RISKS AND CONCENTRATIONS

12 Months Ended

Oct. 31, 2023

NOTE 17 - RISKS AND CONCENTRATIONS

Financial instruments that potentially subject us to credit risk principally consist of trade accounts receivable and short-term cash investments. We sell our products primarily to semiconductor and FPD manufacturers in Asia, North America, and Europe. We believe that the concentration of credit risk in our trade receivables is substantially mitigated by our ongoing credit evaluation process and relatively short collection terms. We do not generally require collateral from customers. We establish an allowance for credit losses based upon factors surrounding the credit risk of specific customers, historical trends, and other information.

Our cash and cash equivalents are deposited in several financial institutions, including institutions located within all of the countries in which we manufacture photomasks. Portions of deposits in some of these institutions may exceed the amount of insurance available for such deposits at these institutions. As these deposits are generally redeemable upon demand and are held by high quality, reputable institutions, we consider them to bear minimal credit risk. We further mitigate credit risks related to our cash and cash equivalents by spreading such risk among a number of institutions.

The following table presents the percentages of our net accounts receivable attributable to customers that accounted for more than ten percent of the total balance as of the balance sheet dates.

	October 31, 2023			October 31, 2022
Customer A		21	%		16	%
Customer B		10	%		16	%

The following table presents the percentages of our revenue attributable to customers that accounted for more than ten percent of the total revenue during the reporting periods.

	Year Ended
	October 31, 2023			October 31, 2022			October 31, 2021
Customer A		14	%		15	%		17	%
Customer B		13	%		5	%		3	%
Customer C		10	%		11	%		12	%

We operate as a single operating segment as a manufacturer of photomasks, which are high precision quartz or glass plates containing microscopic images of electronic circuits for use in the fabrication of IC’s and FPDs.

As of the balance sheet dates, our long-lived assets and net assets were, by geographic area, as presented below.

	October 31, 2023					October 31, 2022
	Long-lived Assets		Net Assets			Long-lived Assets		Net Assets
China	$	249,357	$	317,409		$	242,712	$	257,855
Taiwan		199,313		489,722			155,690		393,795
United States		140,733		188,712			132,915		183,909
Korea		119,438		281,941			109,892		229,501
Europe and Other		7,294		(2,175	)		6,758		(2,971	)
	$	716,135	$	1,275,609		$	647,967	$	1,062,089