with acquisitions and potential acquisitions, including, but not limited to:

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diversion of management’s attention from day-to-day operational matters and current products and customers;

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lack of synergy or the inability to successfully integrate the new business or to realize expected synergies;

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integration of acquired businesses and their operations, including enterprise resource planning systems, may be costly and time-consuming and divert resources away from other projects;

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failure to commercialize the new technology or business;

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failure to meet the expected performance of the new technology or business;

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failure to retain key employees and customer or supplier relationships;

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lower-than-expected market opportunities or market acceptance of any new products; and

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unexpected reduction of sales of existing products as a result of the introduction of new products.

Our inability to consummate one or more acquisitions on favorable terms, or our failure to realize the intended benefits from one or more acquisitions, could have a material adverse effect on our business, liquidity, financial position and/or results of operations, including as a result of our incurrence of indebtedness and related interest expense and our assumption of unforeseen contingent liabilities. We might need to raise additional funds through public or private equity or debt financings to finance any acquisition. In that event, we could be forced to obtain financing on terms that are not favorable to us and, in the case of equity financing, that result in dilution to our stockholders. In addition, any impairment of goodwill or other intangible assets, amortization of intangible assets, write-down of other assets or charges resulting from the costs of acquisitions and purchase accounting could harm our business and operating results.

If we cannot effectively manage growth, our business may suffer.

Over the long-term, we intend to grow our business by increasing our sales efforts and completing strategic acquisitions. To effectively manage growth, we must, among other things:

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engage, train and manage a larger sales force and additional service personnel;

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expand the geographic coverage of our sales force;

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expand our information systems;

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identify and successfully integrate acquired businesses into our operations; and

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administer appropriate financial and administrative control procedures.

Growth of our business will likely challenge our management, financial, operational, technical, sales, administrative, and other resources. Any failure to effectively manage our growth may cause our business to suffer and our stock price to decline.

Risks Related to the Global Economy and the Semiconductor Industry

Cyclicality in the semiconductor device industry has led to substantial decreases in demand for our systems in the past and may, from time to time, continue to do so.

Our operating results are subject to significant variation due to global economic conditions and the cyclical nature of the semiconductor device industry. Our business depends upon the capital expenditures of semiconductor device manufacturers, which, in turn, depend upon the current and anticipated market demand for semiconductors and products using semiconductors. The timing, length and severity of the up-and-down cycles in the semiconductor equipment industry are difficult to predict. In recent history, the industry has experienced significant downturns, generally in connection with declines in economic conditions. This cyclical nature of the industry in which we operate affects our ability to accurately predict future revenue and, thus, future expense levels. When cyclical fluctuations result in lower-than-expected revenue levels, operating results may be adversely affected, and cost reduction measures may be necessary in order for us to remain competitive and financially sound. During a down cycle, we must be in a position to adjust our cost and expense structure to prevailing market conditions and to continue to motivate and retain our key employees. In addition, during periods of rapid growth, we must be able to increase manufacturing capacity and personnel to meet customer demand. We can provide no assurance that these objectives can be met in a timely manner in response to industry cycles, and we cannot predict when and to what extent sales may normalize, or when and to what extent gross margins may improve, following any such occurrence. If we fail to respond to industry cycles, our business could be seriously harmed.

We may also experience supplier or customer issues as a result of adverse macroeconomic conditions. If our customers have difficulties in obtaining capital or financing, this could result in lower sales. Customers with liquidity issues could also

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result in an increase in bad debt expense. These conditions could also affect our key suppliers, which could affect their ability to supply parts and result in delays of our customer shipments.

Our future rate of growth is highly dependent on the development and growth of the market for microelectronic device inspection, lithography and metrology equipment.

We target our products to address the needs of microelectronic device manufacturers for defect inspection, metrology and lithography. If for any reason the market for microelectronic device inspection, lithography or metrology equipment fails to grow in the long term, we may be unable to maintain current revenue levels in the short term and maintain our historical growth in the long term. Growth in the inspection market is dependent to a large extent upon microelectronic manufacturers replacing manual inspection with automated inspection technology. Growth in the metrology market is dependent to a large extent upon new chip designs and capacity expansion of microelectronic manufacturers. Growth in the lithography market is dependent on the development of cost-effective packaging with high fine pitch RDLs, ultimately migrating to multi-die, large, form-factor packages. There can be no assurance that manufacturers will undertake these actions at the rate we expect.

General Risk Factors

Provisions of our charter documents and of Delaware law could discourage potential acquisition proposals and/or delay, deter or prevent a change in control of our company.

Provisions of our certificate of incorporation and by-laws may inhibit changes in control of our company not approved by our Board of Directors. These provisions also limit the circumstances in which a premium can be paid for our common stock and in which a proxy contest for control of our board may be initiated. These provisions provide for:

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a prohibition on stockholder actions through written consent;

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a requirement that special meetings of stockholders be called only by the chairperson of our Board of Directors or majority of our directors;

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advance notice requirements for stockholder proposals and director nominations by stockholders;

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the authority of our Board of Directors to issue, without stockholder approval, preferred stock with such terms as the Board may determine; and

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the authority of our board, without stockholder approval, to adopt a stockholder rights plan.

We are also entitled to avail ourselves of the protections of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which could inhibit changes in control of the Company.

Our stock price is volatile.

The market price of our common stock has fluctuated widely. Consequently, the current market price of our common stock may not be indicative of future market prices, and we may be unable to sustain or increase the value of an investment in our common stock. Factors affecting our stock price may include:

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variations in operating results from quarter to quarter;

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changes in earnings estimates by analysts or our failure to meet analysts’ expectations;

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changes in the market price per share of our public company customers;

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market conditions in the semiconductor and other industries into which we sell products;

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general economic conditions;

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political changes, hostilities or natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods;

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the impact of infectious disease pandemics, on the global economy and on our customers, suppliers, employees, and business;

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low trading volume of our common stock; and

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the number of firms making a market in our common stock.

