US-based semiconductor assembly equipment supplier Kulicke & Soffa (K&S) is optimistic that 5G and AI applications will drive demand for advanced IC packaging equipment.
The company has also readied equipment solutions for the mini LED market, where demand is expected to take off in 2020, said CP Chong, senior vice president at the firm's EA/APMR and wedge bonders business units, during a recent interview by Digitimes.
Q: How do you see the 2019 market demand and future prospect for advanced IC packaging equipment?
A: Advanced packaging equipment such as mass reflow, TCB (thermo-compression-bonding) and ball mount tooling solutions for flip chip processing commanded 10-15% of K&S' revenues in the past fiscal year. This year, we expect revenues from NAND flash processing equipment to maintain a 10% annual increase, and will continue presenting new solutions for HPC logic ICs, DRAM, mini/micro LED and precision FC packaging in 2020 fiscal year, when the mini LED segment alone may grow 5-10% on year.
Q: Fan-out and SiP packaging processes are increasingly needed for heterogeneous integration of diverse chipsets. What about K&S' market share in this space?
A: K&S now commands almost 70% of the global market for SiP equipment based on the wire-bonding technology, compared to around 5-10% in the newer domain of SiP and fan-out packaging equipment associated with mass reflow technology.
Q: How about the market prospect for 3D IC packaging?
A: TSMC, Intel and Samsung are now the world's only three players in the segment of highly advanced 3D logic IC packaging. But from the perspective of pure 3D wafer stacking technology, traditional wire-bonding process now remains the only available technology able to support volume production for NAND flash. K&S has a big presence in the wire-bonding segment, and we hop there won't be be any big changes in this segment.
Meanwhile, TCB equipment based on partial-reflow soldering technology will be increasingly demanded to support heterogeneous integration of diverse chiplets. Leading US IDMs, long our major clients, will increase their demand for such equipment.
Q: Have flash and DRAM price falls impacted demand for packaging equipment so far this year? And how do you gauge market opportunities in the 5G era?
A: After hitting new highs in 2017 and 2018, K&S' revenues have fallen below regular levels since the start of 2019, due partly to Chinese clients deferring their orders for RF SiP equipment amid lingering US-China trade tensions.
But looking to the future, handset vendors in the Android camp are gearing up to promote 5G sub-6GHz models, and business opportunities from the high-frequency mmWave applications are also expected to ferment in 1-2 years.
Q: How do you assess the growth momentum beyond 2019?
A: We think half of the momentum will come from K&S' core assembly equipment segments including those for processing IoT, smartphone, 5G, general-purpose semiconductors and traditional LED chip solutions, and another half from new domains including advanced packaging and mini LED equipment.
Our company has seen over 50% of its revenues contributed by OSAT firms in Taiwan, China and Korea, with wire-bonding packaging equipment commanding the bulk of the shipments.
CP Chong, SVP at Kulicke & Soffa
Photo: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, October 2019
Article translated by Willis Ke
