March - April 2010 - Chip Scale Review

Billion Dollar ClubIndustry giants ASE and Amkorcontinued their strong grasp on the toptwo positions in the ranking andremained the only two SATS providerswith annual revenues eclipsing the $2billion threshold.In 2009, Advanced SemiconductorEngineering (ASE) of Taiwan againranked first. “Like our industry peers,ASE did not go through 2009 unscathed.However, with a good cost structure inplace we were able to manage a smallgrowth on the net earnings, and recordedoverall sales revenues of $2.6 billion,maintaining our industry leadershipposition,” said Rich Rice, ASE’s Sr. VicePresident, Sales, North America. Headded, “In the past few years, ASE hasmade substantial progress in copper wirebond. Today, with gold prices fluctuatingover $1,000 per ounce, copper is a hugecost advantage when considering goldis the single largest cost factor in mostwire bond package types. Throughdedicated investment we now have over1,500 copper wire bonders installed inmultiple factories serving over 50customers in volume production.”Figure 1. Copper wire bond line at ASE’sKaohsiung assembly facility (Source: ASE)In 2009, Amkor shipped nearly 7.7 billionpackages, which is over 5% of the world’stotal IC units sold. Amkor agreed to form anew assembly and test joint venture withNakaya Microdevices and Toshiba in Japanto be called J-Devices. Amkor also washonored in 2009 with Frost & Sullivan’sTechnology Innovation of the Year awardfor their line-up of new packagetechnologies: FusionQuad, through-moldvia (TMV), package-on-package (PoP), andflip-chip molded BGA.Siliconware Precision Industries Ltd.(SPIL), specializing in high-end ball gridarray packages and flip-chip solutions,maintained its No. 3 position in the SATSindustry. A breakdown by package typeof SPIL’s 4Q09 net revenues showed 45%from substrate-based packages, 28% fromleadframe-based packages, 17% frombumping and flip-chip BGA packages, 8%from testing, and 2% from other sources.Last month SPIL announced an agreementto sell its DRAM testers and LCD driverassembly and test operation lines toChipMOS Technologies.In 2009, STATS ChipPAC finished againin the No. 4 position. Compared to SPIL,they derived 57.9% of their 2009 netrevenues from substrate-based packages,15.1% from leadframe-based packages,and 27.0% from test and other sources.Their top 10 customers in 2009 accountedfor 71.8% of net revenues. LastNovember, STATS ChipPAC announcedthat it had successfully demonstrated thereliability of its first generation, embeddedwafer-level ball grid array (eWLB)technology and ramped into high volumeproduction. The next generation is underdevelopment with its partners,STMicroelectronics and Infineon, forproduct offerings targeted to start in 2010.Half Billion Dollar ClubSATS providers that focused heavilyon memory assembly and test did not fareso well in 2009, as witnessed by the 29.1%decline in ChipMOS Technologiesrevenues. Early evidence points to asurging DRAM market in 2010 whichshould lift ChipMOS revenues back overthe $500 million threshold. Oddly,Powertech Technologies (PTI) was thebest year-over-year performer in 2009 withonly a 1.2% decline in revenue. PTI’sproduction agreements with KingstonTechnology certainly helped prevent amajor decline like that felt by othersfocused on the memory segment. PTI,UTAC, and ChipMOS retained theirrespective 2008 rankings.United Test and Assembly Center(UTAC) Group, noted primarily for its testservices, retained its No. 6 position.UTAC Group recently expanded theirmanufacturing presence by acquiringASAT Ltd., adding a southern Chinafacility to complement their othermanufacturing sites in Singapore, Taiwan,and Thailand. This new acquisition hassince been renamed UTAC DongguanLtd. In 2004, only 6 years ago, ASAT Ltd.ranked as the 10th largest SATS companyin the world.Figure 2. UTAC Dongguan Ltd. manufacturingfacility (Source: UTAC Group)Rest of the Top 10JCET is the first China-based SATSprovider to advance into the Top 10ranking, settling in the No. 8 position for2009. Focused mainly on low leadcount,discrete assembly and test, JCET hasannual capacity of more than 25 billiondiscrete units, and 5 billion IC units. Thecompany was founded in 1972 and wentpublic in 2000.King Yuan Electronics Co., Ltd. (KYEC),founded in 1987, is one of the world’slargest providers of integrated circuit testdevelopment engineering, wafer probing,pre-assembly (wafer thinning and dicing),and final test. While offering no assemblyservices, KYEC held onto the No. 9position for 2009.Unisem (M) Sdn. Bhd., headquarteredin Malaysia, rounds out the Top 10 list in2009. Unisem extended its range of plasticpackage offerings in July 2009 when itentered into a cross-licensing agreementwith ASAT, Ltd. (now part of the UTACGroup). Included in the agreement wereUnisem’s etched leadless package (ELP),taped leadframe package (TLP) andASAT’s thin array plastic package(TAPP), and thermal leadless array (TLA)package.Figure 3. Carsem post-saw MLP package pickand-placeline (Source: Carsem)14Chip Scale Review. March/April 2010 . [ChipScaleReview.com]