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In addition, the stock market has experienced periods of significant price and volume fluctuations. These fluctuations have particularly affected the market prices of the securities of high technology companies like ours. Any such market fluctuations in the future could adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments.

None.

Item 1C. Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity Risk Management and Strategy

We rely heavily on information technology (IT) systems in all aspects of our operations, and data security plays an important role in the protection of our proprietary information and that of our customers and suppliers. For these reasons, we take a number of steps to protect Onto Innovation’s IT systems from internal and external cybersecurity threats.

Identifying and assessing cybersecurity risk is integrated into our overall risk management systems and processes. Cybersecurity risks related to our business, technical operations, and privacy and compliance issues are identified and addressed through a multi-faceted approach including third-party assessments, IT security, governance, risk and compliance reviews. To defend, detect and respond to cybersecurity incidents, we, among other things: conduct proactive cybersecurity reviews of systems and applications, perform penetration testing using external third-party tools and techniques to test security controls, conduct employee training, monitor emerging laws and regulations related to data protection and information security and implement appropriate changes.

We have implemented incident response processes which have four overarching and interconnected stages: 1) preparation for a cybersecurity incident, 2) detection and review of an incident, 3) containment and remediation, and 4) post-incident review and analysis. Cybersecurity incident responses are managed by our Corporate Incident Response Team and overseen by our Vice President of IT.

Security events and data incidents are evaluated, ranked by severity and prioritized for response and remediation. Incidents are evaluated to determine materiality as well as operational and business impact, and reviewed for privacy impact.

We also conduct tabletop exercises to simulate responses to cybersecurity incidents. Our team of cybersecurity professionals then collaborate with technical and business stakeholders across our business units to further analyze the risk to the company, and form detection, mitigation and remediation strategies.

As part of the above processes, we regularly engage external auditors and subject matter experts to assess our internal cybersecurity programs and compliance with applicable practices and standards. Since 2021, our Information Security Management System has been certified to conform to the requirements of ISO/IEC 27001:2013.

Our cybersecurity program also includes third-party assessments to identify and mitigate risks from third parties such as vendors, suppliers, and other business partners associated with our use of third-party service providers. Cybersecurity risks are evaluated when determining the selection and oversight of applicable third-party service providers and potential risks when handling and/or processing our employee, business or customer data. In addition to new vendor onboarding, we perform risk assessments during third-party cybersecurity compromise incidents to identify and mitigate risks to us from third-party incidents.

Our individual employees also play an important role in our information security systems. All employees are required to familiarize themselves with the Company’s information security policies and, at least annually, employees are required to participate in an information security training program, which is designed to help employees identify potentially threats and train them on how to respond. Throughout the year, the IT department conducts phishing campaigns and other simulated hacking attacks with employees as a way of reminding them of their security obligations and ensuing that our SETA (security education and training awareness) has been effective.

As of the date of this Form 10-K, no risks from cybersecurity threats, including as a result of any previous cybersecurity incidents, have materially affected or are reasonably likely to materially affect us, including our business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition.

For more information on the cybersecurity risks we face that could adversely impact us, please see “Part I, Item IA - Risk Factors - If our network security measures are breached and unauthorized access is obtained to a customer’s data, to our data,

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or to our information technology systems, we may incur significant legal and financial exposure and liabilities and may experience disruptions in our operations”.

Cybersecurity Governance

The Company’s Board of Directors has oversight of information security matters at the Company, including reviewing the Company’s cybersecurity practices. At least annually, the Vice President of IT presents the Company’s information security policies and programs to the Board. Our Audit Committee is tasked with overseeing the risks from cybersecurity threats. Members of the Audit Committee receive updates on cybersecurity matters on a quarterly basis from one or more representatives from the Company’s Cyber Security Council (“CSC”), which is composed of our business unit general managers, other members of senior management, our Vice President of IT and our IT Security Manager. These updates include a discussion of existing and new cybersecurity risks (if any), updates on how management is addressing and/or mitigating those risks, and the status of information security initiatives. Other Board members also engage in conversations with management on cybersecurity-related news events and discuss any updates to our cybersecurity risk management and strategy programs outside of the scheduled meetings.

The CSC is also responsible for the executive level supervision of the Company’s cybersecurity risk, information security, and technology risk, as well as the IT department’s actions to identify, assess, mitigate, and remediate cyber related issues. The CSC receives regular quarterly reports from the Vice President of IT on the Company’s cybersecurity risk profile and enterprise cybersecurity program.

We have also established a process whereby potentially material cybersecurity incidents are escalated to a Cybersecurity Disclosure Committee (“CDC”) consisting of our CEO, CFO, Vice President and General Counsel, Vice President of IT and Corporate Controller. The Cybersecurity Disclosure Committee is tasked with evaluating whether such incidents have material impact on the Company, and thus require disclosure, as well as any other actions that may be appropriate in response to the incident. The CDC promptly notifies the Audit Committee if it determines that an incident is likely to have a material impact on the Company and updates the Audit Committee on a quarterly basis of any incidents that it determined were not material.

The Vice President of IT acts as our head of information security in leading our information security organization. Our VP of IT has over 20 years of industry experience, including serving in similar roles leading and overseeing cybersecurity programs at other public companies. Team members who support our information security program have relevant educational and industry experience, including holding similar positions at large technology companies.

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Item 2. Properties.

Our principal executive office building is located at 16 Jonspin Road in Wilmington, Massachusetts. We own our Milpitas facility and lease facilities for corporate, engineering, manufacturing, sales and service-related purposes in the United States and seven other countries - China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam. The following table indicates the location, the general purpose and the square footage of our material facilities. Our leases expire at various times through July 1, 2029.

