Semiconductor equipment and components supplier Skytech Inc (天虹科技) on Monday said it expects revenue to grow by a double-digit percentage this year, thanks to rising demand for equipment used in advanced packaging technology and cutting-edge wafer manufacturing.
Advanced packaging technologies include the chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) technology used in packaging artificial intelligence (AI) chips for Nvidia Corp.
“We expect [revenue] growth this year to outpace last year... An annual double-digit percentage growth is our goal,” Skytech chairman Paul Huang (黃見駱) told a media gathering in Hsinchu.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
The company’s revenue grew 9.34 percent annually to NT$1.99 billion (US$63.04 million) last year.
The company said it expects about half of this year’s revenue to be from equipment sales, with the remainder from its components business.
Skytech, established in 2002, produces physical vapor deposition (PVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD) tools for customers, mostly in Taiwan and China.
There has been robust demand from chip packaging services and chipmakers producing silicon carbide (SiC) wafers, it said.
Skytech is to deliver its first ALD tool to a local contract chipmaker to be used to produce 12-inch wafers. The company is also collaborating with a local university to develop equipment for 2-nanometer chips.
“This year, the growth of advanced back-end packaging equipment should be greater than front-end wafer manufacturing equipment,” Skytech chief executive officer George Yi (易錦良) said. “The semiconductor industry has started picking up from a trough in the third and fourth quarters of last year.”
In May, Skytech is to deliver a tool to remove residues from polyimide to a local SiC wafer manufacturer, it said.
Earlier this year, it secured an order from a new European client to supply PVD tools, it added.
The company’s revenue this quarter is forecast to expand at a double-digit percentage rate from NT$409 million a year earlier, but growth momentum would magnify in the second half, Yi said.
Factory utilization is improving from a low base in the second half of last year, he said.
Skytech is one of two local equipment suppliers that is capable of developing and producing key equipment used for front-end wafer manufacturing, with the other being Advanced Ion Beam Technology Inc (漢辰科技).
It counts Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), as well as compound semiconductor companies and LED makers among its clients.
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