Location Facility Purpose ApproximateSquareFootage

Budd Lake, New Jersey Engineering, Service and Administration 49,000

Bend, Oregon Engineering and Service 12,700

Hillsboro, Oregon Engineering and Service 10,000

Snoqualmie, Washington Engineering and Service 20,300

Tucson, Arizona Engineering, Manufacturing and Service 18,900

Taiwan Sales and Service 37,600

China Sales, Service and Engineering 26,200

South Korea Sales and Service 29,200

Japan Sales and Service 14,000

Singapore Sales and Service 9,800

We also lease office space for other smaller sales and service offices in several locations throughout the world.

We believe that our existing facilities and capital equipment are adequate to meet our current requirements and that suitable additional or substitute space is available on commercially reasonable terms if needed.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings.

The information set forth under the heading “Legal Matters” in Note 8, “Commitments and Contingencies” to the Consolidated Financial Statements is incorporated herein by reference.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.

None.

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PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

Our common stock, $0.01 par value per share, is quoted on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) under the symbol “ONTO.” As of February 5, 2024, there were approximately 106 stockholders of record. On October 25, 2019, we became Onto Innovation Inc. upon the effectiveness of the merger (the “2019 Merger”) between Nanometrics Incorporated (“Nanometrics”) and Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (“Rudolph”). Prior to the 2019 Merger, Nanometrics’ common stock was quoted on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “NANO” and Rudolph’s common stock was quoted on the NYSE under the symbol “RTEC.” Set forth below is a line graph comparing the annual percentage change in the cumulative return to the stockholders of the Company’s common stock with the cumulative return of the NYSE Composite Index and an industry specific index, the PHLX Semiconductor Index, for the period commencing on December 31, 2018 and ending on December 31, 2023. Historical data for Onto Innovation in the line graph for the period commencing on December 31, 2018 and ending on October 25, 2019 reflects the cumulative return to the stockholders of Nanometrics.

The information contained in the performance graph shall not be deemed to be “soliciting material” or to be “filed” with the SEC, nor shall such information be incorporated by reference into any future filing under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act, except to the extent that the Company specifically incorporates it by reference into such filing.

The graph assumes that $100 was invested on December 31, 2018 in the Company’s common stock and in each index. Stockholder returns over the indicated period should not be considered indicative of future stockholder returns.

We have never declared or paid a cash dividend on our common stock and we currently do not intend to do so. The declaration of any future dividends by us is within the discretion of our Board of Directors and will be dependent on our earnings, financial condition and capital requirements as well as any other factors deemed relevant by our Board of Directors.

In November 2020, the Onto Innovation Board of Directors approved a share repurchase authorization, which allows us to repurchase up to $100 million worth of shares of our common stock. Repurchases may be made through both public market

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and private transactions from time to time with shares purchased being subsequently retired. During the twelve months ended December 30, 2023, we repurchased 46 thousand shares of our common stock. The amount paid to repurchase the shares in excess of par value, including transaction costs, is recorded directly as a decrease to additional paid-in capital and accumulated earnings. At December 30, 2023, there was $31.6 million available for future share repurchases under the share repurchase authorization.

For further information, see Note 16 in the accompanying Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Form 10-K.

In addition to our share repurchase program, we withhold common stock shares associated with net share settlements to cover tax withholding obligations upon the vesting of restricted stock unit awards under the Company’s equity incentive program. During the three and twelve months ended December 30, 2023, we withheld 3 thousand and 125 thousand shares through net share settlements, respectively. For the three and twelve month periods ended December 30, 2023, net share settlements cost $0.4 million and $10.8 million, respectively. Please refer to Note 10 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Form 10-K for further discussion regarding our equity incentive plan.

The following table provides details of common stock purchased during the three-month period ended December 30, 2023 (in thousands, except per share data):

Three Months Ended December 30, 2023 3 —

1 Includes shares withheld through net share settlements.

Item 6. [Reserved]

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Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

Executive Summary

We are a worldwide leader in the design, development, manufacture and support of process control tools that perform macro-defect inspection and metrology, lithography systems, and process control analytical software used by semiconductor and advanced packaging device manufacturers. We deliver comprehensive solutions throughout the semiconductor fabrication process with our families of proprietary products that provide critical yield-enhancing information, enabling microelectronic device manufacturers to drive down costs and time to market of their devices. We provide process and yield management solutions used in both wafer processing facilities, often referred to as “front-end” manufacturing, and in device packaging and test facilities, commonly referred to as “back-end” manufacturing. Our advanced process control software portfolio includes powerful solutions for standalone tools, groups of tools, or factory-wide suites to enhance productivity and achieve significant cost savings.

Our principal market is semiconductor capital equipment. Semiconductors packaged as integrated circuits (“ICs”), or “chips”, are used in consumer electronics, server and enterprise systems, mobile computing (including smart phones and tablets), data storage devices, and embedded automotive and control systems. Our core focus is the measurement and control of the structure, composition, and geometry of semiconductor devices as they are fabricated on silicon wafers to improve device performance and manufacturing yields.

Our products and services are used by our customers who manufacture many types of ICs for a multitude of applications, each having unique manufacturing challenges. This includes ICs to enable information processing and management (logic ICs), memory storage (NAND, 3D-NAND, NOR, and DRAM), analog devices (e.g., Wi-Fi and 5G radio ICs, power devices), MEMS sensor devices (accelerometers, pressure sensors, microphones), image sensors, and other end markets including components for artificial intelligence, hard disk drives, LEDs, and power management.

The semiconductor and electronics industries have also been characterized by constant technological innovation. We believe that, over the long term, our customers will continue to invest in advanced technologies and new materials to enable smaller design rules and higher density applications that fuel demand for process control equipment.

The following table summarizes certain key financial information for the periods indicated below (in thousands, except per share and percent data):

Year Ended

December 30, December 31,

Gross profit as a percent of revenue 52 % 54 %

Diluted earnings per share $ 2.46 $ 4.49

•

In fiscal 2023, revenue decreased 19% compared to fiscal 2022, primarily due to a decrease in sales to memory and foundry customers in advanced nodes. The decreases were partially offset by increases in sales to wafer substrate, memory and discrete & specialty customers in specialty device and advanced packaging applications.

•

Gross profit as a percentage of revenue decreased to 52% for fiscal 2023 from 54% for fiscal 2022. This was primarily driven by decreased revenue volume, unfavorable product mix, and increased manufacturing costs due to inflationary pressures.

•

The increase in operating expenses in fiscal 2023 compared to fiscal 2022 was primarily due to higher general and administrative expenses related to litigation and restructuring charges which included reductions in workforce.

Our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balance increased to $697.8 million at the end of fiscal 2023 compared to $547.8 million at the end of fiscal 2022. This increase was primarily the result of $172.0 million of cash generated from operating activities, partially offset by cash used for capital expenditures of $22.6 million and $10.8 million of cash used for tax payments related to net share settlement of employee stock-based compensation plans.

In 2022 and 2023, the United States government implemented additional export regulations for U.S. semiconductor technology sold in China. We have applied for export licenses to continue doing business with our customers that are affected by the new export rules. However, the new export controls have resulted in lower net sales in China for fiscal 2023 compared to the prior fiscal year.

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For a discussion of the risks related to our business and operations, see Part I, Item 1A – Risk Factors of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Results of Operations

The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, our results of operations as percentages of our revenue. Our results of operations are reported as one business segment.

Year Ended

Operating expenses:

Sales and marketing 7.6 % 6.5 % 7.3 %

General and administrative 10.2 % 6.9 % 8.6 %

Interest income, net 2.5 % 0.5 % 0.1 %

Other expense, net (0.5 )% — % (0.2 )%

Income before provision for income taxes 16.3 % 24.0 % 19.7 %

Provision for income taxes 1.4 % 1.8 % 1.7 %

Results of Operations for 2023, 2022 and 2021

Revenue. Our revenue is derived from the sale of our systems and software, spare parts, and services. Our revenue was $815.9 million, $1,005.2 million and $788.9 million for the years ended December 30, 2023, December 31, 2022 and January 1, 2022, respectively. This represents a decrease of 18.8% from 2022 to 2023 and an increase of 27.4% from 2021 to 2022.

The following table lists, for the periods indicated, the different sources of our revenue in dollars (thousands) and as percentages of our total revenue:

Year Ended

Total systems and software revenue decreased $182.4 million for the year ended December 30, 2023, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2022, primarily due to a decrease in units shipped of our metrology product lines to customers in advanced nodes applications. This decline was partially offset by an increase in units shipped of our inspection and lithography product lines to customers in specialty devices and advanced packaging applications. Parts and services revenue is generated from part sales, maintenance service contracts, and system upgrades, as well as time and material billable service calls. During fiscal 2023, the decrease in total parts and services revenue was primarily due to lower factory utilization by several of our customers resulting in a decline in their spare parts requirements.

Total systems and software revenue increased $196.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, as compared to the year ended January 1, 2022, primarily due to an increase in overall demand for our products from semiconductor industry customers, particularly in advanced nodes applications, and specialty devices and advanced packaging. The year-over-year change in systems revenue was primarily due to an increase in units shipped in our metrology and inspection product lines. Parts and services revenue is generated from part sales, maintenance service contracts, and system upgrades, as well as time and material billable service calls. During fiscal 2022, the increase in parts and services revenue was primarily due to increased spending by our customers on system upgrades and repairs of existing systems.

The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, our revenue by geographic region as percentages of our revenue.

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Year Ended

Southeast Asia 11 % 7 % 4 %

Europe 7 % 8 % 8 %

The overall Asia region continues to account for a majority of our revenues as a substantial amount of the worldwide capacity investments for semiconductor manufacturing continue to occur in this region and we expect that trend to continue.

Gross Profit. Our gross profit has been and will likely continue to be affected by a variety of factors, including manufacturing efficiencies, provision for excess and obsolete inventory, pricing by competitors or suppliers, new product introductions, production volume, inventory step-up from purchase accounting, customization and reconfiguration of systems, international and domestic sales mix, system and software product mix, and parts and services margins. Our gross profit was $420.3 million, $539.2 million and $429.1 million for the years ended December 30, 2023, December 31, 2022, and January 1, 2022, respectively. Our gross profit represented 51.5%, 53.6% and 54.4% of our revenue for the years ended December 30, 2023, December 31, 2022, and January 1, 2022, respectively. The decrease in gross profit as a percentage of revenue from 2022 to 2023 was primarily due to decreased revenue volume, unfavorable product mix, and increased manufacturing costs due to inflationary pressures during the 2023 fiscal period. The decrease in gross profit as a percentage of revenue from 2021 to 2022 was primarily due to supply chain cost increases in the 2022 fiscal period, partially offset by higher factory utilization associated with increased sales volume during the 2022 fiscal period.

Operating Expenses.

Our operating expenses consist of:

•

Research and Development. We believe that it is critical to continue to make substantial investments in research and development to ensure the availability of innovative technology that meets the current and projected requirements of our customers’ most advanced designs. We have maintained, and intend to continue, our commitment to investing in research and development in order to continue to offer new products and technologies. Accordingly, we devote a significant portion of our technical, management and financial resources to research and development programs. Research and development expenditures consist primarily of salaries and related expenses of employees engaged in research, design and development activities. They also include consulting fees, the cost of related supplies and legal costs to defend our intellectual property. Our research and development expenses were $104.4 million, $112.0 million and $96.1 million in fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The year-over-year dollar decrease from 2022 through 2023 was primarily due to decreases of $4.6 million for the write-off of acquired in-process research and development assets and cost containment initiatives of $3.3 million, partially offset by increases in depreciation expenses of $0.6 million and travel expenses of $0.3 million. The year-over-year dollar increase from 2021 through 2022 was primarily due to higher compensation costs of $7.4 million for increased headcount and variable compensation costs, the write-off of purchased in process research and development assets of $4.6 million and increased costs related to new product initiatives of approximately $3.3 million. We continue to maintain our commitment to investing in new product development and enhancement to existing products.

•

Sales and Marketing. Sales and marketing expenses are primarily comprised of salaries and related costs for sales and marketing personnel, as well as commissions and other non-personnel related expenses. Our sales and marketing expenses were $61.8 million, $65.7 million and $57.2 million in fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The year-over-year dollar decrease from 2022 through 2023 was primarily due to a decrease in total compensation costs of $1.5 million on lower headcount and variable compensation plan elements, a decrease in outside service expenses of $0.8 million and a decrease in depreciation expense of $0.7 million, partially offset by an increase in travel expenses of $0.3 million. The year-over-year dollar increase from 2021 through 2022 was primarily due to increased total compensation costs of $5.8 million for higher headcount and variable compensation plan costs. Higher travel related expenses of approximately $0.4 million contributed to the overall increase.

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•

General and Administrative. General and administrative expenses are primarily comprised of salaries and related costs for general administrative personnel, as well as other non-personnel related expenses. Our general and administrative expenses were $83.1 million, $69.6 million and $68.0 million in fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The year-over-year dollar increase from 2022 through 2023 was primarily due increased litigation expenses of $7.4 million, restructuring charges of $3.6 million for employee severance costs during the 2023 period, an increase in depreciation expense of $1.9 million and an increase in facilities expenses of $0.4 million. The year-over-year dollar increase from 2021 through 2022 was primarily due to increased facilities expenses of $5.0 million, partially offset by a decrease of $3.8 million in depreciation expense.

•

Amortization of Identifiable Intangible Assets. Amortization of identifiable intangible assets, primarily purchased technology, was $54.8 million, $55.3 million and $51.4 million in fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. The year-over-year dollar decrease from 2022 through 2023 was primarily due to certain assets becoming fully amortized. The year-over-year dollar increase from 2021 through 2022 was primarily due to a full year of amortization being included in the 2022 fiscal period for in-process research and development that became classified as an identifiable intangible asset in the second half of 2021.

Interest income, net. In fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021, net interest income was $20.4 million, $5.0 million and $1.2 million, respectively. The increases in net interest income from 2022 to 2023 and from 2021 to 2022 were due to higher average balances and higher interest rates during both the 2023 and 2022 periods, respectively.

Income taxes. The following table provides details of income tax (dollars in millions):

Year Ended

Income before provision for income taxes $ 132.6 $ 241.6 $ 155.7

Provision for income taxes $ 11.4 $ 18.3 $ 13.3

Effective tax rate 8.6 % 7.6 % 8.6 %

The income tax provision differs from the federal statutory income tax rate of 21% for 2023 primarily due to a benefit related to the Foreign Derived Intangible Income Deduction (“FDII”) of $13.0 million, excess benefits related to stock compensation of $3.4 million, tax benefits for research and development credits of $6.4 million, and a one-time benefit of $1.6 million related to the recognition of a tax benefit associated with the lapse of a statute of limitations. These benefits were partially offset by the inclusion of U.S. tax on foreign source income of $0.5 million and non-deductible officer’s compensation of $2.3 million, and an increase to the Company’s valuation allowance of $2.9 million.

The income tax provision differs from the federal statutory income tax rate of 21% for 2022 primarily due to a benefit related to the Foreign Derived Intangible Income Deduction (“FDII”) of $25.4 million, excess benefits related to stock compensation of $3.5 million, tax benefits for research and development credits of $7.1 million, and a one-time benefit of $1.5 million related to the recognition of a tax benefit associated with the lapse of a statute of limitations. These benefits were partially offset by the inclusion of U.S. tax on foreign source income of $1.4 million and non-deductible officer’s compensation of $1.9 million.

The income tax provision differs from the federal statutory income tax rate of 21% for 2021 primarily due to a benefit related to the Foreign Derived Intangible Income Deduction (“FDII”) of $11.1 million, excess benefits related to stock compensation of $3.8 million, tax benefits for research and development credits of $3.6 million, tax benefit from foreign income being taxed at lower rates of $3.8 million, and a one-time benefit of $2.0 million from a reduction to recorded tax reserve related to a lapse of a statute of limitations. These benefits were partially offset by the inclusion of U.S. tax on foreign source income of $1.7 million.

Our future effective income tax rate depends on various factors, such as tax legislation, the geographic composition of our pre-tax income, the amount of our pre-tax income as business activities fluctuate, non-deductible expenses incurred in connection with acquisitions and research and development credits as a percentage of aggregate pre-tax income.

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Liquidity and Capital Resources

Our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities consist of the following:

Year Ended

December 30, December 31,

Total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities $ 697,811 $ 547,784

Sources and Uses of Cash

A summary of cash provided by (used in) operating, investing, and financing activities is as follows:

Year Ended

December 30, December 31, January 1,

Cash (used in) provided by financing activities $ (9,475 ) $ (68,350 ) $ 2,670

Operating Activities

Cash provided by operating activities during fiscal 2023 was $172.0 million, which reflects net income, adjusted to exclude the effect of non-cash operating charges, of $204.5 million. Significant non-cash operating charges included depreciation, amortization, share-based compensation, provision for inventory valuation and deferred income taxes. Cash provided by operating activities in fiscal 2023 increased compared to fiscal 2022 primarily due to improved inventory management and lower income tax payments.

Our working capital was $1,135.5 million at December 30, 2023 and $974.3 million at December 31, 2022.

Investing Activities

We used $103.4 million, $55.7 million and $141.8 million of cash in investing activities in fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. Capital expenditures, net of proceeds in fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021 were $19.8 million, $18.4 million and $12.0 million. Capital expenditures were primarily for investments in facility improvements, demonstration and testing equipment, manufacturing and network equipment. Purchases of marketable securities, net of proceeds from sales and maturities of marketable securities, for fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021 was $83.6 million, $4.6 million and $23.8 million, respectively. Net cash paid for acquisitions in fiscal 2022 and 2021 were $4.6 million and $23.8 million, respectively. There were no acquisitions in fiscal 2023.

From time to time, we evaluate whether to acquire new or complementary businesses, products or technologies. We may fund all of or a portion of the price of these investments or acquisitions in cash, stock, or a combination of cash and stock.

Financing Activities

We used $9.5 million and $68.4 million of cash in financing activities for fiscal 2023 and 2022, respectively. Financing activities provided $2.7 million in fiscal 2021. Repurchases of common stock were $3.2 million and $65.3 million in fiscal 2023 and 2022, respectively. There were no repurchases of common stock in 2021. Tax withholding payments for vested equity awards, partially offset by proceeds from sales of shares through share-based compensation plans were $5.5 million and $0.8 million for fiscal 2023 and 2022, respectively. In fiscal 2021 proceeds received from sales of shares through share-based compensation plans, partially offset by tax withholding payments for vested equity award, provided cash of $2.7 million. Payments for contingent consideration for acquired business were $0.8 million and $2.3 million in fiscal 2023 and 2022. There were no payments for contingent consideration for acquired business in fiscal 2021.

We have a credit agreement with a bank that provides for a line of credit that is secured by the marketable securities we have with the bank. We are permitted to borrow up to 70% of the value of eligible securities held at the time the line of credit is accessed. As of December 30, 2023, the available line of credit was approximately $100.0 million with an available interest rate of 7.0%. The credit agreement is available to us until such time that either party terminates the arrangement at its discretion. To date, we have not utilized the line of credit.

Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including the timing and amount of our revenue and our investment decisions, which will affect our ability to generate additional cash. We expect that our existing cash, cash

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equivalents, marketable securities and availability under our line of credit will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash requirements for working capital, capital expenditures and other cash needs for the next 12 months following the filing of this Form 10-Q. Thereafter, if cash generated from operations and financing activities is insufficient to satisfy our working capital requirements, we may seek additional funding through bank borrowings, sales of securities or other means. In addition, a reduction in or volatility with respect to our stock price or a general market downturn could materially impact our ability to sell securities on favorable terms or at all. There can be no assurance that we will be able to raise any such capital on terms acceptable to us or at all.

Contractual Obligations

The following table summarizes our significant contractual obligations at December 30, 2023, and the effect such obligations are expected to have on our liquidity and cash flows in future periods. We are currently unable to provide a reasonably reliable estimate of the amount or periods when cash settlement of this liability may occur (dollars in thousands).

Payments due by period

Total Less than 1year 1-3years 3-5years More than5 years

(1)

Represents our agreements to purchase goods and services consisting of outstanding purchase orders for goods and services.

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Management’s discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations are based upon our Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Form 10-K, which have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Note 2 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements describes the significant accounting policies used in the preparation of the consolidated financial statements. Certain of these significant accounting policies are considered to be critical accounting policies and involve critical accounting estimates. We review the accounting policies we use in reporting our financial results on a regular basis. The preparation of the financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses and related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. On an ongoing basis, we evaluate our estimates, including those related to revenue recognition, accounts receivable, inventories, business acquisitions, intangible assets, share-based payments, income taxes and warranty obligations. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying value of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Results may differ from these estimates due to actual outcomes being different from those on which we based our assumptions. These estimates and judgments are regularly reviewed by management on an ongoing basis at the end of each quarter prior to the public release of our financial results.

Management believes that the following are critical accounting estimates:

Revenue Recognition. Revenue is recognized when control of the promised goods or services are transferred to our customers in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to be entitled to receive in exchange for those goods or services. We account for a contract when it has approval and commitment from both parties, the rights of the parties and payment terms are identified, the contract has commercial substance and collectability of consideration is probable.

Contracts with customers may include multiple performance obligations. For such arrangements, we allocate revenue to each performance obligation based on its relative standalone selling price. We generally determine standalone selling prices based on the prices charged to customers or the expected cost-plus margin.

Revenue from systems is recognized when we transfer control of the product to our customer. To indicate transfer of control, we must have a present right to payment, legal title must have passed to the customer and the customer must have the significant risks and rewards of ownership. We generally transfer control for system sales when the customer or the customer’s agent picks up the system at our facility. We provide an assurance warranty on our systems for a period of twelve to fourteen months against defects in material and workmanship. We provide for the estimated cost of product warranties at the time revenue is recognized.

Depending on the terms of the systems arrangement, we may also defer the recognition of a portion of the consideration expected to be received because we have to satisfy a future obligation (e.g., installation and extended warranties). We use an

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observable price to determine the standalone selling price for separate performance obligations or a cost-plus margin approach when one is not available.

Revenue from software licenses, which is primarily sold without systems, is recognized upfront at the point in time when the software is made available to the customer. Software licenses provide the customer with limited rights to use the software. Revenue from licensing support and maintenance is recognized as the support and maintenance are provided, which is over the contract period.

Revenue from parts is recognized when we transfer control of the product, which typically occurs when we ship the product from our facilities to the customer.

Revenue from services primarily consists of service contracts, which provide additional maintenance coverage beyond our assurance warranty on our products, service labor, consulting and training. Revenue from service contracts is recognized ratably over the term of the service contract. Revenue from service labor and consulting is recognized as services are performed.

We record contract liabilities when the customer has been billed in advance of completing our performance obligations. These amounts are recorded as deferred revenue in the Consolidated Balance Sheets.

Inventory Valuation. Inventories are stated at the lower of cost or net realizable value. Net realizable value is the estimated selling prices in the ordinary course of business, less predictable costs of completion, disposal and transportation. Cost is generally determined on a first-in, first-out basis, and includes material, labor and manufacturing overhead costs. We review and set standard costs as needed, but at a minimum, on an annual basis, at current manufacturing costs in order to approximate actual costs. We maintain reserves for our excess and obsolete inventory equal to the difference between the cost of inventory and the estimated market value based upon assumptions about future product lifecycles, product demand and market conditions. If actual product lifecycles, product demand and market conditions are less favorable than those originally projected by management, additional inventory write-downs may be required.

Long-Lived Assets. Goodwill is tested for impairment during the fourth quarter, or whenever events or circumstances indicate that its carrying value may not be recoverable. Goodwill impairment is tested at the reporting unit level, which is defined as an operating segment or one level below the operating segment. Goodwill is reviewed for impairment using either a qualitative assessment or a quantitative goodwill impairment test. If the Company chooses to perform a qualitative assessment and determine the fair value more likely than not exceeds the carrying value, no further evaluation is necessary. When the Company performs the quantitative goodwill impairment test, it compares fair value to carrying value, which includes goodwill. If fair value exceeds carrying value, the goodwill is not considered impaired. If the carrying value is higher than the fair value, the difference would be recognized as an impairment loss.

For other long-lived assets, we periodically review long-lived assets, other than goodwill, for impairment whenever changes in events or circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of an asset may not be recoverable. Assumptions and estimates used in the determination of impairment losses, such as future cash flows and disposition costs, may affect the carrying value of long-lived assets and the impairment of such long-lived assets, if any, could have a material effect on our consolidated financial statements.

Income Taxes. As part of the process of preparing our consolidated financial statements, we are required to estimate our current tax exposure together with our temporary differences resulting from differing treatment of items for tax and accounting purposes. These temporary differences result in deferred tax assets and liabilities, which are included within our consolidated balance sheet. We must assess the likelihood that our deferred tax assets will be recovered from future taxable income and to the extent we believe that recovery is not likely, we must establish a valuation allowance. Management judgment is required in determining our provision for income taxes and any valuation allowance recorded against our deferred tax assets. The need for a valuation allowance is based on our estimates of taxable income by jurisdiction in which we operate and the period over which our deferred taxes will be recoverable. In the event that actual results differ from these estimates or we adjust these estimates in future periods, we may need to adjust the valuation allowance, which could materially impact our financial position and results of operations.

We recognize liabilities for uncertain tax positions based on a two-step process. The first step requires us to determine if the weight of available evidence indicates that the tax position has met the threshold for recognition; therefore, we must evaluate whether it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained on audit, including resolution of any related appeals or litigation processes. The second step requires us to measure the tax benefit of the tax position taken, or expected to be taken, in an income tax return as the largest amount that is more than 50% likely of being realized when effectively settled. This measurement step is inherently difficult and requires subjective estimations of such amounts to determine the probability of various possible outcomes. We reevaluate the uncertain tax positions each quarter based on factors including, but not limited to, changes in facts or circumstances, changes in tax law, effectively settled issues, and new audit activity. Such a change in

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recognition or measurement could result in the recognition of a tax benefit or an additional charge to the tax provision in the period.

Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.

Interest Rate and Credit Market Risk

We are exposed to changes in interest rates and market liquidity including our investments in certain available-for-sale securities. Our available-for-sale securities consist of fixed and variable rate income investments, such as municipal notes, municipal bonds and corporate bonds. We continually monitor our exposure to changes in interest rates, market liquidity and credit ratings of issuers for our available-for-sale securities. It is possible that we are at risk if interest rates, market liquidity or credit ratings of issuers change in an unfavorable direction. The magnitude of any gain or loss will be a function of the difference between the fixed or variable rate of the financial instrument and the market rate, and our financial condition and results of operations could be materially affected. Based on a sensitivity analysis performed on our financial investments held as of December 30, 2023, a hypothetical increase of 100 basis points in interest rates would result in a decrease of $3.0 million in the fair value of our available-for-sale debt securities and would not have a material impact on our consolidated financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

Foreign Currency Risk

We enter into foreign currency forward contracts to minimize the short-term impact of exchange rate fluctuations on certain foreign currency denominated monetary assets and liabilities, primarily cash and intercompany receivables and payables. In addition, we hedge certain anticipated foreign currency cash flows, primarily on revenues denominated in Japanese yen. These forward contracts are not designated as accounting hedges, so the change in fair value of the forward exchange contracts is recognized under the caption “Other expense, net” in the Consolidated Statements of Operations for each reporting period. As of December 30, 2023, and December 31, 2022, we had thirty-eight and six outstanding forward contracts, respectively, with a total notional contract value of $51.6 million and $27.9 million, respectively. We do not use derivative financial instruments for trading or speculative purposes.

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.

The consolidated financial statements and related information required by this Item are set forth on the pages indicated in Item 15(a) of this Form 10-K.

Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure.

None.

Item 9A. Controls and Procedures.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

We maintain disclosure controls and procedures that are designed to ensure that information we are required to disclose in reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time period specified in SEC rules and forms. These controls and procedures are also designed to ensure that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. In designing and evaluating disclosure controls and procedures, we have recognized that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives. Management is required to apply judgment in evaluating its controls and procedures.

We performed an evaluation under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, to assess the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures under the Exchange Act as of December 30, 2023. Based on that evaluation, our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of December 30, 2023 at the reasonable assurance level.

Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f). Internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial

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statements for external purposes in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting based on the framework in Internal Control — Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 framework). Based on our evaluation, our management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 30, 2023.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may be circumvented or deteriorate.

Attestation Report of the Registered Public Accounting Firm

Our consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 30, 2023 have been audited by Ernst & Young LLP, our independent registered public accounting firm, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States). Ernst & Young LLP has also audited our internal control over financial reporting as of December 30, 2023, as stated in its attestation report included elsewhere in this Form 10-K.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

There have been no changes in our internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Exchange Act) that occurred during our fiscal quarter ended December 30, 2023 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Item 9B. Other Information.

Rule 10b5-1 Plan Elections

The table below provides the details of all trading plans adopted or terminated by a director or officer during the Company’s last fiscal quarter. Each of the trading plans is intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c) of the Exchange Act.

Item 9C. Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspection.

Not applicable.

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PART III

Certain information required by Part III is omitted from this Form 10-K because we expect to file a definitive proxy statement within one hundred twenty (120) days after the end of our fiscal year pursuant to Regulation 14A (the “Proxy Statement”) for our Annual Meeting of Stockholders currently scheduled for May 22, 2024, and the information included in the Proxy Statement is incorporated herein by reference, as specified below.

Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance.

The information required by this Item with respect to directors and executive officers is incorporated by reference to the information under the headings “Proposal 1: Election of Directors,” “Executive Officer Biographies” and “Corporate Governance Principles and Practices” in the Proxy Statement. Information regarding compliance with Section 16 of the Exchange Act is incorporated by reference to the information under the heading “Delinquent Section 16(a) Reports” in the Proxy Statement, if any.

Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. We have adopted a code of business conduct and ethics that applies to our principal executive officer, principal financial officer and controller. This code of business conduct and ethics is posted on our internet website address at http://investors.ontoinnovation.com. We will post on our website any amendment to or waiver from a provision of our code of business conduct and ethics as may be required, and within the time period specified, by applicable SEC rules.

Item 11. Executive Compensation.

The information required by this Item is incorporated by reference to the information under the headings “Executive Officer Compensation,” “Compensation of Directors,” “Executive Officer Compensation Tables,” “Compensation Committee Report on Executive Officer Compensation,” “Stock Ownership/Retention Guidelines for Directors” and “Compensation Committee Interlocks and Insider Participation” in the Proxy Statement.

Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters.

The information required by this Item is incorporated by reference to the information under the headings “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners” and “Equity Compensation Plan Information” in the Proxy Statement.

Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence.

The information required by this Item is incorporated by reference to the information under the headings “Related Persons Transaction Policy” and “Board Independence” in the Proxy Statement.

Item 14. Principal Accountant Fees and Services.

The information required by this Item is incorporated by reference to the information under the heading “Proposal 3: Ratification of Appointment of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm” in the Proxy Statement.

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PART IV

Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedule.

(a)

The following documents are filed as part of this Form 10-K:

Financial Statements

The consolidated financial statements and consolidated financial statement information required by this Item are included on pages F-1 through F-9 of this report. The Reports of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm appear on pages F-2 through F-4 of this report.

Financial Statement Schedule

See Index to financial statements on page F-1 of this report.

Exhibits

Exhibits are as set forth in the “Exhibit Index”, provided below. Where so indicated, exhibits, which were previously filed, are incorporated by reference.

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21.1+ Subsidiaries. - - - -

97+ Onto Innovation Inc. Incentive Compensation Recovery Policy - - - -

101.INS Inline XBRL Instance Document

101.SCH Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document

101.CAL Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document

101.DEF Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document

101.LAB Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Label Linkbase Document

101.PRE Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document

* Management contract, compensatory plan or arrangement.

+ Filed herewith

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ONTO INNOVATION INC.

INDEX TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND

FINANCIAL STATEMENT SCHEDULE

Page

Consolidated Financial Statements:

Consolidated Balance Sheets as of December 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022 F-7

Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements F-10

Consolidated Financial Statement Schedule:

Schedule of Valuation and Qualifying Accounts F-30

F-1

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Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

To the Stockholders and the Board of Directors of Onto Innovation Inc.

Opinion on the Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Onto Innovation Inc. (the Company) as of December 30, 2023,and December 31, 2022, the related consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive income, stockholders’ equity and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 30, 2023, and the related notes and financial statement schedule listed in the Index at Item 15(a) (collectively referred to as the “consolidated financial statements”). In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company at December 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 30, 2023, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.

We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 30, 2023, based on criteria established in Internal Control-Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 framework), and our report dated February 26, 2024, expressed an unqualified opinion thereon.

Basis for Opinion

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Critical Audit Matter

The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current period audit of the financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that: (1) relates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective or complex judgments. The communication of the critical audit matter does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing a separate opinion on the critical audit matter or on the accounts or disclosure to which it relates.

Reserve for Excess and Obsolete Inventory

F-2

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/s/ Ernst & Young LLP

We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2008.

Iselin, New Jersey

February 26, 2024

F-3

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Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm

To the Stockholders and the Board of Directors of Onto Innovation Inc.

Opinion on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

We have audited Onto Innovation Inc.’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 30, 2023, based on criteria established in Internal Control—Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013 framework) (the COSO criteria). In our opinion, Onto Innovation Inc. (the Company) maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 30, 2023, based on the COSO criteria.

We also have audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the consolidated balance sheets of the Company as of December 30, 2023 and December 31, 2022, the related consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive income, stockholders’ equity and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 30, 2023, and the related notes and financial statement schedule listed in the Index at Item 15(a) and our report dated February 26, 2024 expressed an unqualified opinion thereon.

ONTO US Equity

ONTO · 10-K · period ended 2023-12-30

Item 1A. Risk Factors.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments.

Item 1C. Cybersecurity

Item 2. Properties.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

Item 6. [Reserved]

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.

Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure.

Item 9A. Controls and Procedures.

Item 9B. Other Information.

Item 9C. Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspection.

Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance.

Item 11. Executive Compensation.

Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters.

Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence.

Item 14. Principal Accountant Fees and Services.

Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedule.

ONTO US Equity☆

ONTO · 10-K · period ended 2023-12-30

Item 1A. Risk Factors.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments.

Item 1C. Cybersecurity

Item 2. Properties.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

Item 6. [Reserved]

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.

Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure.

Item 9A. Controls and Procedures.

Item 9B. Other Information.

Item 9C. Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspection.

Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance.

Item 11. Executive Compensation.

Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters.

Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence.

Item 14. Principal Accountant Fees and Services.

Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedule.

ONTO US Equity